it not that I
count it a matter of great moment not to slay any of those strangers who
being driven from their course by winds have come to my land hitherto,
I should have taken vengeance on thee on behalf of the man of
Hellas, seeing that thou, most base of men, having received from him
hospitality, didst work against him a most impious deed. For thou didst
go in to the wife of thine own host; and even this was not enough for
thee, but thou didst stir her up with desire and hast gone away with her
like a thief. Moreover not even this by itself was enough for thee, but
thou art come hither with plunder taken from the house of thy host. Now
therefore depart, seeing that I have counted it of great moment not to
be a slayer of strangers. This woman indeed and the wealth which thou
hast I will not allow thee to carry away, but I shall keep them safe for
the Hellene who was thy host, until he come himself and desire to carry
them off to his home; to thyself however and thy fellow-voyagers I
proclaim that ye depart from your anchoring within three days and go
from my land to some other; and if not, that ye will be dealt with as
enemies."

This the priests said was the manner of Helen's coming to Proteus; and
I suppose that Homer also had heard this story, but since it was not so
suitable to the composition of his poem as the other which he followed,
he dismissed it finally, making it clear at the same time that he was
acquainted with that story also: and according to the manner in which he
described the wanderings of Alexander in the Iliad (nor did he elsewhere
retract that which he had said) of his course, wandering to various
lands, and that he came among other places to Sidon in Phenicia. Of this
the poet has made mention in the "prowess of Diomede," and the verses
run thus:

"There she had robes many-coloured, the works of women of Sidon,
Those whom her son himself the god-like of form Alexander
Carried from Sidon, what time the broad sea-path he sailed over
Bringing back Helene home, of a noble father begotten."

And in the Odyssey also he has made mention of it in these verses:

"Such had the daughter of Zeus, such drugs of exquisite cunning,
Good, which to her the wife of Thon, Polydamna, had given,
Dwelling in Egypt, the land where the bountiful meadow produces
Drugs more than all lands else, many good being mixed, many evil."

And thus too Menelaos says to Telemachos: