by Jack Lindsay
Telemachos cannot hold back his tears. Menelaos, seeing his grief, is uncertain whether to question him or leave him to speak first; but at that moment out of her fragrant high-roofed thalamos comes Helen, ‘like Artemis of the golden arrows’, with her girls.[33] Adraste sets the finely made chair for her; Alkippē brings a rug of soft wool, Phylo a silver basket given to her by Alkandrē, wife of Polybos, in Egyptian Thebes, ‘where vast store of wealth [ktēmata] is laid up in houses’. (Polybos gave Menelaos two silver baths, two tripods and ten talents of gold; and his wife gave Helen a golden distaff and a basket on wheels, a basket of silver with gold on the rims.) Phylo puts the basket, full of finespun yarn, at Helen’s side; and across it is laid the distaff with violet-dark wool. Helen sits on the chair with a footstool for her feet and begins questioning her husband: ‘Do we know, Zeus-fostered Menelaos, the names of these visitors to our house? Shall I disguise my thought or say what I truly think? My heart bids me speak out. Never yet have I seen a man so like another, I declare. I’m amazed as I look at him. This man seems the son of great-hearted. Odysseus, Telemachos, I mean, whom that warrior left as a newborn baby in his house when for the sake of bitchfaced me you Achaians came up under the walls of Troy with war fierce in your hearts.’
Menelaos agrees, saying that he too had noted the likeness: in the feet, the hands, the glances of the eyes, the head and the hair; while he spoke of Odysseus, the youth wept and held his purple cloak up to his eyes. Peisistratos, Nestor’s son, answers that his companion is indeed Telemachos, but he has been bashful about coming forward in the presence of a man ‘in whose voice we both take delight as in a god’s’. Nestor has sent them to Sparta.
Menelaos tells how he would have treated Odysseus if he himself had come. He’d have given him ‘in Argos a city to inhabit, after I’d brought him from Ithaka with his ktēmata, his son and all his people. I’d have driven out the inhabitants of one of the cities that lie roundabout and obey me personally as their lord. If that were done, we’d often meet one another.’ But, he adds, the god must have been jealous of such an outcome, the god who denied a return to Odysseus alone.
They are all so affected that they weep. ‘Argive Helen wept, the offspring of Zeus.’ Even Peisistratos weeps, thinking (he explains) of his brother who died at Troy — though (he adds) ‘I take no pleasure in weeping at suppertime.’ Menelaos consoles him and says that it is better to stop weeping and think of supper again. Water is poured on their hands by another squire; and they eat. But Helen has her own thoughts. She puts in the wine ‘a drug to cure all pain and strife, to bring forgetfulness of all ills’. After drinking it in his wine, a man would be cheerful all day, even though his father and mother lay there dead and he saw men cut down his brother or his son. ‘Such cunning drugs [pharmaka] had the daughter of Zeus: healing drugs which Polydamna, wife of Thon, a woman of Egypt, had given her; for in Egypt the earth, the giver of grain, bears the greatest amount of drugs, many that heal when mixed, many that are harmful. There every man is a physician, wise above other men. For they are of the race of Paiēon.’
Helen remarks that it is time to feast and to take pleasure in tales. She does not know, she says, all the labours of Odysseus, but she can tell of one of his exploits in the Trojan War. ‘He disfigured his own body with cruel blows, flung a wretched garment over his shoulders, just like a slave, and came into the broad streets of the enemy city. He disguised himself as a beggar, something quite unlike what he was on the Achaian ships. That’s how he came into the city of the Trojans and nobody noticed a thing. I was the only one who saw through his disguise and I questioned him. But he tried craftily to evade me. Still, when I bathed and anointed him, and dressed him, and swore a binding oath not to give him away to the Trojans as Odysseus before he’d reached the swift ships and the huts, at last he divulged all the Achaians’ plan. And when he’d killed many Trojans with his long sword, he went back to the Argives with plenty of information. Then the other Trojan women burst out wailing. But my heart was glad. Already I’d turned to thoughts of getting back to my home, and I moaned at the atē that Aphrodite gave me, when she led me from my dear native land, deserting my child and my bridal chamber and my husband, a man who lacked nothing that’s needed for a fine mind and body.’
