Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

Held by contrary winds off Pharos with no fish and dwindling stores, Menelaus wanders alone in grief. Eidothea, daughter of Proteus the Egyptian Old Man of the Sea, meets him, pities his company, and explains that her father can tell the way home—if seized and held through his shape-changes. She schedules the noon rising when Proteus counts his seals, supplies ambrosia to mask the seal-skins’ stench, and stations Menelaus with three comrades for the ambush. Without Eidothea there is no Proteus episode: she is the helper-nymph who translates divine knowledge into mortal tactics. Catalogue her counsel and seal-disguise apart from Proteus’s prophecies about Ajax, Agamemnon, Odysseus, and Elysium.