of Nestor, who was with you at the war of Troy. I have been sent with
Telemachus to be his guide to your house.'

Menelaus rose up and clasped the hand of Telemachus. 'Never did there
come to my house,' said he, 'a youth more welcome. For my sake did
Odysseus endure much toil and many adventures. Had he come to my country
I would have given him a city to rule over, and I think that nothing
would have parted us, one from the other. But Odysseus, I know, has not
returned to his own land of Ithaka.'

Then Telemachus, thinking upon his father, dead, or wandering through
the world, wept. Helen, too, shed tears, remembering things that had
happened. And Menelaus, thinking upon Odysseus and on all his toils, was
silent and sad; and sad and silent too was Peisistratus, thinking upon
Antilochos, his brother, who had perished in the war of Troy.

But Helen, wishing to turn their minds to other thoughts, cast into the
wine a drug that lulled pain and brought forgetfulness--a drug which had
been given to her in Egypt by Polydamna, the wife of King Theon. And
when they had drunk the wine their sorrowful memories went from them,
and they spoke to each other without regretfulness. Thereafter King
Menelaus told of his adventure with the Ancient One of the Sea--the
adventure that had brought to him the last tidings of Odysseus.




IX

Said Menelaus, 'Over against the river that flows out of Egypt there is