3.102–140

As it turns out, not much. He (and we) will have to wait until Telemachus’s visit to Sparta in Book 4 to hear anything definitive. But meanwhile, there is much news about other Greeks, those who died at Troy or on the way home and the lucky ones like Nestor who made it back safely. Those in the audience who knew the Iliad would have certain expectations about the old king of Pylos. In that poem, his age and experience in battle give him authority, which he uses to try to influence the younger warriors despite his diminished physical abilities. He is notoriously longwinded and eager to recall his own prowess, fighting as he once did against the mighty heroes of the past. These qualities might encourage us to see him as a blowhard who has trouble getting to the point, but the Greek soldiers respect him and listen to his speeches. In a primarily oral culture, the ability to speak at length would be honored more than it might be now. If we look carefully at his lengthy speeches, we see that though they seem to go on and on, they have a subtly persuasive rhetorical structure, showing an awareness of his audience and what we now would call psychological insight.

The version of Nestor we encounter in the Odyssey reflects the different circumstances we find him in. Bragging about his fighting skills or the status in the army they brought him is not necessary now. He is still verbose, to be sure, but in a less self-aggrandizing way. The overall tone of his speeches is melancholy, as he recalls the misfortunes of his friends. The war is in the past, and we experience the pain and death in Troy as if through the wrong end of the telescope. As we have seen already, Nestor’s main function in the episode will be as the head of a healthy family in a fully functional society. He is comfortable in this role, welcoming Telemachus and Athena/Mentor with generosity, including them in the sacrifice to Poseidon. 

Nestor’s brief account of Troy’s final destruction highlights the deception, παντοίοισι δόλοισι (119, 123) that finally brought the city down, while providing a smooth transition to Odysseus, the master of trickery, and then a return to the theme of identity:

                               "πατὴρ τεός, εἰ ἐτεόν γε
κείνου ἔκγονός ἐσσι: σέβας μ᾽ ἔχει εἰσορόωντα.
ἦ τοι γὰρ μῦθοί γε ἐοικότες, οὐδέ κε φαίης
ἄνδρα νεώτερον ὧδε ἐοικότα μυθήσασθαι."

                                    "[Odysseus] … your father, 
if you truly are his offspring; wonder seizes me as I look at you.   
For surely your words are like his, nor would anyone have said 
that a younger man could speak so much like him."

Odyssey 3.122–25

Scholars have had trouble with these verses, because Nestor focuses on how Telemachus’s manner of speaking reminds him of Odysseus, rather than emphasizing, as others do, how much he looks like his father (1.208; 4.140). And how could Telemachus, who has not seen his father since he was an infant, have picked up any of his speech patterns?

These objections take us back to the two different perspectives we can adopt to work out the meaning of the poem. Seen from inside the story, Nestor’s words are not surprising. This is the Homeric character who is best known, along with Odysseus, for his speaking ability, so it seems natural for him to fix on this trait. He is also about to boast of how much he and Odysseus agreed when they spoke in assemblies, so praising Telemachus for this skill becomes a form of self-congratulation, something we definitely associate with him. Stepping back to look at the passage in the context of the poet’s larger purposes in constructing his story, we see another way to think about the instances when Telemachus seems to resemble his father. Homer creates characters through accretion, often anticipating the first appearance of major figures by foreshadowing a set of qualities in other characters. Repetition of the paradigm builds meaning by portraying the qualities in each new character and context, working toward the appearance of the principal figure (see essay on Book 2.21). In the Odyssey, the character of Penelope is built on a variety of other female figures, Clytemnestra, Calypso, Nausicaa, Arete, Circe, the Sirens, even Helen. So here, we can see Telemachus not only as a son reflecting his father’s genes but also as a surrogate, modeled by the poet to begin building the character of Odysseus, who will not appear before Book 5. Menelaus will function in the same way in Book 4. The pattern will then cycle through many more times, in all the personae that Odysseus adopts as he makes his way home.

As Nestor recalls the Greeks’ departure from Troy, the troubled spirit of the Iliad creeps into the serene familial scene in Pylos. In his account, angry disputes between commanders break out, like the one between Achilles and Agamemnon in Book 1 of the Iliad. At issue is how to respond to an angry goddess:

"αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ Πριάμοιο πόλιν διεπέρσαμεν αἰπήν,
βῆμεν δ᾽ ἐν νήεσσι, θεὸς δ ἐσκέδασσεν Ἀχαιούς,
καὶ τότε δὴ Ζεὺς λυγρὸν ἐνὶ φρεσὶ μήδετο νόστον
Ἀργείοις, ἐπεὶ οὔ τι νοήμονες οὐδὲ δίκαιοι
πάντες ἔσαν: τῶ σφεων πολέες κακὸν οἶτον ἐπέσπον
μήνιος ἐξ ὀλοῆς γλαυκώπιδος ὀβριμοπάτρης.
ἥ τ᾽ ἔριν Ἀτρεΐδῃσι μετ᾽ ἀμφοτέροισινἔθηκε."

"But after we destroyed the lofty city of Priam, 
and we were sailing way in our ships, and the god scattered the Achaeans, 
then Zeus contrived in his mind a woeful homecoming  
for the Argives, since not all of them were thoughtful 
or just. And so many of them encountered evil destruction on account of  
the destructive wrath of the gray-eyed goddess with a mighty father. 
And it was she who stirred the quarrel between Atreus’s two sons."

Odyssey 3.130–36

The μήνιος (135) of Athena carries a potent charge. The word appears only rarely in Homeric epic, almost always restricted to the special anger of the gods. The famous exception is the μῆνις of Achilles:

μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος
οὐλομένην ἣ μυρί᾽ Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε᾽ ἔθηκε,
πολλὰς δ᾽ ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν
ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν
οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι, Διὸς δ᾽ ἐτελείετο βουλή,
ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ἐρίσαντε
Ἀτρεΐδης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν καὶ δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς

Sing Goddess, the wrath of Achilles, son of Peleus, 
a cursed rage, which put countless pains upon the Achaeans, 
and hurled forth many strong souls for the god Hades, 
souls of heroes, and left their bodies for the feasting of dogs 
and all the birds, and the plan of Zeus was being fulfilled, 
from the moment those two stood apart in strife, 
the son of Atreus, lord of men, and brilliant Achilles.

Iliad 1.1-7

There is a straight line back from Athena’s μῆνις here through the anger of Achilles to the divine anger that lies at the beginning of the entire Trojan saga, in Hera’s malignant rage over Paris’s choice of Aphrodite over her (Il. 24.25–30).

Anger brought division, as “the god scatters the Achaeans” (131) and Agamemnon and Menelaus quarreled, with the result that Agamemnon returned home alone without his brother’s support, more vulnerable to the evil designs of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. Zeus arranged “a baneful homecoming” (λυγρὸν … νόστον, 132) for many other Greeks warriors who, deprived of their comrades’ wisdom, lacked the requisite knowledge and judgement to escape Athena’s wrath and arrive home safely. Perhaps a lesson here: To escape the fate of Agamemnon, Odysseus must find a way, after losing his entire crew on the way home, to overcome division and restore unity in Ithaka.

Further Reading

Van Nortwick, T. 1992. Somewhere I Have Never Travelled: The Second Self and the Hero’s Journey in Ancient Epic, 40–41. New York: Oxford University Press.

———. 2008. Imagining Men: Ideals of Masculinity in Ancient Greek Culture, 31–33; 123–135. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.