Β- The Suitors and Penelope's ruse

There he addressed everyone with a complaint about his father's absence and expressed his anger at the suitors who drank and ate in the house of Odysseus abusing the sacred hospitality and manifesting the utmost their purpose to take his mother, Penelope, as their wife. The suitor Antinos was the one who spoke first, to accuse Penelope of mocking them.

But what was it that Penelope did to provoke the wrath of the suitors? In order not to keep rejecting their marriage proposals, she promised them that she would choose one of them as her husband when she finished weaving her of the shroud of old Laertes, the father of Odysseus who participated with Jason and other heroes in quest for the Goldenskin in Colchis. Penelope wove every day on the loom, but in the evenings she grew so that she delayed more and more her decision to marry. So the suitors had understood this trick of Penelope.

So Antinos, once again asked Telemachus to force his mother to choose one of the suitors. Telemachus of course did not agree. Suddenly two great eagles appeared in the sky, which was interpreted by a sage as a divine sign from Zeus. But the suitors mocked him with laughter. Telemachus then he made his request to the assembly to be given permission to rig a ship, to ask Menelaus and Nestor about the fate of Odysseus. His wish was supported by Odysseus' good friend, Mentor, who came out in front of those present.

Wickedly thinking, the suitors believed that in this way they could get rid of Telemachus and agreed to other rulers. That same night Telemachus had prepared for his journey. He also asked his nanny Eurykleia not to tell his mother where he was going before ten days had passed. Athena herself sat at the helm of Telemachus' ship, having been transformed into Mentor. So Telemachus set sail, hoping to find his father's tracks.