"Now out on thy faint heart!" cried Mentor, who hitherto had sat
silent. "Better for him that his homecoming should be long delayed
than that he should have died, like Agamemnon, fresh from his victory.
Heaven will guide him yet to his own door, though now he be at the
uttermost parts of the earth."

Telemachus shook his head as he answered: "No more of that, I pray
thee; it can never be." Then, addressing Nestor, he said: "I would
fain ask thee more concerning the manner of Agamemnon's death. Where
was Menelaus when that foul deed was done? And how did Ægisthus
contrive to slay a man mightier far than himself?"

"Thou askest well," replied Nestor. "Menelaus was far away, or we
should have another tale to tell. And had the return of Menelaus not
been delayed, vengeance would have been forestalled by many years.
Yea, the dogs would have eaten the flesh of that vile churl, and not a
tear would have been shed for him. But this is how it fell out: while
we were toiling and warring at Troy, Ægisthus sat close to the ear of
Clytæmnestra, Agamemnon's wife, and poured sweet poison into her mind.
For a long while she refused to hearken to his base proposals, for she
was of a good understanding, and moreover there was ever at her side a
minstrel, into whose care Agamemnon had given her when he went to
Troy. But Ægisthus seized upon the minstrel, and left him on a desert
island to be devoured by carrion birds. Then Clytæmnestra yielded to
his suit, and he brought her to his own house.

"But as to thy question concerning Menelaus, he left Troy in my
company, as I told thee, and we sailed together as far as Sunium.
There Menelaus lost his steersman, who was visited by Apollo with
sudden death, as he sat by the helm; so he remained there to bury his