"all my life I’ve heard of your great fame –
a brave man in war and a deep mind in counsel –
but what you say dumbfounds me, staggers imagination!
How on earth could two men fight so many and so strong.
These suitors are not just ten or twenty, they’re far more."
– Homer
The Odyssey, Book 16, lines 272-276. Telemachus acknowledges Odysseus’ record of bravery in war, but he is concerned at his father’s plan to fight the suitors. There are only two of them, he says, while he numbers the suitors’ strength at one hundred and seventeen.