Book VIII - Telemachus and Mentor are tricked by Venus into landing at Salente, the new city of the exiled Idomeneus. Salente prepares for war against the Mandurians

Summary

Venus, still breathing revenge against Telemachus, asks Jupiter to have him destroyed. But the Fates not permitting that, she goes and consults with Neptune, to prevent his reaching Ithaca, where Adoam was carrying him. Neptune employs a deceitful divinity to mislead the pilot Athamas, who, while he imagined he was arrived at Ithaca, entered the port of the Salentines on full sail. Idomeneus, the king of that people, receives Telemachus in his new city, where he was busy in making preparations for a sacrifice, to be offered to Jupiter, for success in a war against the Mandurians. The priest, upon consulting the entrails of the victim, promises Idomeneus great success; and tells him that he would be indebted for it to the two strangers, who had just arrived.

While Telemachus and Adoam were thus engaged in conversation, forgetting sleep, and not perceiving that the night was already half spent, a malicious, deceitful divinity carried them far from Ithaca, which their pilot Athamas sought for in vain. Neptune, though he favored the Phoenicians, yet could no longer endure Telemachus' escape in the tempest which had driven him upon the rocks in Calypso's isle. Venus was still more exasperated against this young man who triumphed, having vanquished Cupid and all his charms. In the transport of her grief, she bid adieu to Paphos, Cythera, Idalium, and all the honors which are paid her in the isle of Cyprus: she could no longer bear the sight of those places in which Telemachus had disdained her empire.