Ordering the Sacrifice

31Soon as the daughter of the dawn appeared,
The rosy-fingered Eos, Nestor left
His bed and went abroad, and took his seat
On smooth white stones before his lofty doors,
That glistened as with oil, on which before
Sat Neleus, wise in council as the gods.
But he had yielded to the will of fate,
And passed into the Underworld. Now sat
Gerenian Nestor in his father’s place,
The guardian of the Greeks. Around his seat,
Just from the chambers of their rest, his sons
Echephron, Stratius, and Aretus came,
Perseus, and Thrasymedes; after these
Came brave Peisistratus, the sixth and last.
They led Telemachus, the godlike youth,
And placed him near them. The Gerenian knight
Nestor began, and thus bespoke his sons: —

32“Do quickly what I ask, dear sons, and aid
To render Athena, first of all the gods,
Propitious —Athena, who has deigned to come,
And at a solemn feast to manifest
Herself to me. Let one of you go forth
Among the fields, and bring a heifer thence,
Led by the herdsman. To the dark-hulled ship
Of the large-souled Telemachus I bid
Another son repair, and bring the crew
Save only two; and let another call
Laerceus hither, skilled to work in gold,
That he may plate with gold the heifer’s horns.
Let all the rest remain to bid the maids
Within prepare a sumptuous feast, and bring
Seats, wood, and limpid water from the fount.”