n the goodly Orestes got
among all men in that he slew the slayer of his father?

For parents to be cared for in their old age by their children is just
by nature and a debt of retribution; this he showed in one passage where
he says (I. xvii. 302):--

Not destin'd he his parents to repay their early care.

The good will and good faith of brothers to one another he shows in
Agamemnon and Menelaus, of friends in Achilles and Patroclus, prudence
and wifely love in Penelope, the longing of a man for his wife in
Odysseus.

How we should act toward our country he showed especially in these words
(I. xii. 243):--

The best of omens is our country's cause.

And how citizens should share a common friendship (I. ix. 63):--

Outcast from kindred, law, and hearth is he
Whose soul delights in fierce, internal strife.

That truthfulness is honorable and the contrary to be avoided (I. ix.
312):--

Him as the gates of hell my soul abhors
Where outward speech his secret thought belies.

And (O. xviii. 168):--

Who speak friendly with their lips, but imagine evil in the
latter end.

Households are chiefly well ordered when the wife does not make a
fuss over the undeclared plans of her husband nor without his counsel
undertakes to do any thing. Both he shows in the person of Hera; the
former he attributes to Zeus as speaker (I. i. 545):--

Expect not Juno, all my mind to know.

And the latter Hera herself speaks (I. xiv. 310):--

Lest it displease thee, if, to thee unknown,
I sought the Ocean's deeply flowing stream,

There is a custom among all people for those who go to a war or who are
in danger to send some message to their families. Our poet was familiar
with this custom. For Andromache, bewailing Hector, says (I. xxiv.
743):--

For not to me was giv'n to clasp the hand extended from thy
dying bed,
Nor words of wisdom catch, which night and day,
With tears, I might have treasur'd in my heart.

Penelope recalls the commands of Odysseus when he set forth (O. xviii.
265):--

Wherefore I know not if the gods will suffer me to return, or
whether I shall be cut off there in Troy; so do thou have a
care for all these things. Be mindful of my father and my
mother in the halls, even as thou art or yet more than now,
while I am far away. But when thou see'st thy son a bearded
man, marry whom thou wilt