descended from Zeus.]

A plentiful and delicate meal was promptly set before the young
travellers, and they ate and drank with keen appetite. When they had
finished, Telemachus said to Pisistratus, speaking low, that he might
not be overheard: "Dear son of Nestor, is not this a brave place! Hast
thou ever seen such lavish ornament of silver, and gold, and ivory?
Surely such is the dwelling of Olympian Zeus; more magnificent it can
hardly be."

The quick ear of Menelaus caught his last words, and he answered,
smiling: "Nay, my friend, no mortal may vie with the everlasting
glories of Zeus. But whether any man can equal me in riches, I know
not. For indeed I wandered far and long to gather all this treasure,
to Cyprus, and Phoenicia, and Egypt, to Æthiopia, and Sidon, and the
Afric shore, a land unmatched in its countless multitudes of sheep.
There the ewes bring forth young three times a year, and the poorest
shepherd has abundance of cheese, and flesh, and milk. From all these
lands I gathered many a costly freight, and now I dwell in the midst
of plenty. Nevertheless my heart is sad, when I think of all that I
have lost. Had I returned home straight from Troy, I should have come
back a poor man, for my house had gone to waste in my absence; but I
should not have had to mourn for the death of my brother, struck down,
as doubtless ye have heard, by a murderer's hand. And then the thought
lies heavy upon me of all those who fell in my cause at Troy, and
especially of one who was dear to me above all, Odysseus, ever the
foremost in every toil and adventure. His image haunts me by day and
by night, marring my slumbers, and making my food taste bitter in my
mouth. He was a man of many woes, and sorrowful is the lot of his wife
Penelope and Telemachus his son."