Nestor made answer: "Thou bringest to my mind all that we endured, warring round Priam's mighty town. There the best of us were slain. Valiant Ajax [Footnote: A'-jax.] lies there, and there Achilles [Footnote: A-chil'-les], and there Patroclus [Footnote: Pa-tro'-clus], and there my own dear son. Who could tell the tale of all that we endured? Truly, no one, not though thou shouldst abide here five years or six to listen. For nine whole years we were busy, devising the ruin of the enemy, which yet Zeus brought not to pass. And always Ulysses passed the rest in craft, thy father Ulysses, if indeed thou art his son, and verily thy speech is like to his; one would not think that a younger man could be so like to an elder. But listen to my tale. When we had sacked the town, I returned across the sea without delay, leaving behind the others, so that I know not of my own knowledge which of the Greeks was saved and which was lost. But wander not thou, my son, far from home, while strangers devour thy substance. Go to Menelaus, for he hath but lately come back from a far country; go and ask him to tell thee all that he knoweth. If thou wilt, go with thy ships, or, if it please thee better, I will send thee with a chariot and horses, and my sons shall be thy guides." Then said Athene: "Let us cut up the tongues of the beasts, and mix the wine, and pour offerings to Poseidon and the other gods, and so bethink us of sleep, for it is the time." So she spake, and they hearkened to her words. And when they had finished, Athene and Telemachus would have gone back to their ship. But Nestor stayed them, saying: "Now Zeus and all the gods forbid that ye should depart to your ships from my house, as though it were the dwelling of a needy man that hath not rugs and blankets in his house, whereon his guests may sleep! Not so; I have rugs and blankets enough. Never shall the son of my friend Ulysses lay him down on his ship's deck, while I am alive, or my children after me, to entertain strangers in my hall." Thereupon said the false Mentor: "This is good, dear father. Let Telemachus abide with thee; but I will go back to the ship, and cheer the company, and tell them all. There I will sleep this night, and to-morrow I go to the Cauconians [Footnote: Cau-co'-ni- ans.], where there is owing to me a debt neither small nor of yesterday. But do thou send this man on his way in thy chariot." Then the goddess departed in the semblance of a sea-eagle, and all that saw it were amazed. Then the old man took Telemachus by the hand, and said: "No coward or weakling art thou like to be, whom the gods attend even now in thy youth. This is none other than Athene, daughter of Zeus, the same that stood by thy father in the land of Troy."