A Feast in Sparta (Homer’s The Odyssey, Book IV – Part 1)

A new city receives the travelers, and their arrival coincides with celebration.

In this opening passage of The Odyssey, Book IV, Telemachus and Peisistratus reach Lacedaemon and arrive at the palace of Menelaus, where a great feast is underway. Menelaus is hosting wedding celebrations for his children: his daughter is being sent to the son of Achilles among the Myrmidons, and his son Megapenthes is taking a bride from Sparta. The hall is filled with kinsmen and neighbors, music from a minstrel, and tumblers performing in the midst of the revels. As Telemachus and Peisistratus pause at the gate with their horses, the steward Eteoneus notices them and goes inside to ask Menelaus whether the strangers should be welcomed or sent on elsewhere.

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