Menelaus and Helen — Stories at Sparta

Book 4 of The Odyssey by Homer

Telemachus and Peisistratus arrived at the palace of Menelaus in the hollow land of Lacedaemon, and found the king celebrating a double wedding feast for his son and daughter. The palace blazed with torchlight, and a bard sang among the guests while two tumblers whirled through the crowd. A servant saw the strangers at the gate and ran to tell Menelaus, who ordered that they be brought in at once and given every comfort. Their horses were unharnessed and fed, and the young men themselves were bathed, anointed with oil, and given warm cloaks before being seated at the king's own table.

Menelaus spoke of his wealth and his wanderings, but said he took no pleasure in his riches, for the memory of the men lost at Troy haunted him still. Above all he grieved for one man whose fate remained unknown, a man whose absence troubled his sleep and stole the savor from his meat and wine. That man was Odysseus, who had labored and suffered beyond all others. Telemachus could not contain himself when he heard these words. He drew his purple cloak over his face and wept, and Menelaus saw the tears and knew at once whose son this must be, for the boy had his father's eyes.

Helen came down from her perfumed chamber, looking like Artemis of the golden arrows. She too recognized Telemachus by his likeness to Odysseus, and she confirmed what Menelaus had guessed. To ease the grief that weighed upon them all, Helen cast into the wine a drug called nepenthe, which she had obtained in Egypt from Polydamna, the wife of Thon. This drug had the power to banish all sorrow and anger, and whoever drank wine laced with it would not shed a single tear that day, not even if his mother and father were to die, or if his brother or his own son were slain before his eyes.