But Helen’s drug/speech has a curious effect upon its audience. It provokes a second recollection of Odysseus’ exploits at Troy, this one by Menelaus. His tale is clearly the doublet of his wife’s, since they both begin with the same words: “but such a thing as this the strong man did and endured” (Odyssey iv 242 = iv 271). But this doublet counteracts the rhetoric of its model. For Menelaus belies Helen’s claim of new-found loyalty to the Greeks, when he mentions (apparently en passant) her second Trojan husband, the man she married after the death of Paris (Odyssey iv 276). Before beginning her tale, Helen had said “Enjoy these speeches (μύθοις). For I will narrate fitting, seemly things (ἐοικότα)” (Odyssey iv 239). But after Menelaus’ response,
