Nestor has now told what lay in the immediate circle of his experience: the Return direct through Hellas. Again he mentions the last separation; it was that of himself from Menelaus, when the latter was swept beyond the limit of Hellas into Egypt, from which he has now returned. What next? Evidently the young man must be sent to him at Sparta in order to share in this larger circle of experience, extending to the Orient. So Greece points to the East in many ways; Nestor, the purely Hellenic soul, knows of that wider knowledge, though it be not his, and he knows that it should be possessed. In this Book as elsewhere in the Odyssey the grand background is the Trojan war. The incidents of the Iliad are hardly alluded to, but are certainly taken for granted; the Post-Iliad is the field of interest, for in it the Returns take place. Thus the two great poems of Homer join together and show themselves as complements of each other. II. Now comes the separation which marks the second portion of the Book. Pallas, in the guise of Mentor, coincides with Nestor in advising Telemachus to pay a visit to Menelaus, and then she departs, "sailing off like a sea-eagle," whereat great astonishment from all present. That is, she reveals herself; all recognize the Goddess, and probably that is the reason why she can no longer stay. She has become internal. Telemachus is now conscious, as she disappears, and he has his own wisdom; he has seen Pallas, and so he must go without her to Sparta. Hardly does he need her longer, being started upon the path of wisdom to know wisdom. At the court of Nestor, with its deeply religious atmosphere, she can appear; but she declines to go with him in person to Menelaus, though she advises the journey. All of which, to the sympathetic reader, has its significance. Still Pallas has by no means vanished out of the career of Telemachus; she at present, however, leaves him to himself, as she often does. Nestor, too, responds to the marvelous incident in true accord with his character; he invokes her with prayer and institutes a grand sacrifice, which is now described in a good deal of detail. Just as the Book opens with a sacrifice to a deity, so it closes with one--the two form the setting of the whole description. Thus the recognition of the Gods is everywhere set forth in Nestor's world; he is the man of faith, of primitive, immediate faith, which has never felt the doubt.