_Straightway leaving her room by the high-built stair she descended; Neither alone did she go; two maidens followed behind her. So when at last she had come to the suitors, that fairest of women Stood by the post of the door of the massively builded apartment, Holding in front of her cheeks soft folds of her glistering head-dress. There as she stood, with a trusty attendant on this and on that side, Suddenly bursting in tears to the godlike bard she addressed her: “Phemius, ... ... desist, I beseech, from the strain thou art singing, Pitiful story, that ever the heart in the depths of my bosom Woundeth....”_[8] She is a touching figure, as she ventures out among the revellers and begs the old man to change the theme of his lay. But Telemachus was not in the mood to see the pathos of the scene. The charge that Athena had laid on him had suddenly given him his manhood; and in the new sense of responsibility, he spoke a little harshly to his mother, bidding her go back to her loom and housewifery. _Full of amazement she turned her to go to the women’s apartment, Hiding the masterful words of her son deep down in her bosom. So to her upper apartment ascending with maiden attendants Here she lamented Odysseus her well-loved husband, till gently Slumber was poured on her lids by the grey-eyed goddess Athene._[8] While his mother slept, Telemachus lay awake in his own inner room revolving plans whereby to carry out the command of Athena. He determined first to confront the suitors publicly, before a formal assembly of the Ithacans, and charge them with their insolence and riotous greed. So, with the first light of morning, he summoned the people to a meeting in the market-place, and called upon the wooers to cease their persecution of his mother and quit his house. Antinous, answering haughtily for them all, invented a coward’s excuses for their conduct. Penelope was to blame, he said, for she would not decide between them; but constantly put them off with various cunning devices. With one pretext alone—that of weaving a shroud for Icarius—she had kept them in suspense for many months. _Thus then all of the day at the spacious loom she was weaving; During the night she unravelled the web with the torches beside her. Three long years with her secret device she befooled the Achaeans; Till, when the fourth year came, and as season was followed by season, Then at the last (since one of her women, who knew it, had told us), While at the loom her magnificent web she unravelled, we caught her. Thus was she forced, though sorely unwilling, to finish her labour._[8]