Menelaus gave them a kindly welcome and a casual mention of his father's name stirred Telemachus to tears. At that moment Helen entered; her quicker perception at once traced the resemblance between the young stranger and Odysseus. When Telemachus admitted his identity, Helen told some of his father's deeds. Once he entered Troy disguised as a beggar, unrecognised of all save Helen herself. "After he made her swear an oath that she would not betray him, he revealed all the plans of the Greeks. Then, after slaying many Trojans, he departed with much knowledge, while Helen's heart rejoiced, for she was already bent on a return home, repenting of the blindness which Aphrodite had sent her in persuading her to abandon home and daughter and a husband who lacked naught, neither wit not manhood." Menelaus then recounted how Odysseus saved him when they were in the wooden horse, when one false sound would have betrayed them. On the next morning Telemachus told the story of the ruin of his home; Menelaus prophesied the end of the suitors, then preceded to recount how in Egypt he waylaid and captured Proteus, the changing god of the sea, whom he compelled to relate the fate of the Greek leaders and to prophesy his own return; from him he heard that Odysseus was with Calypso who kept him by force. On learning this important piece of news Telemachus was eager to return to Ithaca with all speed. Meanwhile the suitors had learned of the departure of Telemachus and plotted to intercept him on his return. Their treachery was told to Penelope, who was utterly undone on hearing it; feeling herself left without a human protector she prayed to Athena, who appeared to her in a dream in the likeness of her own sister to assure her that Athena was watching over her, but refusing to say definitely whether Odysseus was alive. The poem at this point takes up the story of Odysseus himself. Going to the isle where he was held captive, Hermes after admiring its great beauty delivered Zeus' message to Calypso to let the captive go. She reproached the gods for their jealousy and reluctantly promised to obey. She found Odysseus on the shore, eating out his heart in the desire for his home. When she informed him that she intended to let him go, he first with commendable prudence made her swear that she did not design some greater evil for him. Smiling at his cunning, she swore the most solemn of all oaths to help him, then supplied tools and materials for the building of his boat. When he was out on the deep, Poseidon wrecked his craft, but a sea goddess Leucothea, once a mortal, gave him a scarf to wrap round him, bidding him cast it from him with his back turned away when he got to land. After two nights and two days on the deep he at length saw land. Finding the mouth of a small stream, he swam up it, then utterly weary flung himself down on a heap of leaves under a bush, guarded by Athena.