Page:The Odyssey of Homer, with the Hymns, Epigrams, and Battle of the Frogs and Mice (Buckley 1853).djvu/81

59—96. set near them golden cups. Auburn-haired Menelaus then giving them his right hand addressed them:

"Both taste food and rejoice; but when ye twain have eaten of supper, we will inquire of you, who of men you are; for the race of your parents has not perished; but ye are the race of Jove-nurtured, sceptre-bearing kings; for bad men would not produce such as ye are."

Thus he spoke, and he set near them the fat back of an ox, taking in his hands the roasted part, which they had placed near him as an honour: and they stretched forth their hands to the viands lying ready before them. But when they had taken away the desire of drinking and eating, then Telemachus addressed the son of Nestor, holding his head near, that the others might not hear:

"Consider, thou son of Nestor, most pleasing to my mind, the shining of the brass throughout the resounding house, and of gold, and amber, and silver, and ivory. Some such, forsooth, is the hall of the Olympian Jupiter within. How many vast things are here! astonishment possesses me as I behold them."

Auburn-haired Menelaus understood him speaking, and addressing them, spoke winged words:

"My sons, no one indeed of mortals would contend with Jove; for immortal are his houses and possessions; but any one of mortals would either contend with me in possessions, or not. Certainly, having suffered many things, and having wandered much, I was brought in my ships, and I returned in the eighth year: having wandered to Cyprus, and Phœnice, and the Ægyptians, I came to the Æthiopians and Sidonians, and Erembians, and Libya, where the lambs immediately become horned. For the sheep bring forth thrice in a whole year: there indeed neither king nor shepherd is in want of cheese and flesh, nor of sweet milk; but they always furnish milk for milking throughout the year. Whilst I wandered collecting much livelihood in those places, in the mean while another slew my brother secretly, unexpectedly, through the deceit of his pernicious wife: so I by no means rejoicing rule over these possessions. And ye must have heard these things from your fathers, whoever they be; for I have suffered very many things, and have lost my house, which was very well inhabited, containing many and excellent things. Of which