Menelaos takes up the reminiscences and further praises Odysseus. ‘Think too of everything that mighty man did and endured in the carven Horse, where all we chiefs of the Argives were seated, bringing death and fate [kēr] to the Trojans. Then you came along. You must have been under the control of some god who wanted to grant glory to the Trojans; and godlike Deiphobos followed you on your way. You went three times round the hollow ambush, testing it with your hand, and you called out the names of the chiefs of the Danaans, making your voice sound like the voices of the wives of the Argives. Now I and the son of Tydeus [Diomedes] and dios Odysseus sat there in the midst and heard how you called. We were both eager to stand up and come out, or else to reply at once from where we were. But Odysseus held us back and stopped us for all our eagerness. Then the other sons of the Achaians held their peace. Only Antiklos wanted to answer you. But Odysseus firmly covered his mouth with strong hands and saved the Achaians. And he went on holding him till Pallas Athena led you away.’
Telemachos then suggests it is time for bed. So Helen bids her handmaids set out bedsteads under the portico with purple blankets and with woollen cloaks on top. The girls take torches and do as she has told them; and a herald leads the guests out. So they sleep in the prodromos of the palace, while Menelaos sleeps in the inner chamber of the lofty house with long-robed Helen at his side.
Menelaos rises and dresses at dawn, slings on his sword, puts his sandals on, and goes to sit by Telemachos, to ask what his business is, private or public. Telemachos tells him how Penelope’s suitors are consuming all his sheep and cattle, and how he himself has set out in search of his father. Menelaos says that Odysseus will know how to deal with the suitors, and tells about a wrestling-match he won on Lesbos. Then he goes on with a long narrative of his sojourn in Egypt. (The name Aigyptos here perhaps refers to the River Nile, not the land.) He was unable to get away despite all the hekatombs he offered the gods. In front of Egypt is an island Pharos, ‘distant as far as a hollow ship runs in a whole day when the shrill wind blows fair at her rear’. (Pharos lies close offshore of the site that later became Alexandreia.) It had a good harbourage where sailors called in for water. Menelaos was held there by contrary winds for twenty days. His stores were running out, but Eidotheē, daughter of Proteus, the Old Man of the Sea, took pity on him. While his comrades were fishing, he wandered away and she approached him. He begged her to tell him which god was holding him there. She replied that her father Proteus of Egypt frequented the isle: catch him and he would explain how to get away, and what good and bad things had been happening at home. At noon Proteus slept in the hollow caves with a herd of seals, ‘the brood of the fair daughter of the sea’, which emitted a terrible smell.
She agreed to lead Menelaos to the spot, together with three of his men; after Proteus has counted his seals and laid down in their midst, the intruders must grab him and hold fast despite everything, for ‘he’ll assume all kinds of shapes of all things that move on the earth, and of water, and of portentous fire’. If they held fast he would assume his original form and speak; then he was to be set free and he would answer questions.
Next day Eidotheē brought four newly-flayed sealskins, which Menelaos and his men donned; she put ambrosia under each man’s nose to save him from the seal-stink. All went as she had said. Menelaos learned that his fault had been to omit offerings to Zeus and other gods before embarking; to get away he must go to the waters of Aigyptos, the heaven-fed river, and offer hekatombs there to the gods who hold broad heaven. He next asked about the fate of the other Achaian heroes on their return-journeys. He learned of Agamemnon’s murder and how Odysseus was held by the nymph Kalypso. As for himself, he would get back safely to Argos, but he would not die
there, for the gods would carry him off ‘to the Elysian Plain and the ends of the earth, where fair-haired Rhadamanthys dwells and life is easiest for men. There’s no snow there, no heavy winter-storm, nor ever rain; but Okeanos all the while sends up draughts of the shrill-blowing Westwind with coolness for men. For you’ve got Helen as wife, so that in their eyes you’re son-in-law of Zeus.’[34] After this revelation, Proteus plunged back into the sea and Menelaos returned thoughtfully to his ship. At dawn they drew the ships down into the sea, set up the masts and sails; the men took seats on the benches and rowed. They went back to the River Aigyptos, offered up hekatombs, and built a mound to Agamemnon ‘so that his fame might be unquenchable’. Then with a favourable wind they sailed swiftly home.
