had had enough to eat and drink, Telemachus said to the son of
Nestor, with his head so close that no one might hear, "Look,
Pisistratus, man after my own heart, see the gleam of bronze and
gold--of amber, {40} ivory, and silver. Everything is so
splendid that it is like seeing the palace of Olympian Jove. I
am lost in admiration."

Menelaus overheard him and said, "No one, my sons, can hold his
own with Jove, for his house and everything about him is
immortal; but among mortal men--well, there may be another who
has as much wealth as I have, or there may not; but at all
events I have travelled much and have undergone much hardship,
for it was nearly eight years before I could get home with my
fleet. I went to Cyprus, Phoenicia and the Egyptians; I went
also to the Ethiopians, the Sidonians, and the Erembians, and to
Libya where the lambs have horns as soon as they are born, and
the sheep lamb down three times a year. Every one in that
country, whether master or man, has plenty of cheese, meat, and
good milk, for the ewes yield all the year round. But while I
was travelling and getting great riches among these people, my
brother was secretly and shockingly murdered through the perfidy
of his wicked wife, so that I have no pleasure in being lord of
all this wealth. Whoever your parents may be they must have told
you about all this, and of my heavy loss in the ruin {41} of a
stately mansion fully and magnificently furnished. Would that I
had only a third of what I now have so that I had stayed at
home, and all those were living who perished on the plain of
Troy, far from Argos. I often grieve, as I sit here in my house,
for one and all of them. At times I cry aloud for sorrow, but
presently I leave off again, for crying is cold comfort and one