Athena goes to Sparta and appears to Telemachus as he lies awake worrying about his father. She urges him to return home quickly, warning that Penelope's father and brothers are pressing her to marry Eurymachus, who is offering the most generous gifts, and that the suitors are waiting in ambush in the strait between Ithaca and Same. She tells him to sail by night and avoid the islands, and to go not to the city but first to the hut of Eumaeus, sending the swineherd to tell Penelope of his safe return. Telemachus wakes Peisistratus at once, but the young man advises waiting until morning to take proper leave of their host.
At dawn Telemachus asks Menelaus for permission to go. Menelaus agrees, saying a good host neither keeps a guest who wants to leave nor hurries away one who wants to stay. He gives Telemachus a silver mixing bowl with a golden rim made by Hephaestus, and Megapenthes brings a silver cup. Helen gives a robe she wove herself, to be worn by Telemachus's bride on her wedding day. As they set off, an eagle flies by on the right carrying a tame white goose from the farmyard. Before Menelaus can answer, Helen interprets the omen: as the eagle came down from the mountains and seized the goose, so Odysseus will come home and take revenge on the suitors — or perhaps he is already home, planting trouble for them.
When they reach Pylos, Telemachus asks Peisistratus to take him straight to the ship rather than to Nestor's palace, since the old king's hospitality would delay him. As he prepares to sail, a stranger approaches: Theoclymenus, a seer descended from the famous prophet Melampus, who has killed a man in Argos and is fleeing the dead man's kin. He begs for passage, and Telemachus takes him aboard. Athena sends a fair wind, and the ship sails through the night, avoiding the suitors' ambush.
Meanwhile, at the hut, Odysseus tests Eumaeus by saying he will go to the city to beg from the suitors. Eumaeus warns him that the suitors are violent and urges him to wait for Telemachus. Odysseus asks about his parents, and Eumaeus says that Laertes still lives, praying for death in his grief, and that Anticleia died of sorrow for her son. Then Odysseus asks how Eumaeus came to Ithaca. The swineherd tells his story. He was born a prince, the son of King Ctesius of Syria, an island to the west. A Phoenician woman serving in his father's house as a slave struck a deal with Phoenician traders to be taken home. When they were ready to leave, she carried the young boy away with her, along with three golden goblets. Artemis struck the woman dead on the voyage, and the traders sold the child to Laertes. Anticleia raised him almost like her own child alongside her daughter Ctimene. Odysseus sympathizes, saying that at least Eumaeus found a kind master after his sufferings, while he himself still wanders.
At dawn Telemachus lands on Ithaca and sends the ship on to the city. As he prepares to go, a hawk flies by on the right holding a dove and plucking its feathers. Theoclymenus interprets it as a sign from the gods that no other family in Ithaca is more royal than Telemachus's, and that it will always be powerful. Pleased, Telemachus entrusts the seer to his loyal friend Piraeus, and then, as Athena instructed, sets out on foot toward the hut of Eumaeus.