Menelaos ends by asking Telemachos to stay on till the eleventh or twelfth day. ‘Then I’ll send you off homeward in the right way and give you splendid gifts, three horses and a polished chariot, with a beautiful cup as well, so you may pour libations to the gods and recall me all your days.’
Telemachos says that he would like to stay on a year listening to his host; but his comrades chafe in Pylos. And as for any gift, let it be something portable, not horses, which he would prefer to leave Menelaos to enjoy on his plains with their abundant lotus, galingale, wheat, spelt, and white barley. Ithaka had no broad courses, no meadowland; it was a land for goats to pasture — pleasanter than a place for horse-pasturing; for not one of the islands that leans on the sea is fit for driving horses, or rich in meadows, and Ithaka least of all’. So Menelaos says that his gift will be a mixing-bowl of silver with rims of gold, the work of Hephaistos, which the king of the Sidonians gave to him ‘when his house sheltered me as I was returning’. So we find that Menelaos called in at Sidon on his way back from Troy as Paris had when sailing for Troy, and Helen visited it twice, first with her lover, then with her husband: a suspicious parallelism.
While this conversation is going on, the banqueters come up to the palace, driving sheep and carrying wine, while their wives with comely veils send them bread. ‘Thus they were busied about the feast in the halls.’[35]
Later, in Book XV, we find Athena going off to Lakedaimon to hurry Telemachos up in his homecoming. She encounters him and Peisistratos in the forehall, the latter asleep, but Telemachos tired after a sleepless night. She bids him wake Menelaos up and depart; the suitors are trying to force Penelope to marry the one who has given her the most gifts. So Telemachos wakes Peisistratos and asks him to fetch the horses and yoke them under the chariot. It is not yet dawn. Peisistratos says they had better wait for the light; Menelaos will then bring out the gifts and say farewell. Soon the dawn comes up and Menelaos enters, ‘rising from his bed beside Helen with the lovely hair’. Telemachos at once dons his tunic and a large cloak, and asks to be sent back home.
Menelaos bids him only to wait till the gifts are put in the chariot and the women have a meal ready in the halls. The squire Eteoneus, who lives nearby, comes up, and Menelaos bids him kindle a fire and roast some meat. He himself descends into the vaulted storeroom with Helen and his son Megapenthes. Choosing a two-handled cup, he tells his son to take a silver mixing-bowl. Helen goes to the chest where she keeps her embroideries, her own work. Supreme (dia) among women, she lifts one out and takes it away, the finest in its embroideries and the amplest; it shines like a star and lies at the bottom. Menelaos repeats that the bowl was the work of Hephaistos, a gift from the king of Sidon. Helen, handing over the robe, says, ‘Here, I too give you this gift, dear child, a remembrance of Helen’s hands, against the day of your longed-for marriage — to be worn by your bride. Till then let it lie in your halls in your dear mother’s keeping. As for yourself, I wish you a joyous homecoming to your well-built house and your native land.’
Menelaos leads the two guests back to the palace. They sit on chairs and high seats. A handmaid brings water in a gold pitcher and pours it in a silver basin, and she draws up a table. And the grave housekeeper brings in bread and meats, and the carver carves and divides the portions. They eat and drink. Then the guests yoke the horses, mount the inlaid chariot, and drive off from the gateway and the echoing portico. Menelaos stands with honey-hearted wine in a gold cup before the horses and pledges his guests. Telemachos replies with thanks, saying that he would like to find his father at home and tell him of the meeting. An eagle with a big white goose in its talons flies by on the right: the goose a tame fowl from the yard, with men and women shouting after it. The eagle darts to the right in front of the horses. Peisistratos asks Menelaos which god has shown the sign. But it is Helen who replies. ‘Listen, I’ll prophesy as the immortals put it in my heart and as I think it will come about. Just as this eagle came from the mountain where his kin are and where he was born, and snatched up the homebred goose, so shall Odysseus return home after many toils and many wanderings. Or he is already at home, sowing the seed of evil for all the suitors.’ Telemachos answers, ‘May Zeus, Hera’s thundering husband, grant it. Then I’ll pray to you there as to a god.’ He touches the horses with the lash and they hurry through the city to the plain.
