until Helen, entering from her perfumed chamber, saw the likeness between
the stranger and the babe whom Ulysses had left when he went to Troy, and
greeted their guest as Telemachus.

Then they sat in the splendid hall and talked of Troy,--Menelaus broken by
his many toils, Helen beautiful as when she was rapt away by Paris,
weaving with her golden distaff wound with violet wool, and the two young
men, who said little, but listened to the wondrous tale of the wanderings
of Menelaus. And they spoke of Ulysses: of the times when he had proved
his prudence as well as his craft; of his entering Troy as a beggar and
revealing the Achaian plots to Helen; of how he had prevented their
breaking out of the wooden horse too soon. Then the king told of his
interview with the Ancient of the Deep, in which he had learned the fate
of his comrades; of Agamemnon's death, and of the detention of Ulysses on
Calypso's isle, where he languished, weeping bitterly, because he had no
means of escape.

This information gained, Telemachus was anxious to return home; but his
host detained him until he and Helen had descended to their fragrant
treasure-chamber and brought forth rich gifts,--a double cup of silver and
gold wrought by Vulcan, a shining silver beaker, and an embroidered robe
for his future bride.

Mercury, dispatched by Jove, descended to the distant isle of Calypso, and
warned the bright-haired nymph, whom he found weaving in her charmed
grotto, that she must let her mortal lover go or brave the wrath of the
gods. The nymph, though loath to part with her lover, sought out the
melancholy Ulysses, where he sat weeping beside the deep, and giving him
tools, led him to the forest and showed him where to fell trees with which
to construct a raft. His labor finished, she provided the hero with