Book IV · Episode 1 of 7

Arrival at Sparta

Telemachus, Peisistratus reach Sparta feast

Scenes

1. A Double Wedding — Menelaus’s daughter weds Achilles’s son
   • Wedding guests fill the palace hall
   • Hermione departs for the Myrmidons
   • Megapenthes weds Alector’s daughter
   • A bard plays harp for dancers
2. Welcome for the Strangers — Menelaus overrules Eteoneus, welcomes guests
   • Eteoneus asks whether to admit them
   • Menelaus recalls his own wandering hardships
   • Servants stable horses, bathe the guests
   • Meat and gold cups set before them
3. Awed by the Palace — Telemachus marvels at gold, ivory hall
   • Menelaus guesses they are kings’ sons
   • Guests receive the honored roasted cut
   • Telemachus whispers so none else hears
   • Hall compared to Olympian Zeus’s palace
4. Menelaus Mourns Odysseus — Menelaus mourns brother, grieves Odysseus
   • Eight years wandering brought him riches
   • His brother slain through a wife’s treachery
   • He pities Laertes, Penelope, the infant son
   • Telemachus weeps at his father’s name
   • Menelaus wonders whether to press him