Nestor and Menelaus

12And thus discreet Telemachus replied:
“Then, mother, will I truly tell you all.
We went to Pylos, and saw Nestor there,
The shepherd of the people. Kindly he
Received me in his stately home, as one
Might welcome back a wandering son returned
From foreign lands. Such welcome I received
Both from the king and his illustrious sons.
But he had heard, he said, from living man,
No tidings of the much-enduring chief
Odysseus, whether he were yet alive
Or dead. He therefore sent me with his steeds
And chariot to the court of Atreus’ son,
The warlike Menelaus. There I saw
The Argive Helen, for whose sake the Greeks
And Trojans, by the appointment of the gods,
Suffered so much. The valiant king inquired
What wish of mine had brought me to the town
Of hallowed Lacedaemon. I replied,
And truly told him all, and everything
In order. Then he answered me, and said: —

13“ ‘So then! these men, unwarlike as they are,
Aspire to occupy a brave man’s bed,
As when a hart has left two suckling fawns,
Just born, asleep in a strong lion’s lair,
And roams for pasturage the mountain slopes
And grassy lawns, the lion suddenly
Comes back, and makes a cruel end of both,
So will Odysseus bring a sudden doom
Upon the suitors. Would to Father Zeus,
And Athena, and Apollo, that the chief,
Returning mighty, as he was when once
In well-built Lesbos, at a wrestling-match,
He rose to strive with Philomelides,
And threw him heavily, and all the Greeks
Rejoiced —would he might come as then he was!
Short-lived would then the suitors be, and taste
A bitter marriage-feast. But now, to come
To what you have inquired, I will not seek
To turn from it, and talk of other things,
Nor will deceive. Of all that I was told
By the Ancient of the Deep, whose words are true,
I will not hide a single word from you.
He saw your father in an isle, he said,
A prey to wasting sorrows, and detained,
Unwilling, in the palace of the nymph
Calypso. To the country of his birth
He cannot come; no ships are there with oars
And crew to bear him over the great wide sea.’

14“Thus Menelaus, mighty with the spear,
The son of Atreus, said. And having now
Fulfilled my errand, I returned. The gods
Gave favoring winds, and sent me swiftly home.”