The Myth of Telemachus | Odysseus's Son, His Relationship with Penelope, and Characters in The Odyssey

In the courtyard of the palace on Ithaca, a young man sits among the guests. Yet the one who should be seated as master of this house can do nothing but watch men devour his own livestock and drink his own wine.

This young man is Telemachus. His father Odysseus has long failed to return even after the Trojan War ended, and in the meantime men who have flocked to court his mother Penelope have settled into the house and are squandering its wealth. The story begins precisely from this powerless position.

The Goddess Who Arrives as a Stranger, and the First Advice He Hears

A strange traveler enters that courtyard. This guest, who introduces himself as Mentes of Taphos, an old friend of his father, is in fact the goddess Athena in disguise.

Telemachus welcomes the guest warmly and pours out his situation. Men who have come from various islands are ruining the household under the pretext of demanding marriage from his mother, he says, and his mother, unable either to refuse or to accept, lets the time slip by. He even lets slip his inner thought that he would rather have been born the son of an ordinary household, with his father grown old and dead.

Athena offers three pieces of advice. First, call an assembly and demand openly that these men leave; next, go to Pylos and Sparta to ask Nestor and Menelaus for news of his father; and if it is confirmed that his father is dead, remember how Orestes slew the enemy who killed his father and made his name famous. The meaning was that he must not stop at hearing advice but must actually act.

That evening, when his mother Penelope, listening to the bard's song, weeps and asks for a different song, Telemachus stops her with an unexpected attitude. He declares that speech is the business of men, and that in this house he holds that authority. Not even a day has passed since meeting the stranger, and his manner has already begun to change.

Tears and a Staff Thrown Down in the Assembly, and Preparations for Departure

The next morning Telemachus gathers the people of Ithaca and convenes an assembly. Pleading the two misfortunes—his father's absence and the suitors' violence—he loses his composure, finally throws his staff to the ground and bursts into tears.

Antinous, effectively the leader of the suitors, rises to rebut him. The fault, he says, lies with Penelope: she promised not to remarry while weaving a shroud for her father-in-law, but unraveled by night what she wove by day, dragging things out for nearly four years. That trick, he reveals, only ended in the fourth year, after one of the maids told the truth.

As this argument goes back and forth, two eagles appear from the sky, struggle with each other's talons, and fly away. The seer Halitherses interprets the omen as a sign that Odysseus will soon return and bring death and ruin. It was an ominous warning to the suitors, but the assembly itself ends without driving them away.

Telemachus does not stop there but acts directly. He asks his nurse Eurycleia to secretly pack provisions, telling her not to inform his mother for ten to twelve days, and gathers twenty sailors to secure a ship. Athena, transformed into Mentor, puts the suitors into a deep sleep and readies the ship, then leaves Ithaca with Telemachus when night falls.

What Was Heard at Pylos, and What Was Not

The ship lands at Pylos, where the people happen to be sacrificing black bulls to Poseidon on the shore. Nestor's son Peisistratus welcomes the two warmly, offers them a cup of wine, and after the meal the old king Nestor asks who his guests are.

Telemachus hides nothing, revealing that he is Odysseus's son and has come seeking news of his father. Nestor tells how wise Odysseus was at Troy, but answers that he does not know his whereabouts afterward. After Troy fell there was strife among the Greek commanders over the return home, and Nestor himself simply went straight back to his homeland, hearing no news of the others.

Instead, Nestor tells another story. While Agamemnon fought at Troy, his wife Clytemnestra grew close to Aegisthus; Agamemnon, on his return, was ultimately murdered at Aegisthus's hands; and his son Orestes later came back, slew the enemy who killed his father, and held the funeral. The name Athena first mentioned in her advice now stands before Telemachus as a far more detailed account.

Though he gained no direct news of his father, Nestor says that Menelaus of Sparta might know more, and provides horses and a chariot, sending his son Peisistratus along as a companion. The search does not end here but continues to the next destination.

A Wedding Feast in Sparta, and a Different Scheme Unfolding at Home

When they arrive in Sparta, Menelaus's palace is in the midst of a feast. He is holding at once the wedding of his son and that of a daughter being married off to the son of Achilles, an occasion blending the musician's performance with the acrobat's tricks.

Helen, looking at the strange young man's face, recalls Odysseus and suggests that this person may be Telemachus; Menelaus agrees, saying there is something of a resemblance. When Odysseus's name comes up, Menelaus shows tears and recounts what he heard from the sea god Proteus while detained in Egypt. Odysseus is not dead, he says, but is held captive on the island of the nymph Calypso, sunk in sorrow. It is the moment when, for the first time in this journey, the fact that his father is alive is confirmed together with a concrete place.

