What exactly doesAthena advise Telemachus? Note here the dynamics of receiving a stranger.
The suitors made themselves at home as uninvited guests in the palaceof Od. might come back,and held them off, without ever saying positively that she would nevermarry again. She was accomplished and clever, still beautiful, an heiressand presumably a widow but she clung to the hope that Od. A few years before his return, the young bachelorsof Od's kingdom, Ithaca and surrounding islands, began paying court toPenelope. left behind his wife, Penelope, andhis infant son, Telemachus. Afterten years, or in the tenth year, he was set down in his own country, aloneand secretly, though with a new set of possessions, by the Phaeacians ofScheria, who were the last peoples he visited on his wanderings. During this time, none of his family knew what had happened to him,and he lost all his ships, all his men, and the spoils from Troy. Odysseus spent 10 years fighting at Troy, and another 10 years gettinghome.