*
There are a few other references to Helen or her family. In his journey to the underworld Odysseus meets the ghost of Agamemnon, who talks about his wife, bitchfaced Klytemnaistra, his killer. Odysseus comments, ‘Indeed has Zeus with his far-blown voice shown amazing hate for the race of Atreus from the beginning because of the designs of women. Many of us died through Helen and while you were still afar Klytemnaistra spread a snare for you.’ Here the linking of Helen with her sister gives a note of moral condemnation absent from the passages in the Iliad where she is named as the cause of the war. In the underworld Odysseus also sees Ledē (Leda), wife of Tyndareos and mother of Kastor and Polydeukes, who are now said to have alternate days of immortality.
We should expect Odysseus to call Leda the mother of Helen, but he cites the Dioskouroi instead. And he does not call the Twins the sons of Zeus; he merely says that their alternate immortalities came from the fact that ‘even in the world below they get honour from Zeus’. There is no hint of swan-Zeus mating with Leda or Helen’s birth from an egg. Leda indeed is a faceless figure. She seems to be the same as Leto (Lato), the mother of Apollo and Artemis, a great mother-goddess, whose stature diminished as that of her son grew. Leda is Lada in Doric, the same word as lada, Karian for woman. Leto seems to have come from southwest Anatolia; personal names compounded with Leto occur only in that area. Her cults in Greece were few and uncertain in age; only in Crete do we meet a festival attributed to her. The uncertainty as to who Leda was appears in the genealogies; we know of five candidates for her father and five for her mother. Her husband Tyndareos also seems pre-Greek; the combination -nd- is alien to Greek save through composition or contraction; it is especially common in Karia, where we find such place names as Lindos, Myndos, Karyanda, Alabanda.[36] However, Menelaos in his account of the prophecies of Proteus describes Helen as the daughter of Zeus.
When Odysseus arrives home in disguise, the swineherd Eumaios, who has not recognized him, talks about his master and the hardships brought about by his absence. ‘So my lord would have rewarded me well if he’d grown old here at home, but he perished — as I wish all the race of Helen had utterly perished. For she loosened the knees of many warriors. He went off to Ilios with its famous horses to win honour for Agamemnon, to fight the Trojans.’ Here we at last find direct bitterness against Helen herself, and it is noteworthy that the speaker is a lowly herdsman. The normal epic terms appear later when Telemachos tells of his visit to Sparta: ‘There I saw Argive Helen for whose sake Argives and Trojans toiled hard by the will of the gods.’[37]
Near the end Athene (disguised as Mentor) rebukes Odysseus, who has guessed her identity: ‘You’ve lost your steady force [menos] and your courage, such as you had when you fought with the Trojans five years for highborn Helen with the white arms.’ And Penelope, when her husband reveals himself, tells how in her loneliness she feared that some man
would come and beguile her with his words. ‘For there are many that plan evil tricks. Why, even Argive Helen, offspring of Zeus, would not have mated abed with another man if she’d known that the warrior sons of the Achaians would bring her back home again to her dear native land. Yet indeed in her case a god prompted her to do a shameful deed. Until then she had no thought of any such ate as that bitter one through which the first sorrow came upon us as well.’ Here Penelope hovers between a moral-psychological analysis and an acceptance of the notion of divine compulsion.[38]
We may add a passage which seems to show that Homer did not know the motif of the Suitors’ Oath. When the souls of Penelope’s suitors go down to the underworld, Agamemnon’s ghost recognizes one of them. ‘Don’t you remember how I came to your house with godlike Menelaos to urge Odysseus to go with us on the benched ships to Ilios? A whole month. A whole month it took us to cross all the wide sea, for we found it hard to win to our will Odysseus, that sacker of cities.’ Clearly they had no oath to which to appeal.[39]
