4.147–182

His father is gone, his enemies surround him, and he needs advice. In response, Menelaus ignores what Peisistratus has said, launching into another speech about how much he loved Odysseus, how he planned to empty an entire city in Argos for him so he could spend the rest of his life near his friend. His speech moves him to tears, along with his wife and his guests. (The association of weeping and recognition recurs, but the usual order is reversed, first recognition, then tears.) Peisistratus, who has been weeping over the death of his brother Antilochus, then politely asks if they might avoid the painful topic of homecomings at dinner. Maybe they could resume the conversation the next morning? Menelaus finally seems to hear Peisistratus, complimenting him on his speaking ability, which he must get from his father—another of the king’s dear friends! He then calls for dinner, though Telemachus and Peisistratus have already eaten (65–67).

Though they have asked politely, Menelaus has so far told his young guests almost nothing about Odysseus. Instead, they have been reminded of two things they already knew, that Menelaus is very rich, and that he loved Odysseus. The character of Menelaus in Book 4 is one of the poet’s most subtle creations, articulated gradually through his memories of the past as they appear against the backdrop of his apparent good fortune in the present. And at the center of the portrait is his relationship to Helen, perhaps the most enigmatic figure in early Greek literature. An audience with any exposure to stories about the Trojan War would inevitably come to the episodes in Sparta with preconceived ideas about both the king and queen, and the poet works with these expectations to create a portrait of a troubled marriage.

Helen’s first appearance, upstaging her husband as he is playing host, is consistent with what we know about their past. If Helen is the most beautiful woman in the world, Menelaus is the most famous cuckhold. Though he is the injured party when Paris abducts Helen to Troy, it is his brother Agamemnon who woos Helen for him in the first place and then commands the Greek expedition to bring her home. Early in the Iliad , Menelaus does challenge Paris to a duel, but Aphrodite’s intervention robs him of any satisfaction (Il. 3.340–82). Later, when Hector challenges the Greeks to send a warrior to oppose him in a second duel, Menelaus steps forward, but Agamemnon convinces him to stand down, as he will surely lose to Hector. He is a stout fighter, but not quite good enough (Il. 7.92–119). His status seems to rest more on his brother’s eminence in the expedition than his own prowess, a situation that reappears in a different form in the Odyssey .

By the time we meet him in the Odyssey, Menelaus is, then, a compromised figure. He is not a bad man, a liar or a bully. He just seems always to come in second place, to Paris, to Agamemnon, and in Sparta, to Helen. To all outward appearances, his life is a success. He has retrieved his wayward wife, survived the war, and returned home—after some adventures in Egypt that we will hear about soon—to lead the life of a rich king. Married again to the most beautiful woman in the world, he has arranged marriages for two of his children, one of which is happening as Telemachus and Peisistratus arrive. This looks like the charmed life of a fortunate man. But Menelaus, as we have seen, is insecure in his position of authority. Rather than assuming the leadership of his household, he often seems to compete with his wife. Offered the opportunity to help the son of a man he professes to love more than any other, he is unable to think about anything but his own sorrow and discontent.

The persistent discrepancy between appearance and reality finds expression, as does so much of what we find in Sparta, in Menelaus’s life. A splendid exterior hides insecurity about his own worth and perhaps shame over his cuckoldry, given the patriarchal culture he lives in. The trophy wife he has suffered so long over is dangerously beautiful, giving her a power independent of her husband’s position, but the glimpses we get of her inner life also show shame over her past behavior (4.260–64). These two people, the poet seems to be saying, ought to be happy with their lives, but something dark is lurking under the surface, poisoning present abundance with anger and resentment from the past. The Spartan royal household ought to offer Telemachus a vision of postwar domestic tranquility to contrast with the chaos in Ithaka. Unlike Nestor and his wife, who are more like genial grandparents to Telemachus, Menelaus and Helen are contemporaries of Odysseus and Penelope, potentially modelling what the young prince might see if his father returns home safely and banishes the suitors. Not necessarily a pleasant prospect, it would appear.

Further Reading

Olson, D. 1989. “The Stories of Helen and Menelaus (Od. 4.240–89) and the Return of Odysseus.” American Journal of Philology 110: 387–394.

Wohl, V. 1993. “Standing by the Stathmos: The Creation of Sexual Ideology in the Odyssey.” Arethusa 26: 33–36; 44.