4.758–794

Penelope heeds Eurykleia’s advice, going upstairs to wash her face and put on fresh clothes, then praying to Athena, asking her to keep Telemachus safe from the suitors. The goddess comes to her in dream, disguised as her sister Iphime, and urges her to stop lamenting, since Telemachus, at least, will arrive home safely. Athena declines, however, to tell the queen if Odysseus is still alive. The suitors, meanwhile, pursue their plan to ambush Telemachus, lurking in a ship behind an island near Ithaka.

Odysseus first appears in person in Book 5, but the character gradually emerges in various ways in Books 1–4, in the eyes of others who know or have seen him since he left for Troy, but also in the various characters who foreshadow his presence, in particular Telemachus and Menelaus. The purpose of Telemachus’s journey to Pylos and Sparta, as arranged by Athena, is to learn about his father, if he is alive and if so, where he is. In the course of this quest, he—and we—also begin to learn something about who Odysseus is, thus providing a model for Telemachus as he grows into adulthood after being under the thumb of the obnoxious suitors. And grow up he must, because when he returns (his own nostos) he will either have to deal with the suitors himself or, if Odysseus makes it back alive, fight beside his father to restore order in Ithaka.  

When Odysseus finally returns to triumph over his enemies in Ithaka, his words and actions are built on narrative forms that appear first in the Telemachia, reflecting the poet’s mastery of a traditional style that is based on repeated elements on all levels of the narrative, from words to phrases to typical scenes. Arriving at his own palace disguised as a beggar, Odysseus is the last of many iterations of the anonymous stranger who arrives in a new place and withholds his true identity, beginning with Athena in Book 1, followed by Telemachus in Pylos and Sparta, then the hero himself among the Phaeacians in Book 6–8 and his narration of his adventures after leaving Troy and in the cave of the Cyclops. In these various places, Odysseus is often threatened by another recurring character type, the detaining woman, who wants to keep him from completing his journey. Helen, in her brief but vivid scenes in Sparta, embodies the first version of both that threatening figure, powerful and mysterious.

The first episodes in Ithaka showcase a chaotic and dysfunctional household that can only be restored to order by the return of Odysseus or his son. Telemachus’s journey to Pylos and Sparta exposes him to two other postwar kingdoms, ruled by heroes who fought at Troy with his father. In the first, he finds a relatively healthy royal family, ruling a thriving society. Sparta presents a darker version, a failed nostos, with past resentments and Menelaus’s insecurities coloring the relationship between the king and queen. And finally, hovering over all three families is the disastrous example of Agamemnon’s fate, a chilling cautionary tale that appears several times in the course of the Telemachia, prompting us to wonder if Odysseus will survive his nostos, if Penelope will hold out or give in to a paramour as both Helen and Clytemnestra did, and finally if Telemachus will be willing and able to fill the role of the good son who avenges his father’s murder, as Orestes did for Agamemnon. These questions appear in the very first scenes of the poem and haunt the entire story of Odysseus’s return.