Four Last Songs (Vaughan Williams) song of the cycle "Menelaus." The character Menelaus appears both in Homer's "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey". Menelaus is the King of Sparta whose wife, Helen, was taken from him by Paris to Troy. Together with his brother Agamemnon, fellow ruler Odysseus, and other warriors, Menelaus launched the Trojan War to regain his wife and return her to Sparta. In "The Odyssey", Odysseus' son Telemachus visits Menelaus in attempts to obtain news of his father who has not yet returned from the war. The Vaughan Williams' drew inspiration from Menelaus' description to Telemachus of the things Odysseus must do to
Jane Menelaus has been married to Geoffrey Rush. They have a daughter, Angelica (born 1992), and a son, James (born 9 September 1995). In 2003 she had surgery for breast cancer. Jane Menelaus Jane Menelaus (born 1959) is an Australian actress who trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, England. Jane Menelaus has worked with both the South Australian and Melbourne Theatre Companies. Her stage work has included appearance in the Shakespeare plays, "The Winter's Tale" with the State Theatre Company of South Australia in 1987 (at The Playhouse in Adelaide, South Australia), and "Troilus and Cressida" (at