4.315–350

ἦμος δ᾽ ἠριγένεια φάνη ῥοδοδάκτυλος Ἠώς,
ὤρνυτ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ἐξ εὐνῆφι βοὴν ἀγαθὸς Μενέλαος
εἵματα ἑσσάμενος, περὶ δὲ ξίφος ὀξὺ θέτ᾽ ὤμῳ,
ποσσὶ δ᾽ ὑπὸ λιπαροῖσιν ἐδήσατο καλὰ πέδιλα,
βῆ δ᾽ ἴμεν ἐκ θαλάμοιο θεῷ ἐναλίγκιος ἄντην,
Τηλεμάχῳ δὲ παρῖζεν, ἔπος τ᾽ ἔφατ᾽ ἔκ τ᾽ ὀνόμαζεν:

When early-born, rosy-fingered Dawn appeared, 
Menelaus, skilled at the war cry, rose from his bed, 
put on his clothes, and slung his sharp sword around his shoulder. 
He tied beautiful sandals under his shining feet, 
and stepped forth from his bedroom like a god. 
Sitting next to Telemachus, he spoke and named him.

Odyssey 4.306–11 (cf. 2.1–5; 20.124–27)

The formula for dawn rising (306), which appears twenty times in the poem, signals a new beginning for the story. Having introduced and developed the characters of the Spartan royal couple, Homer moves toward the climax of the episode, as Menelaus tells the story of his encounter with a numinous prophet. What he learned from Proteus forms the dramatic climax of his nostos and completes the paradigm that the poet has been creating as a crucial part of his characterization of Odysseus. The structural and thematic parallels between the two figures prompt us to compare the two heroes, but finally it is a contrast in the existential meaning of each man’s adventures that will prove definitive for our understanding of Odysseus’s heroic nature.

Having fed his young guests, Menelaus girds himself with sword and sandals and proceeds to ask his young guest why he has come to Sparta. Telemachus delivers a lengthy—but also familiar—plea for information. Nothing in this exchange tells us or the two speakers anything new. Rather, it is as if, after Helen’s grand entrance and an evening’s strange entertainment, featuring dueling narratives delivered to drugged dinner guests, the poet wants to return his story to more familiar and comforting territory in the light of day. After some chest-thumping testimonials to his friend’s manly prowess in the form of a simile, Menelaus describes his own adventures in Egypt, which will—yet again—reveal little direct news about Odysseus. It is still all about him.

As he does when moving toward an important topic, the poet moves the story along without dwelling on details. Menelaus found himself stalled because he had not performed the requisite sacrifices to the gods. He does not specify which gods were displeased and what kind or quantity of burning meat was lacking. Unlike the Iliad, where divine intervention into human affairs is frequent, featuring many different deities whose agenda is clear, the Odyssey tends to focus on a few intense relationships between mortals and gods—Poseidon’s hatred of and Athena’s love for Odysseus—with divine nymphs offering timely help in a few instances (see Introduction, p. ). Otherwise, interventions by “the gods,” or “the god” function as only useful instruments for turning the story in a new direction (e.g., 3.141–75). We do learn a little about the nymph, her name and that she is unimpressed with Menelaus’s leadership skills. But her main function in the story is to get the foolish mortal in touch with her father, the sea god Proteus.

“The Old Man of the Sea” is a common folktale figure in the Mediterranean. He appears here first in Greek literature, and his association with Egypt seems to be Homer’s innovation, since he seems more likely to have originated in the northern Aegean. In Menelaus’s tale, he is both a shapeshifter and a prophet, and his importance for the poet is revealed in the struggle with the Spartan king and his sailors. Menelaus wanted to know what god is keeping him from sailing, but the nymph promised different knowledge:

τόν γ᾽ εἴ πως σὺ δύναιο λοχησάμενος λελαβέσθαι,
ὅς κέν τοι εἴπῃσιν ὁδὸν καὶ μέτρα κελεύθου
νόστον θ᾽, ὡς ἐπὶ πόντον ἐλεύσεαι ἰχθυόεντα.
καὶ δέ κέ τοι εἴπῃσι, διοτρεφές, αἴ κ᾽ ἐθέλῃσθα,
ὅττι τοι ἐν μεγάροισι κακόν τ᾽ ἀγαθόν τε τέτυκται
οἰχομένοιο σέθεν δολιχὴν ὁδὸν ἀργαλέην τε.

If somehow you could lie in ambush and catch hold of him, 
he would tell you the way home and the stages of the journey, 
how you would make your way across the fishy sea. 
And he would also tell you, noble one, if you should wish it, 
whatever good or evil has been done in your palace,  
while you were making your long and painful journey home.

Odyssey 4.389–90

Menelaus only wanted a god’s name, not travel advice. The verses with Eidothea’s unexpected answer recur verbatim in Book 10, when Circe tells Odysseus that he can expect to hear about how to get back home from Tiresias in the underworld (10.539-549). In fact, the prophet, like Eidothea, does not give Odysseus the information he seeks but tells him instead something more important.

The mission Eidothea envisions here seems in some ways to fit Odysseus more than Menelaus. To get what he wants, Menelaus must ambush the god, the kind of deception we would not usually associate with him, but which is the essence of the hero Helen encountered at Troy, Odysseus πολύτροπος. Likewise, the secret knowledge that the nymph promises would be more useful to Odysseus, whose palace is infested with loutish suitors.