ving a lesson.

Nestor, though unable himself to give much information about the
Return, can point to the second grand Returner, Menelaus, who has
lately come from a distant land, and may have something to say. In fact
Menelaus was the last to separate from Nestor, Ulysses had separated
long before.

One other story Nestor tells with great sympathy, that of Agamemnon,
who represents a still different form of the Return. The great leader
of the Greeks can master the Trojan difficulty, can even get back to
home and country, but these are ultimately lost to him by his faithless
spouse. Still, after the father's death, the son Orestes restores
Family and State. Therein Telemachus sees an image of himself, the son,
who is to slay his mother's suitors; he sees, too, the possible fate of
his father. Ulysses has essentially the same problem as Agamemnon,
though he has not the faithless wife in addition; Telemachus beholds
his duty in the deed of Orestes, according to Greek consciousness. We
shall see hereafter how Ulysses takes due precaution not to be slain in
his own land, as Agamemnon was. In disguise he will go to his own
palace and carefully note the situation in advance, and then strike the
blow of deliverance.

Several times Homer repeats in the Odyssey the tragic story of
Agamemnon, the great Leader of the Greeks at Troy. An awe-inspiring
tale of destiny; out of it AEschylus will develop his great tragedy, the
Oresteia. Indeed the epos develops into tragedy with the full mythical
unfolding of this story. AEschylus will deepen the motives into internal
collisions; he will show the right and the wrong in Agamemnon, and even
in Clytemnestra. Orestes, however beneficent his deed in avenging his
father, will not escape the counterstroke; AEschylus will send after him
the Furies for the guilt of having murdered his mother. Thus the double
nature of the deed, its reward and its penalty, unfolds out of Homer
into AEschylus, and creates the Greek drama as we know it at present.

Nestor has now told what lay in the immediate circle of his experience:
the Return direct through Hellas. Again he mentions the last
separation; it was that of himself from Menelaus, when the latter was
swept beyond the limit of Hellas into Egypt, from which he has now
returned. What next? Evidently the young man must be sent to him at
Sparta in order to share in this larger circle of experience, extending
to the Orient. So Greece points to the East