Odyssey 4.274 · Book 4, lines 274–276
Helen circles the horse, Deiphobus beside her
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ἦλθες ἔπειτα σὺ κεῖσε· κελευσέμεναι δέ σʼ ἔμελλε δαίμων, ὃς Τρώεσσιν ἐβούλετο κῦδος ὀρέξαι· καί τοι Δηΐφοβος θεοείκελος ἕσπετʼ ἰούσῃ.
You came there then; a god must have prompted you, one who wished to grant glory to the Trojans; and godlike Deiphobus followed you as you went.
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The setting
Menelaus turns from the hidden Achaeans to Helen, who came to the horse where they lay in wait. He addresses her directly across the years, with her Trojan husband Deiphobus at her side.
A note on this passage
Menelaus speaks to Helen as if she were still at Troy: she came out to the horse, and a god — one favoring the Trojans — must have moved her to it. At her side walks Deiphobus, the Trojan prince she married after Paris died.
The courtesy is careful. Menelaus lays the blame on a god rather than on his wife, who sits in the room as he tells it. Calling the impulse divine spares her the choice; naming Deiphobus, though, quietly admits she was a Trojan wife then, testing the men who had come to kill for her return.
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