Therefore, Sir, do you
on your part affect no more concealment nor reserve in the
matter about which I shall ask you; it will be more polite
in you to give me a plain answer; tell me the name by which your father and mother over yonder used to call you, and by which you
were known among your neighbours and fellow-citizens. There is no one, neither rich nor poor, who is
absolutely without any name whatever, for people's fathers and
mothers give them names as soon as they are born. Tell me also your country, nation, and city, that our ships may shape their purpose
accordingly and take you there. For the Phaeacians have no
pilots; their vessels have no rudders as those of other
nations have, but the ships themselves understand what it
is that we are thinking about and want; they know all the cities and countries in the whole world, and can traverse the sea just as
well even when it is covered with mist and cloud, so that
there is no danger of being wrecked or coming to any harm.
Still I do remember hearing my father say that Neptune was
angry with us for being too easy-going in the matter of
giving people escorts. He said that one of these days he should wreck a ship of ours as it was returning from having escorted some
one, and bury our city under a high mountain. This is what
my used to say, but whether the god will carry out his
threat or no is a matter which he will decide for himself.
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