Peisistratus Confirms His Friend

16Peisistratus, the son of Nestor, spoke
In answer: “Menelaus, foster-child
Of Zeus and son of Atreus! sovereign king!
He is, as you have said, that hero’s son;
But he is modest, and he deems that ill
It would become him, on arriving here,
If he should venture in discourse while you
Are present, in whose voice we take delight
As if it were the utterance of a god.
The knight Gerenian Nestor sent me forth
To guide him hither —for he earnestly
Desired to see you, that you might give
Counsel in what he yet should say or do.
For bitterly a son, who finds at home
No others to befriend him, must lament
The absence of a father. So it is
With young Telemachus; for far away
His father is, and in the land are none
Who have the power to shelter him from wrong.”

17The fair-haired Menelaus answered thus: —
“O wonder! Then the son of one most dear,
Who for my sake so oft has braved and borne
The conflicts of the battlefield, has come
Beneath my roof. I thought that I should greet
His father with a warmer welcome here
Than any other of the Argive race,
When Zeus the Olympian Thunderer should grant
A safe return to us across the deep
In our good ships. I would have founded here
For him a city in Argos, and have built
Dwellings, and would have brought from Ithaca
Him and his son, and all his wealth and all
His people. To this end I would have caused
Some neighboring district where my sway is owned
To be dispeopled. Dwelling here we oft
Should then have met each other, and no cause
Would ever have parted us, two faithful friends
Delighting in each other, till at last
Came Death’s black cloud to wrap us in its shade.
A god, no doubt, has seen in this a good
Too great for us, and thus to him alone,
Unhappy man! denied a safe return.”

18He spoke; his words awoke in every heart
Grief for the absent hero’s sake. Then wept
The Argive Helen, child of Zeus; then wept
Telemachus; nor tearless were the eyes
Of Nestor’s son, for to his mind arose
The memory of the good Antilochus,
Slain by the bright Eos’ eminent son;
Of him he thought, and spoke these winged words: —