Book III - Telemachus' tale of the cruelties of Pygmalion and Astarbé at Tyre

Summary

Telemachus proceeds to relate that, the successor of Bocchoris restoring all the Tyrian prisoners, he (Telemachus) was carried to Tyre on board the ship of Narbal, who commanded the Tyrian fleet; that this Narbal described to him their king Pygmalion, from whose avarice everything was to be feared; that Narbal afterwards made him acquainted with all the regulations of the Tyrian commerce; that he was just going to embark on board a Cyprian vessel, so that he might sail from the island of Cyprus to Ithaca, when Pygmalion (discovering that he was a foreigner) resolved to detain him captive; that when he was thus reduced to the brink of ruin, Astarbé, the tyrant's mistress, had saved his life, in order to sacrifice in his place a young man who had incurred her resentment by treating her with contempt.

Calypso listened with astonishment to such wise words. What most pleased her was to find Telemachus ingenuously recounting the faults he had committed through precipitation and want of due attention to the advice of the sage Mentor; she found a surprising nobility and greatness in this young man who accused himself, and who seemed to have profited so much by his indiscretion, as to become wise, far-sighted, and moderate.

“Proceed,” she said, “my dear Telemachus, I am impatient to know how you left Egypt, and where you found the sage Mentor, the loss of whom you so reasonably regretted.”