Egypt, and whose house Was rich in things of price. Two silver baths He gave to Menelaus, tripods two, And talents ten of gold. His wife bestowed Beautiful gifts on Helen—one of gold, A distaff; one a silver basket edged With gold and round in form. This Phylo brought Heaped with spun yarn and placed before the queen; Upon it lay the distaff, wrapped in wool Of color like the violet. Helen there Sat down, a footstool at her feet, and straight Questioned with earnest words her husband thus:—
“Say, Menelaus, foster-child of Jove, Is it yet known what lineage these men claim— These visitants? And what I now shall say, Will it be false or true? Yet must I speak. Woman or man I think I never saw So like another as this youth, on whom I look with deep astonishment, is like Telemachus, the son whom our great chief Ulysses left at home a tender babe When ye Achaians for my guilty sake Went forth to wage the bloody war with Troy.”
And fair-haired Menelaus answered her:— “Yea, wife, so deem I as it seems to thee. Such are his feet, his hands, the cast of the eye, His head, the hair upon his brow. Just now, In speaking of Ulysses, as I told How he had toiled and suffered for my sake, The stranger held the purple cloak before His eyes, and from the lids dropped bitter tears.”
Peisistratus, the son of Nestor, spake In answer: “Menelaus, foster-child Of Jove and son of Atreus! sovereign king! He is, as thou hast said, that hero’s son; But he is modest, and he deems that ill It would become him, on arriving here, If he should venture in discourse while thou Art present, in whose voice we take delight As if it were the utterance of a god. The knight Gerenian Nestor sent me forth To guide him hither—for he earnestly Desired to see thee, that thou mightest give Counsel in what he yet should say or do. For bitterly a son, who finds at home No others to befriend him, must lament The absence of a father. So it is With young Telemachus; for far away His father is, and in the land are none Who have the power to shelter him from wrong.”