Note 31
BOOK III

[ The Greek is {Greek} cf. “Iliad” ii. 408 {Greek} Surely the {Greek} of the Odyssean passage was due to the {Greek} of the “Iliad.” No other reason suggests itself for the making Menelaus return on the very day of the feast given by Orestes. The fact that in the “Iliad” Menelaus came to a banquet without waiting for an invitation, determines the writer of the “Odyssey” to make him come to a banquet, also uninvited, but as circumstances did not permit of his having been invited, his coming uninvited is shown to have been due to chance. I do not think the authoress thought all this out, but attribute the strangeness of the coincidence to unconscious cerebration and saturation.]