Odyssey 4.266 · Book 4, lines 266–268
Menelaus, well-traveled, agrees
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Menelaus — ναὶ δὴ ταῦτά γε πάντα, γύναι, κατὰ μοῖραν ἔειπες. ἤδη μὲν πολέων ἐδάην βουλήν τε νόον τε ἀνδρῶν ἡρώων, πολλὴν δʼ ἐπελήλυθα γαῖαν·
Yes indeed, in all this, lady, you have spoken rightly. Before now I have learned the counsel and mind of many men, of heroes, and I have traveled over much land;
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The setting
Menelaus begins his reply. He affirms Helen's story, then establishes his own authority to judge men: he has known many heroes and wandered over much of the earth — his own returns took him as far as Egypt.
A note on this passage
Menelaus grants that Helen has told it well — ‘according to due measure,’ the Greek idiom for speech that is fitting and true — and then lays down his credentials. He has met many heroes and covered much ground; he is a man qualified to rank the great.
The undercurrent is that all this authority is being marshalled to say one thing about one man. The catalogue of Menelaus's wide experience exists only to set up the exception in the next breath: of everyone he has known, none had a heart like Odysseus's. Praise built on a lifetime's comparison is the strongest kind, and the poem is spending it on the hero who is not in the room.
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