At sunrise Telemachus's ship reaches Pylos, the sandy kingdom of old Nestor, where the people are offering a great sacrifice of black bulls to Poseidon on the beach. Telemachus feels shy about questioning such a famous and aged king, but Athena, still disguised as Mentor, tells him that some words will come from his own mind and others a god will give him. Nestor's son Peisistratus greets the strangers warmly, gives them a share of the feast, and asks the supposed Mentor to pour the first offering — and Athena, amused, prays to Poseidon for success on the very mission that will thwart the sea god's anger.
After the meal Nestor asks who they are. Telemachus explains that he is the son of Odysseus and has come for any news of his father, even if it is the news of his death. Nestor, delighted, notes how much the young man resembles Odysseus in speech. He recalls the long years at Troy, where so many great men died — Ajax, Achilles, Patroclus, and Nestor's own son Antilochus — and says that no one matched Odysseus in cunning. He then tells how the Greeks quarreled after the city fell. Athena was angry at them, and the brothers Agamemnon and Menelaus disagreed: Menelaus wanted to sail home at once, while Agamemnon wanted to stay and offer sacrifices to appease the goddess. The army split. Odysseus first left with Nestor but later turned back to rejoin Agamemnon, and Nestor has heard nothing of him since. Nestor himself sailed straight home with Diomedes, and he has heard reports of others, such as Achilles' son Neoptolemus and Idomeneus, arriving safely.
Nestor also tells the story of Agamemnon's murder. While Agamemnon was at Troy, his cousin Aegisthus seduced his wife Clytemnestra, and when the king came home, Aegisthus killed him. Seven years later Agamemnon's son Orestes returned and avenged his father. Nestor holds up Orestes as an example to Telemachus: he too should be brave and stand up to the men wronging his family. Telemachus wishes for such strength but doubts the gods will grant it. Athena gently reproves him, saying that a god can easily bring a man home even from far away, though not even the gods can save a man from death once his fate arrives.
Nestor goes on to explain that Menelaus, delayed by storms, was blown to Egypt and wandered for years gathering wealth, returning home only on the very day Orestes was holding the funeral feast for Aegisthus and Clytemnestra. Since Menelaus has only recently come back from distant lands, Nestor urges Telemachus to go to Sparta and ask him, and he offers his own chariot and his son as a guide. When evening falls, Athena departs in the form of a sea-eagle, and Nestor, amazed, realizes that a goddess has been traveling with Telemachus. He takes this as a sign of great favor.
The next morning Nestor holds a solemn sacrifice to Athena. A heifer is brought, a goldsmith covers her horns with gold, and the rites are carried out with careful ceremony. Nestor's youngest daughter, Polycaste, bathes Telemachus and dresses him in fine clothes, so that he steps from the bath looking like a god. Then Telemachus and Peisistratus set out in a chariot. They spend the night at Pherae in the house of Diocles and arrive in the valley of Lacedaemon, home of Menelaus, by the following evening.
Quoted lines are from Samuel Butler’s 1900 prose translation (Project Gutenberg #1727).
