3.51–101

We note the irony in Athena praying to her brother, who she knows is angry at her in particular as Odysseus’s principal divine helper, but the sentiments are appropriate for the man she is impersonating. Telemachus follows with his own prayer. The poet does not choose to report what the young man says, nor does he describe the meal that follows—though dining is sometimes the occasion for a lengthier scene with traditional language (e.g., Od. 1.144–52; 3.447–63; 16.44–56; Il. 24.621–29). Scale marks importance in Homeric poetry, and it is important to note when the poet moves quickly and when he lingers. Having established the elements that signal a proper welcome for guests, Homer moves briskly on to his primary focus, the identity of the strangers. Now that the guests are fed, it is proper for the host to ask them about themselves.

Nestor’s questions follow a familiar pattern: Who are you? Where are you from? What brings you here? Surely, you’re not pirates? (Cf. 9.254; Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 454), Telemachus answers, no longer deferring to Mentor. He wants to know anything Nestor can tell him about how Odysseus died. Once again, as he did in the poem’s opening scenes, Telemachus seems to assume that his father is dead, though he might well hold out hope that Odysseus has survived (1.166–68; 234–43) (see essay on Book 1.15).

Though Telemachus reveals right away that he is the son of Odysseus, he does not announce his name. This is a small detail but one that repays our attention. We will learn soon that Odysseus never reveals his name immediately when arriving at a new place. Withholding his identity is a double-edged maneuver. On the one hand, his reputation as a glorious hero might give him some extra leverage. At the same time, remaining anonymous at first allows him to learn what he can about his hosts and their intentions in case his notoriety gives them reason not to welcome him. The hero’s encounter with Polyphemus the Cyclops in Book 9 (152–566), one of the best-known parts of the poem, illustrates the dynamic well (see essays on Book 9). The entire episode is a primer on how not to be a host. Polyphemus returns to his cave to find Odysseus and some of his sailors waiting for him. Instead of offering them refreshment before asking them anything about themselves, the Cyclops reverses the proper order, asking first, then eating two of the sailors for dinner. Odysseus’s customary caution serves him well, as he is able to trick Polyphemus with a false name, Οὖτις, (“Nobody” 9.366) which becomes the monster’s undoing when, after Odysseus and his men have blinded him, he calls out to his fellow Cyclopes for help:

τίπτε τόσον, Πολύφημ᾽, ἀρημένος ὧδ᾽ ἐβόησας
νύκτα δι᾽ ἀμβροσίην καὶ ἀύπνους ἄμμε τίθησθα;
ἦ μή τίς σευ μῆλα βροτῶν ἀέκοντος ἐλαύνει;
ἦ μή τίς σ᾽ αὐτὸν κτείνει δόλῳ ἠὲ βίηφιν;
τοὺς δ᾽ αὖτ᾽ ἐξ ἄντρου προσέφη κρατερὸς Πολύφημος:
‘ὦ φίλοι, Οὖτίς με κτείνει δόλῳ οὐδὲ βίηφιν.’

“Why have you cried out so in distress, Polyphemus,
through the immortal night, and made us all sleepless?
Surely no mortal is driving off your flocks against your will?
Surely no one is killing you by force or trickery?”
Mighty Polyphemus called to them from inside the cave:
“Oh friends, Nobody is killing me with force and trickery.”

Odyssey 9.403–8

The false name has become a weaponized pun, depriving Polyphemus of help, while marking the hero’s crafty intelligence through the echo of the noun μῆτις, “intelligence,” in μή τίς “nobody,” (405–6).

Exploring whether Telemachus’s small omission in Book 3 could be related to the poems’ ongoing preoccupation with anonymity and identity will take us to some useful distinctions. Thinking about the meaning of any character or situation in the poem requires us to adopt two primary perspectives, from inside the story, asking whether the behavior is understandable as something a person might do in the world that the poem creates, and from a more detached view from outside the narrative, as we try to analyze how the poet constructs his story. The “Telemachia,” as the journey of Odysseus’s son is often called by scholars, is a clear example of this dichotomy. From inside the world of the poem, we would expect Telemachus to exhibit behavior that reflects his genetic heritage: like father, like son. Likewise, the society we see in Ithaka and elsewhere assumes that a son must learn how to grow up from his father. Stepping back to look at the passage as an example of how Homer constructs his story to articulate a certain set of meanings expands our vision. That is, thinking about Telemachus’s withholding his name as it might relate to the Polyphemus episode brings us to one of the most important repeated narrative patterns in the story, “the arrival of the stranger.” Now Telemachus becomes one in a series of such strangers, beginning with Athena in Book 1 and continuing through all of Odysseus’s anonymous arrivals, at the Cyclops’ cave, on Circe’s island, at the outpost of his faithful swineherd Eumaeus in the Ithakan countryside, to his final infiltration of his own house disguised as a beggar.

Each time the pattern appears, it builds meaning, bringing the accumulated associations of prior examples to a new context. The Polyphemus episode offers an especially vivid example of the potential in the repeated motif, probing the connection between names and other kinds of identities, anonymous trickster, glorious culture hero who slays the monster and preserves order, and so forth (see essay on Book 9, p. ). As we have said, the Odyssey invites us to ask two fundamental questions about its hero, “where is Odysseus?” and “who is Odysseus?” The mystery of human identity, which underlies the second question always accompanies episodes where a stranger arrives in a new place. The accumulated weight of meaning from these repeated appearances of the pattern comes to bear on the moment when Odysseus finally stands revealed to Penelope in Book 23 (205–30). The man before her, glistening in the beauty that Athena has given him (23.156–65), is king, husband, father, and son in Ithaka, but his full identity contains the handsome sailor who attracts the royal princess of the Phaeacians, the burly discus thrower who defeats the king’s sons there, the murderous captive in the cave of the Cyclops, the restless wanderer featured in the false tales Odysseus tells to Eumaeus, and the scruffy beggar who draws Penelope’s attention before the slaughter of the suitors.

From this perspective, certain parallels between arrival of Telemachus in Pylos and the first appearance of Athena, disguised as “Mentes,” begin to emerge.

If Athena’s appearance in disguise inaugurates the motif of “the arrival of the stranger,” Telemachus withholding his name signals, however faintly, the pattern’s presence at the beginning of Book 3. By invoking the motif, the poet reminds us that the young prince’s identity, like his father’s, is contingent, as he passes from a boy cowed by the bullying suitors to his father’s fellow warrior in Book 22. When he makes his way to Sparta, the foreshadowing of Odysseus in his behavior will become more pronounced, as the identity and whereabouts of his father come more insistently to the foreground.

Further Reading

Reese, S. 1993. The Stranger’s Welcome: Oral Theory and the Aesthetics of the Homeric Hospitality Scene, 39–69. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Murnaghan, S. 1987. Disguise and Recognition in the Odyssey, 163. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Van Nortwick, T. 2008. The Unknown Odysseus: Alternate Worlds in Homer’s Odyssey, 39–40. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.