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
Chilonis (wife of Cleombrotus II) year, when Lysander's duty as ephor had finished, Leonidas returned to Sparta and re-installed himself on the throne, with the intention of sentencing his son-in-law to death, but Chilonis prayed her father to commute the penalty to exile and Leonidas satisfied his daughter's wish. At this point Chilonis, instead of remaining in Sparta, as her father was asking her to, preferred going to exile again, this time following her husband Cleombrotus, along with their two children. Chilonis (wife of Cleombrotus II) Chilonis () was a Spartan princess and queen: daughter, wife, sister and grandmother of four different Spartan kings: Leonidas