Editing Menelaus (section)

===After the war===
[[File:Patroclus corpse MAN Firenze.jpg|thumb|Menelaus and [[Meriones (mythology)|Meriones]] lifting [[Patroclus]]' corpse on a cart while [[Odysseus]] looks on; [[alabaster]] urn, [[Etruscan art]]work from [[Volterra]], 2nd century BC]]
Book 4 of the ''Odyssey'' provides an account of Menelaus's return from Troy and his homelife in Sparta. When visited by Odysseus's son [[Telemachus]], Menelaus recounts his voyage home. As happened to many Greeks, Menelaus's homebound fleet was blown by storms to Crete and Egypt where they were becalmed, unable to sail away. They trapped [[Proteus]] and forced him to reveal how to make the voyage home. Once back in Sparta, he and Helen are shown to be reconciled and have a harmonious married life—he holding no grudge at her having run away with a lover and she feeling no restraint in telling anecdotes of her life inside besieged Troy. Menelaus does seem to be pained that he and Helen have no male heir, and is shown to be fond of [[Megapenthes (son of Menelaus)|Megapenthes]] and [[Nicostratus (mythology)|Nicostratus]], his sons by slave women. According to Euripides' ''[[Helen (play)|Helen]]'', Menelaus is reunited with Helen after death, on the [[Fortunate Isles|Isle of the Blessed]].<ref>Line 1675.</ref>