between Telemachus and me, that we may discourse with one another."
Thus he spoke; but Asphalion, the trusty servant of glorious Menelaus, poured water over their hands. And they stretched forth their hands to the viands that were lying ready. There then Jove-descended Helen planned other things. She straightway cast a drug into the wine, from whence they were drinking, that frees men from grief and from anger, and causes oblivion of all ills. Whoever should drink down this, when it is mixed in a cup, would not shed a tear down his cheeks for a whole day, not even if both his mother and father should die, nor if they should slay with the steel a brother or a beloved son before him, and he should behold it with his eyes. Such cunning and excellent drugs the daughter of Jove possessed, which Polydamna, the wife of Thone, gave her, an Egyptian; where the bounteous land produces very many drugs, many excellent when mingled, and many fatal; and each physician[1] is skilled above all men; for truly they are of the race of Pæon.[2] But when she put it in, and ordered them to pour wine over it, straightway addressing them with words, she spoke:
"O Menelaus, thou Jove-nurtured son of Atreus, and also these sons of brave men—but the god Jupiter gives both good and evil, sometimes to one and sometimes to another; for he is able [to do] all things—now however feast, sitting in the palace, and delight yourselves with conversation; for I will relate fitting things. I could not indeed relate or name all things, as many as are the labours of patient Ulysses: but what that was, which the brave man did and suffered amongst the people of the Trojans, where ye Greeks suffered calamities. Having inflicted on himself unseemly blows, throwing vile garments about his shoulders, like a servant, he entered the city of the enemy with its spacious streets. But concealing himself he likened himself unto another man, a beggar, he who was by no means such a one at the ships of the Grecians; like unto him he entered the city of the Trojans; and they all knew him not;[3] but I alone recognised him, although he
