But to the Goddess Pallas, in her ear
Telemachus began to speak his mind,
185 
Not being willing any else should hear.
Excuse me, friend, that I say what I find.
You see the care of these men what it is,
Singing and dancing. And no wonder, since
That which they spend is not their own, but his
[309] 190 
Whose bones lie somewhere naked far from hence,
Unburied, it may be, on the ground,
There rotting as he lies i’ th’ dew and rain;
Or else at sea, perhaps, if he be drown’d,
The waves his body roll upon the main.

But Telemachus spoke to flashing-eyed Athena,
holding his head close, that the others might not hear:
“Dear stranger, wilt thou be wroth with me for the word that I shall say?
These men care for things like these, the lyre and song,
[160] full easily, seeing that without atonement they devour the livelihood of another,
of a man whose white bones, it may be,
rot in the rain as they lie upon the mainland, or the wave rolls them in the sea.