The Full Tale of Murder

20Discreet Telemachus made answer thus: —
“Let us, O Mentor, talk no more of this,
Though much we grieve; he never will return,
For his is the black doom of death ordained
By the great gods. Now suffer me to ask
Of Nestor further, since to him are known,
Beyond all other men, the rules of right
And prudence. He has governed, so men say,
Three generations, and to me he seems
In aspect like the ever-living gods.
O Nestor, son of Neleus, truly say
How died the monarch over mighty realms,
Atrides Agamemnon? Where was then
His brother Menelaus? By what arts
Did treacherous Aegisthus plan his death,
And slay a braver warrior than himself?
Was not the brother in the Achaian town
Of Argos? or was he a wanderer
In other lands, which made the murderer bold?”

21The knight, Gerenian Nestor, answered thus: —
“I will tell all and truly. You have guessed
Rightly and as it happened. Had the son
Of Atreus, fair-haired Menelaus, come
From Troy, and found Aegisthus yet alive
Within the palace, he had never flung
The loose earth on his corpse, but dogs and birds
Had preyed upon it, lying in the fields
Far from the city, and no woman’s voice
Of all the Greeks had raised the wail for him.
Great was the crime he plotted. We were yet
Afar, enduring the hard toils of war,
While he, securely couched in his retreat
At Argos, famed for steeds, with flattering words
Corrupted Agamemnon’s queen. At first
The noble Clytemnestra turned away
With horror from the crime; for yet her heart
Was right, and by her side there stood a bard
With whom Atrides, when he went to Troy,
Had left his wife with many an earnest charge.
But when the gods and fate had spread a net
For his destruction, then Aegisthus bore
The minstrel to a desert isle, and there
Left him to be devoured by birds of prey,
And led the queen, as willing as himself,
To his own palace. Many a victim’s thigh
Upon the hallowed altars of the gods
He offered, many a gift of ornaments
Woven or wrought in gold he hung within
Their temples, since at length the mighty end
For which he hardly dared to hope was gained.
We sailed together from the coast of Troy,
Atrides, Menelaus, and myself,
Friends to each other. When the headland height
Of Athens, hallowed Sunium, met our eyes,
Apollo smote with his still shafts, and slew
Phrontis, Onetor’s son, who steered the barque
Of Menelaus, holding in his hands
The rudder as the galley scudded on —
And skilled was he beyond all other men
To guide a vessel when the storm was high.
So there did Menelaus stay his course,
Though eager to go on, that he might lay
His friend in earth and pay the funeral rites.
But setting sail again with all his fleet
Upon the dark-blue sea, all-seeing Zeus
Decreed a perilous voyage. He sent forth
His shrill-voiced hurricane, and heaped on high
The mountain waves. There, scattering the barques
Far from each other, part he drove to Crete,
Where the Cydonians dwell, beside the stream
Of Jardanus. A smooth and pointed rock
Just on the bounds of Gortys stands amidst
The dark-blue deep. The south wind thitherward
Sweeps a great sea towards Phoestus, and against
The headland on the left, where that small rock
Meets and withstands the mighty wave. The ships
Were driven on this, and scarce the crews escaped
With life; the ships were dashed against the crags
And wrecked, save five, and these, with their black prows,
Were swept toward Egypt by the winds and waves.

22“Thus adding to his wealth and gathering gold
He roamed the ocean in his ships among
Men of strange speech. Aegisthus meantime planned
His guilty deeds at home; he slew the king
Atrides, and the people took his yoke.
Seven years in rich Mycenae he bore rule,
And on the eighth, to his destruction, came
The nobly-born Orestes, just returned
From Athens, and cut off that man of blood,
The crafty wretch Aegisthus, by whose hand
Fell his illustrious father. Then he bade
The Argives to the solemn burial-feast
Of his bad mother and the craven wretch
Aegisthus. Menelaus, that same day,
The great in war, arrived, and brought large wealth —
So large his galleys could contain no more.
“And you, my friend, be you not long away,
Wandering from home, your rich possessions left,
And in your palace-halls a lawless crew,
Lest they devour your substance, and divide
Your goods, and you have crossed the sea in vain.
Yet must I counsel and enjoin on you
To visit Menelaus, who has come
Just now from lands and nations of strange men,
Whence one could hardly hope for a return;
Whom once the tempest’s violence had driven
Into that great wide sea over which the birds
Of heaven could scarce fly hither in a year,
Such is its fearful vastness. Go you now,
You with your ship and friends; or if you choose
The way by land, a car and steeds are here,
And here my sons to guide you to the town
Of hallowed Lacedaemon, there to find
The fair-haired Menelaus. Earnestly
Beseech of him that he declare the truth.
Falsely he will not speak, for he is wise.”