They reached the low-lying city of Lacedaemon and drove straight to Menelaus’s house. He was feasting with many kinsmen for his children’s weddings — his daughter Hermione, fair as golden Aphrodite, going to Achilles’ son as promised at Troy, and his son Megapenthes, born of a slave, for Helen had borne no child after her. A bard sang to the lyre; two tumblers spun in the midst. Telemachus and Nestor’s son stayed their horses at the gate.
Eteoneus, Menelaus’s servant, came out, saw them, and ran in to ask whether to unyoke their horses or send them on. Fair-haired Menelaus was angry: “You never used to be a fool. We two ate much hospitality of other men before we came home. May Zeus keep us from want. Unyoke the strangers’ horses and bring them in to share the feast.”
Servants took the sweating horses, tied them at the mangers, tilted the chariot against the shining walls, and led the men into the divine house. They looked in wonder — a gleam as of sun or moon shone through the high-roofed halls. They bathed; maids rubbed them with oil and put fleecy cloaks and tunics about them. They sat beside Menelaus. Water, bread, meats, and golden cups were set.
Menelaus greeted them: “Take food and be welcome. When you have eaten we will ask who you are. The parentage of your parents is not lost in you — you are of the race of Zeus-nurtured kings. Base men could not beget such as you.” He set before them a fat roast of ox-chine, his own portion of honor. They put out their hands to the good things ready before them.
When they had eaten, Telemachus whispered to Peisistratus in wonder at the flashing of bronze and gold and amber and silver and ivory — like the court of Olympian Zeus. Menelaus overheard: no mortal rivals Zeus, but among men he had gathered much wealth wandering eight years to Cyprus, Phoenicia, Egypt, and Libya. Yet he took no joy — while he wandered, another killed his brother by the cunning of a cursed wife.
“I mourn those who died at Troy,” he said, “but for none so much as Odysseus, who labored beyond all the Achaeans. For him it was pain, and for me grief never forgotten — so long gone, alive or dead. Old Laertes mourns him, and wise Penelope, and Telemachus whom he left a newborn child in the house.”