The aged Laertes is set aside; the young Telemachus does not succeed as a matter of course.
It is said that on this occasion Sisyphus seduced Autolycus's daughter Anticleia, and that Odysseus was really the son of Sisyphus, not of Laertes, whom Anticleia afterwards married.
The island is incidentally described with no small variety of detail, picturesque and topographical; the Homeric localities for which counterparts have been sought are Mount Neritos, Mount Neion, the harbour of Phorcys, the town and palace of Odysseus, the fountain of Arethusa, the cave of the Naiads, the stalls of the swineherd Eumaeus, the orchard of Laertes, the Korax or Raven Cliff and the island Asteris, where the suitors lay in ambush for Telemachus.
During the long absence of her husband after the fall of Troy many chieftains of Ithaca and the islands round about became her suitors; and, to rid herself of the importunities of the wooers, she bade them wait till she had woven a winding-sheet for old Laertes, the father of Odysseus.
