"Sir, my father Nestor, when we
used to talk about you at home, told me you were a person of rare and
excellent understanding. If, then, it be possible, do as I would urge
you. I am not fond of crying while I am getting my supper. Morning
will come in due course, and in the forenoon I care not how much I
cry for those that are dead and gone. This is all we can do for the
poor things. We can only shave our heads for them and wring the tears
from our cheeks. I had a brother who died at Troy; he was by no means
the worst man there; you are sure to have known him - his name was
Antilokhos; I never set eyes upon him myself, but they say that he
was singularly fleet of foot and in fight valiant."
"Your discretion, my friend,"
answered Menelaos, "is beyond your years. It is plain you take after
your father. One can soon see when a man is son to one whom Zeus
grants blessedness [olbos] both as regards wife and
offspring - and he has blessed Nestor from first to last all his
days, giving him a green old age in his own house, with sons about
him who are both well disposed and valiant. We will put an end
therefore to all this weeping, and attend to our supper again. Let
water be poured over our hands. Telemakhos and I can talk with one
another fully in the morning."
On this Asphalion, one of the
servants, poured water over their hands and they laid their hands on
the good things that were before them.
Then Zeus’ daughter Helen
bethought her of another matter. She drugged the wine with the herb
nêpenthes [= anti-penthos], which
banishes all care, sorrow, and anger. Whoever drinks wine thus
drugged cannot shed a single tear all the rest of the day, not even
though his father and mother both of them drop down dead, or he sees
a brother or a son hewn in pieces before his very eyes. This drug, of
such sovereign power and virtue, had been given to Helen by Polydamna
wife of Thon, a woman of Egypt, where there grow all sorts of herbs,
some good to put into the mixing-bowl and others poisonous. Moreover,
every one in the whole country is a skilled physician, for they are
of the race of Paieon. When Helen had put this drug in the bowl, and
had told the servants to serve the wine round, she said:
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