Meanwhile, while Telemachus is away from home, an entirely different plan is being laid in Ithaca. Antinous, learning that he has left, says that if he is allowed to grow up like this he will become a menace, and declares that he will get a ship, wait for him in the strait between Ithaca and Same, and dispose of him. The suitors actually moor their ship at a rocky islet called Asteris and set an ambush. Along with the joy of learning his father lives, a trap targeting the son's life is already being prepared in his homeland.

Avoiding the Set Harbor and Landing Elsewhere

Athena warns Telemachus of this danger in advance. She cautions that the leaders of the suitors are waiting for him in the strait between Ithaca and Same, and tells him to sail swiftly day and night, avoid the islands, land somewhere other than the town, and first go to the swineherd.

Before departure, Menelaus gives as gifts a cup with two handles and a silver mixing bowl edged with gold. He explains that it was made by the smith god Hephaestus and long ago given to him by Phaidimos, king of Sidon. Helen separately gives a robe she made herself, telling him to have the woman who will one day be his bride wear it on her wedding day and to keep it with his mother until then. As they set out, an eagle snatching a goose and a hawk seizing a dove appear in succession; Helen interprets the former as an omen of Odysseus's return and vengeance, while Theoclymenus, the seer traveling with them, interprets the latter as a sign that Telemachus's house will retain its power.

Reaching the waters off Ithaca, Telemachus, as Athena instructed, sends the ship on to the town harbor while he himself lands elsewhere and walks to the hut of the swineherd Eumaeus. The suitors' ambush lay in the strait between Ithaca and Same, and because he followed that advice exactly—sailing past the islands and landing before reaching the town—he was able to pass by without encountering it.

Learning of His Father at the Hut

As he approaches the hut, the dogs do not bark but wag their tails in welcome. Inside, Odysseus, hearing the footsteps first, tells Eumaeus that someone seems to be coming.

Eumaeus greets Telemachus as if welcoming an only son returned after ten years. But while he steps outside, Athena appears to Odysseus and tells him to hide his identity from his son no longer, and with her golden staff transforms him once more into a young, imposing figure.

Seeing the appearance changed in an instant, Telemachus instead asks whether this man is a god. He had thought that a ragged old traveler could not look like a different person in a single moment. Odysseus reveals that this is the craft of the goddess Athena, who handles him as she pleases, and declares that he is his father.

The two embrace each other, crying out aloud like an eagle or a vulture whose chicks have been stolen. Once the tears subside, the two devise a plan to deal with the suitors: they will fix a signal and move the weapons out in advance; Telemachus will carry on as usual as if nothing were wrong; and Eumaeus will take the disguised Odysseus into town, having him pass as a beggar.

One Mistake at a Storeroom Door, and a Battle Fought Together

Once Odysseus enters the palace as planned and, having passed the test of the bow, shoots Antinous down with an arrow, the situation turns to battle. Among the startled suitors, Eurymachus steps forward, blaming Antinous and trying to back down, but when Odysseus refuses, he finally draws his sword and attacks, only to be struck down by an arrow on the spot. Next, when Amphynomus charges at Odysseus, Telemachus hurls a spear from behind, piercing his chest. The son who once traveled to Pylos and Sparta seeking his father now stands, holding that same spear, fighting at his father's side.

Only after Antinous, Eurymachus, and Amphinomus have fallen one after another does Telemachus step out, saying he will bring a shield, two spears, and a helmet. When Odysseus tells him to hurry while arrows remain, he runs to the storeroom, takes out four shields, eight spears, and four helmets, and arms himself, Eumaeus, and the cowherd.

But it is precisely during this carrying of weapons that the suitors' side unexpectedly begins arming as well. The goatherd Melanthius had secretly taken weapons from the same storeroom and brought them to them. Telemachus notices this has happened and readily admits his fault—that he failed to lock the storeroom door when he took the weapons out, and that the suitors watched for the opening better than he did.

He immediately instructs Eumaeus to secure the storeroom door and find out who is helping the suitors. As a result, Melanthius, going back for more weapons, is caught, bound, and hung from the rafters, and the suitors, cut off from resupply, are driven back onto the defensive. In this phase Telemachus also cuts down Eurymachus—no, Eurymachus had already fallen—rather, he fells Euryades and Amphimedon one after another.

Characters Leading into the Next Story

This is the extent of Telemachus's journey as Homer's Odyssey directly shows it. How his father reunites with Penelope and fully settles the matter of the suitors continues in the Odyssey plot summary, and the details of that ending can be followed in the interpretation of the Odyssey's ending.

How his mother Penelope endured these years can be seen again through her eyes in the myth of Penelope. If you want to sort out the Trojan War and this family's relationships before reading the original text for the first time, the background knowledge before watching The Odyssey will help.

Everything depicted up to this point is the story told by the original text of Homer's Odyssey. If a film or drama portrays Telemachus differently, that is simply another version, distinct from the original.