Book IV · Episode 4 of 7
Proteus’s Prophecies
Proteus reveals fates of Agamemnon, Odysseus
Scenes
- Fates of Ajax and Agamemnon — Ajax drowns, Aegisthus kills Agamemnon
- Ajax boasts he escaped the gods unaided
- Poseidon splits the rock, drowns him
- Hera spares Agamemnon’s fleet at first
- A storm drives him to Aegisthus’s coast
- Aegisthus ambushes him at a feast
- Odysseus on Calypso’s Isle — Odysseus weeps, Menelaus promised Elysium
- Odysseus lacks ship and crew to leave
- Proteus then plunges back into the waves
- Menelaus sails home by way of Egypt
- He raises a tomb to Agamemnon
- He invites him to stay several days
- Farewell Gifts — Telemachus declines horses, takes cup
- His crew waits impatiently back in Pylos
- Ithaca has no pastures for horses
- Menelaus praises his sensible request
- The cup is Hephaestus’s work, gold-rimmed
- Phaedimus, King of Sidon, once gave it