In Odyssey, XI. 373, Alcinous says it is not yet time to sleep _ev megaro_, "in the hall." Alcinous and Arete, his wife, sleep "in the recess of the lofty _domos_," that is, in the recess of the _hall_, not of "the house" (Odyssey, VII. 346). The same words are used of Helen and Menelaus (Odyssey, IV. 304). But when Menelaus goes forth next morning, he goes _ek thalamoio_, "out of his _chamber_" (_Odyssey_, IV. 310). But this, says Noack, is a mere borrowing of Odyssey, II 2-5, where the same words are used of Telemachus, leaving his chamber, which undeniably was a separate chamber in the court: Eurycleia lighted him thither at night (Odyssey, I. 428). In Odyssey, IV. 121, Helen enters the hall "from her fragrant, lofty chamber," so she _had_ a chamber, not in the hall. But, says Noack, this verse "is not original." The late poet of _Odyssey_, IV. has cribbed it from the early poet who composed _Odyssey, XIX. 53._ In that passage Penelope "comes from her chamber, like Artemis or golden Aphrodite." Penelope _had_ a chamber--being "a lone lorn woman," who could not sleep in a hall where the Wooers sat up late drinking--and the latest poet transfers this chamber to Helen. But however late and larcenous he may have been, the poet of IV. 121 certainly did not crib the words of the poet of XIX. 53, for he says, "Helen came out of her _fragrant, high-roofed_ chamber." The _hall_ was not precisely "fragrant"! However, Noack supposes that the late poet of Book IV. let Helen have a chamber apart, to lead up to the striking scene of her entry to the hall where her guests are sitting. May Helen not even have a boudoir? In _Odyssey_, IV. 263, Helen speaks remorsefully of having abandoned her "chamber," and husband, and child, with Paris; but the late poet says this, according to Noack, because he finds that he is in for a chamber, so to speak, at all events, as a result of his having previously cribbed the word "chamber" from Odyssey, XIX. 53. Otherwise, we presume Helen would have said that she regretted having left "the recess of the lofty hall" where she really did sleep. [Footnote: Noack, pp. 47-48] The merit of this method of arguing may be left to the judgment of the reader, who will remark that wedded pairs are not described as leaving the hall when they go to bed; they sleep in "a recess of the lofty house," the innermost part. Is this the same as the "recess of the _hall_" or is it an innermost part of the _house?_ Who can be certain? The bridal chamber, built so cunningly, with the trunk of a tree for the support of the bed, by Odysseus (odyssey, XXIII. 177-204), is, according to Noack, an exception, a solitary freak of Odysseus. But we may reply that the _thalamos_, the separate chamber, is no freak; the freak, by knowledge of which Odysseus proves his identity, is the use of the tree in the construction of the bed. [blank space] was highly original.