“But when it came to our returning,” he said, “none of us was wise. It began the day after the city fell. How we did celebrate! Then, if you please, Agamemnon called the host together to sacrifice! To say truth, most of us were carrying a good deal of wine. Then Menelaus said he was going home at once—the war was over and there was nothing to stay for. Agamemnon insisted on some further sacrifices, to appease Athena. Rather foolish of him, I must say, for if a goddess is angry with you, she’s angry, and sacrifice is a waste of time, among other things. They talked at each other, but what they said I couldn’t hear; while they were arguing the rest of us had got excited, and there was the greatest din you ever heard. We took sides about equally—half of us were for sailing, and half were for more sacrifices. I saw it the same way as Menelaus, and we made up quite a fleet when we set out the next day. But in the morning air we found ourselves sober again, and as we sailed on we grew thoughtful. It was the reaction, I suppose. When we had gone as far as Tenedos, most of us stopped for a few hours and offered sacrifices, to be on the safe side, but Menelaus went on, or he had dropped out of the convoy; we saw no more of him. Your father made us quite a speech. He argued that if sacrifices were the thing after all, he was for no half-way measures, and he turned back to rejoin Agamemnon. And that’s the last I saw of him. Not a word have I heard since. Most of the others reached their homes. In Lesbos I stopped to sacrifice again, to make sure, and I must say we had a great wind right into the harbour. Idomeneus—did you ever hear of him? The suitor Helen turned down first—he had the smoothest trip of all, without losing a man, and he’s back in Crete as though nothing had happened. But that was a nasty trick Ægisthus played on Agamemnon! You’ve heard, of course, how Orestes took his revenge? That’s the advantage of having a son—to see that your murderer gets his deserts. Odysseus is fortunate, I don’t mind saying, in a boy as enterprising as you seem to be. He’ll come home, if he isn’t killed, and if he is killed, you’ll go after the man who did it. Unless it was the work of providence, of course.”

Telemachus was disappointed. No news of his father, and apparently no chance of any, not even from Menelaus. But his curiosity extended to other matters also; he was young. “We heard what Ægisthus did to Agamemnon,” he said, “but only in the vaguest sort of way. We had none of the particulars.”