"I hope, sir," said he, "that you will not be offended with what I am going to say. Singing
comes cheap to those who do not pay for it, and all this is done at the cost of one whose
bones lie rotting in some wilderness or grinding to powder in the surf. If these men were 
to see my father come back to Ithaca they would pray for longer legs rather than a longer
purse, for money would not serve them; but he, alas, has fallen on an ill fate, and even when
people do sometimes say that he is coming, we no longer heed them; we shall never see him
again. And now, sir, tell me and tell me true, who you are and where you come from. Tell me
of your town and parents, what manner of ship you came in, how your crew brought you to
Ithaca, and of what nation they declared themselves to be- for you cannot have come by land.
Tell me also truly, for I want to know, are you a stranger to this house, or have you been
here in my father's time? In the old days we had many visitors for my father went about much
himself." And Minerva answered, "I will tell you truly and particularly all about it. I am
Mentes, son of Anchialus, and I am King of the Taphians. I have come here with my ship and
crew, on a voyage to men of a foreign tongue being bound for Temesa with a cargo of iron,
and I shall bring back copper. As for my ship, it lies over yonder off the open country away
from the town, in the harbour Rheithron under the wooded mountain Neritum. Our fathers were
friends before us, as old Laertes will tell you, if you will go and ask him. They say, however,
that he never comes to town now, and lives by himself in the country, faring hardly, with an
old woman to look after him and get his dinner for him, when he comes in tired from pottering
about his vineyard. They told me your father was at home again, and that was why I came, but
it seems the gods are still keeping him back, for he is not dead yet not on the mainland. It
is more likely he is on some sea-girt island in mid ocean, or a prisoner among savages who
are detaining him against his will I am no prophet, and know very little about omens, but I
speak as it is borne in upon me from heaven, and assure you that he will not be away much
longer; for he is a man of such resource that even though he were in chains of iron he would
find some means of getting home again. But tell me, and tell me true, can Ulysses really have
such a fine looking fellow for a son? You are indeed wonderfully like him about the head and
eyes, for we were close friends before he set sail for Troy where the flower of all the Argives
went also. Since that time we have never either of us seen the other."
