Verse

Odyssey

Book 3, Line 313 by Samuel Butler (English)

"Take my advice then, and do not go traveling about for long so far from home, nor leave your property with such dangerous people in your house; they will eat up everything you have among them, and you will have been on a fool's errand. Still, I should advise you by all means to go and visit Menelaos, who has lately come off a voyage among such distant peoples as no man could ever hope to get back from, when the winds had once carried him so far out of his reckoning; even birds cannot fly the distance in a twelvemonth, so vast and terrible are the seas that they must cross. Go to him, therefore, by sea, and take your own men with you; or if you would rather travel by land you can have a chariot, you can have horses, and here are my sons who can escort you to Lacedaemon where Menelaos lives. Beg of him to speak the truth, and he will tell you no lies, for he is an excellent person."

OdysseyBook 3, Line 313Samuel ButlerEnglishVerse permalinkRead in Book 3

HomerProseID odyssey-odyssey-butler-en-prose-3-313

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Samuel Butler's public-domain English prose Odyssey via Perseus canonical TEI; prose segments are assigned to their source line span.