Telemachus

A son unsure of his father

Telemachus is the son of Odysseus and Penelope. He grows up on Ithaca, his father’s island, while Odysseus stays away after sailing for Troy. In the meantime, suitors fill the palace. They eat up the household’s wealth and press Penelope to marry one of them.

One day the goddess Athena comes to the palace disguised as a stranger called Mentes. Telemachus welcomes her as a guest. He tells her that his mother says he is the son of Odysseus. But, he adds, no man can know his own father for himself. His doubt is about more than whether Odysseus is alive. It touches his own name and standing.

Athena’s plan for him

Athena answers with a route. Telemachus is to find a ship and 20 companions. He should go first to Pylos to question Nestor, an old king who fought at Troy, and then to Sparta to question Menelaus.

If he learns that Odysseus is alive, he must hold out for another year. If he learns that his father is dead, he must bury him, honour him and decide how to deal with the suitors.

So the journey begins as a search for news, and the news will decide his duty at home. Telemachus must hear what other men remember of his father before he knows what to do.

The assembly nobody had called

At dawn Telemachus sends heralds through Ithaca to call an assembly, a meeting of the people. He walks to the meeting place carrying a spear, with two hounds behind him. The elders make room as he sits in his father’s seat. One of them asks who has called the people together, because no assembly has met since the king sailed for Troy.

Telemachus stands to answer. He names two wrongs. His father has vanished, and the suitors are eating up his household while they press Penelope to marry. He can name the problem in public, but he cannot yet end it. The meeting breaks up without removing a single man from the palace.

Telemachus now has his father’s seat but not his father’s power. Through his journey, the question is whether he can become the son of Odysseus by more than his mother’s word.

At Pylos

Telemachus lands at Pylos while Nestor and his people are sacrificing black bulls to the god Poseidon beside the sea. Peisistratus, one of the people of Pylos, welcomes the strangers, gives them food and hands the wine cup to Athena. They are treated as guests before anyone asks who they are, just as Telemachus treated Mentes on Ithaca.

As they walk towards Nestor, Telemachus admits he is ashamed to question an older man. Athena tells him that some of the words will come to him and a god will give him the rest. He needs the courage, because Pylos holds no simple answer about Odysseus.

He asks plainly how the Greeks came home from Troy and whether Nestor saw Odysseus die. The old king can tell him stories of departures and quarrels, but not the one fact he wants. Telemachus leaves still searching. He has, though, found his voice in front of an old king who fought in the war.

Father and son meet

Back on Ithaca, Telemachus meets Odysseus at the farm of Eumaeus, the swineherd, without knowing who he is. After Eumaeus leaves, Athena gives Odysseus back his true appearance. Telemachus draws back and calls the changed stranger a god.

Odysseus tells him he will have no other father. After 20 years of suffering and wandering, he has come home. Telemachus still doubts him, because no mortal could change his looks so completely. Odysseus explains that Athena made the change. Only then do father and son embrace and weep.

This answers the doubt Telemachus spoke of to Mentes. Even so, his work is not over. Odysseus at once asks how many suitors they face. Telemachus counts the men from Dulichium, Same, Zacynthus and Ithaca, and warns that two men cannot defeat them all.

The plan they make together

Odysseus trusts Athena and Zeus to make up the difference. He tells Telemachus to go back to the palace and put up with the suitors. When Odysseus gives the signal, Telemachus is to take the weapons out of the hall. They will keep two swords, two spears and two shields for themselves.

Telemachus has come a long way. At the start he sat in his father’s seat while other men ignored what he asked. Now he can plan with the father he went looking for, and keep his return secret inside a house full of enemies. In the Odyssey, the journey does not replace Odysseus. It makes Telemachus ready to stand beside him.