men these are who profess to come to our house? Shall I say false, or shall I speak the truth? For my mind exhorts me. For I say that I have never seen any man or woman so like (reverence possesses me as I behold him) as he is like unto Telemachus, the son of magnanimous Ulysses, whom that man left lately born in his house, when ye Grecians came to Troy on account of me, immodest one, arousing fierce war."
Auburn-haired Menelaus answering addressed her: "So now I too am thinking, my wife, as thou dost conjecture. For such are his feet, and such his hands, and the cast of his eyes, and his head and his locks above. And I just now, making mention of Ulysses, related what things he undergoing labour suffered on my account; but he shed a bitter tear from his eyelids, holding up his purple mantle before his eyes."
Pisistratus, the son of Nestor, addressed him in answer: "O Menelaus, son of Atreus, nurtured of Jove, chieftain of the people, he is truly his son, as thou sayest; [but he is prudent, and is indignant in mind, coming hither first to show the forwardness by entering first on the discourse in your presence,[1] with whose voice, as of a god, we are delighted.] But the Gerenian knight Nestor sent me forth, to accompany him as a guide; for he desired to see thee, that thou mayest suggest some word or some deed to him. For the son of an absent father, to whom there are no other assistants, suffers many griefs in his palace; so now is it with Telemachus; he indeed is gone, nor are there others amongst the people who may ward off calamity."
But him auburn-haired Menelaus answering addressed: "O gods![2] of a truth the son of a very dear man, who for my sake hath laboured through many toils, has come to my house. And I said that I would receive him with kindness above the rest of the Grecians, upon returning, if wide-thundering Olympian Jove had granted that there should be a return for us over the sea in our swift ships: and I would have founded a city in Argos for him, and would have built
- ↑ The Scholiast explains these words in three different ways: "to show the reproaches thrown upon him by the suitors," or "to relate the reproaches cast on his house," or as it is here translated, "he is too modest to speak first." Old Transl. See Loewe, who, with one of the Scholiasts, is inclined to condemn these verses as spurious.
- ↑ See on i. 32.
