Menelaus (Μενέλαος)

Sparta: The Second Stop of the Journey

Telemachus and Peisistratus, son of Nestor, arrive in Sparta from Pylos in the middle of the double wedding feast Menelaus is holding for his children. It is one of the poem's grandest displays of xenia: with his own house celebrating, Menelaus does not hesitate to welcome the two strangers, saying:

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"We two have eaten much hospitality from other men. Unharness their horses and bring them in to feast."

Homer lavishes detail on the splendor of the Spartan palace — bronze, gold, silver, and ivory — for this is the house of a man who has already come home. The intactness of his wealth stands in contrast to the estate of Odysseus, eaten away day by day by the suitors. And when Helen recognizes the likeness of Odysseus in Telemachus' face, Menelaus gives voice to one of the poem's most moving griefs: of all the comrades who never came home, there is no man whose return he desires more than Odysseus'.

This hospitality is more than courtesy. It belongs to the structure of the poem's first half, the Telemachy: at Nestor's court the young prince learns how the older generation tells its stories; at Menelaus' court he sees what a completed homecoming looks like — wife at one's side, wealth intact, the past settled enough to be spoken of calmly. This is what Odysseus will become when he returns.

Proteus: The Old Man of the Sea

At the feast, Menelaus tells his guests the story of his own harrowing voyage home: shipwrecked and stranded on the island of Pharos off Egypt for twenty days, he was taught by Eidothea, daughter of the Old Man of the Sea, Proteus, to disguise himself and his men in sealskins and seize Proteus as he came ashore at noon to sleep. Proteus changed shape — lion, serpent, leopard, boar, running water, tree — but they never let go, until the old man returned to his own form and answered his questions.

Proteus' answers contain the hinge of information for the Odyssey's first four books: Ajax the Lesser had already perished at sea; Agamemnon had been murdered on his return by Aegisthus and Clytemnestra; and Odysseus was still alive, held on Calypso's island. It is this news that reaches Ithaca and becomes the shared hope of Telemachus and of the reader.

For Menelaus himself, Proteus has a destiny unlike any other:

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"You, Menelaus, fostered by Zeus, are not destined to die in Argos where the horses graze. The deathless gods will escort you to the world's end, the Elysian Fields — where life is easiest for men. No snow, no winter storms, no drenching downpours, but always the breeze of Ocean."

As the son-in-law of Zeus, Menelaus is the only hero of the Trojan War promised a blessed existence after death. The good fortune of the homecomer extends beyond this life.

Helen and Menelaus: Two Tales of Troy

One of the most suggestive scenes in Book 4 is the restored couple taking turns telling stories of Troy. Helen tells how she recognized Odysseus when he slipped into the city disguised as a beggar, and kept his secret. Menelaus tells of the night of the Wooden Horse, when Helen walked around it calling to the men inside in the voices of their wives — and the whole stratagem nearly came undone; it was Odysseus who clamped his hands over Menelaus' mouth and held the others back.

The two stories do not contradict each other; together they do something stranger. They fold the war into a domestic narrative. Helen tells her tale as a wife; Menelaus tells his as a husband. The marriage reassembled from ruin stands as a mirror image of the bloodshed in Agamemnon's house. Homer never says it outright, but the reader sees it plainly: Menelaus' household is evidence of what "after the homecoming" can look like.

Three Homecomings: Menelaus, Agamemnon, and Odysseus

The first four books of the Odyssey arrange a genealogy of homecomings in order to give Odysseus' return its coordinates. Agamemnon is the cautionary tale: he won the war and died in the trap laid at his own door. Menelaus is the fortunate one: after years of wandering, he brought his wealth home in the eighth year, his marriage repaired, his remaining years passed in abundance. And Odysseus is the homecoming in progress — he may yet repeat Agamemnon's end (the deepest fear of Penelope), or he may, like Menelaus, take hold of his life again.

This is the structural meaning of Menelaus: he proves that coming back is possible. His story supplies the first half of the epic with hope, and gives the reader a measure against which to judge Odysseus' final success.