Part II: The Son Searches for the Father

Ithaca Without Odysseus (Books 1–4)

The Odyssey does not begin with Odysseus. It begins with his son.

Telemachus is about twenty years old. He was an infant when his father sailed for Troy. He has grown up without him — raised by a mother who refuses to give up hope, in a house that has been invaded by over a hundred men who call themselves suitors. These men want to marry Penelope, Odysseus's wife. They are convinced Odysseus is dead. They have moved into the palace, eaten through its stores of food and wine, bullied the servants, and made Telemachus's life miserable. They know that whoever marries Penelope inherits the kingdom.

Penelope holds them off. She is clever — Odysseus's equal, as Homer will show us. She tells the suitors she will choose when she finishes weaving a burial shroud for her elderly father-in-law. Every night, she unravels what she wove that day. Three years pass before a disloyal maid betrays her secret.

Meanwhile, Telemachus has a problem. He is not yet king, and the suitors know it. He has no father to teach him how to be a man in a world that respects only force or cunning. He barely speaks in public. He is, at the start of the poem, a boy.

The goddess Athena — Odysseus's divine protector — decides to change this. She disguises herself as an old family friend and visits Telemachus. She tells him his father is alive. She urges him to call an assembly, rebuke the suitors publicly, and sail to the mainland to ask the old Greek heroes for news of Odysseus.

Telemachus does all of this. He is terrified, but he does it.

The journey to find his father is also a journey to become someone his father would recognize. By the time Telemachus returns to Ithaca, he is different. He is, just barely, ready.

What to Watch

Books 1–4 establish everything Odysseus is coming home to: a wife under siege, a son finding his courage, a house in decay, and a kingdom on the edge. Homer builds the destination before we meet the traveler, so that when Odysseus finally arrives, we feel the full weight of what he has been fighting toward.

Discussion

1. Telemachus grows up without a father. How does Homer show this absence shaping who Telemachus is at the start of the poem?
2. Penelope's weaving trick buys her three years. What does this tell us about the kind of intelligence Penelope uses to survive?
3. Athena visits Telemachus in disguise. Why might the gods in this poem never appear as themselves? What would be different if they did?