3.184–224

These nostoi and others may have appeared as part of a collection of hexameter poetry now called “The Epic Cycle,” which described events surrounding but not part of the Iliad or Odyssey, ranging from the birth of the gods to the death of Odysseus. Scholars believe that the poems were composed later than the Homeric epics, and a few fragments survive, cited in much later sources. But modern theories about the origins of Homeric style in an earlier oral tradition raise the possibility that we can glimpse in these fragments the rich pool of stories Homer drew on in composing his epics. We might imagine that as Nestor touches briefly on the homecomings of various heroes, the audience would be able to fill in details from other poetry they had heard, themselves the sources for “The Epic Cycle.”

But however curious we might be about these lost poems, only the nostoi of Menelaus and Agamemnon play a major role in the poet’s treatment of the homecoming of Odysseus in the Odyssey. We will hear in Book 4 that the Spartan king’s postwar experiences provide a telling model for the struggles of Odysseus on Calypso’s island and in particular for the definitive existential choice that he makes there (see Essay on Book 5…). Likewise, the domestic situation we find in Sparta will reveal subtle undercurrents of unease in the royal marriage that offer a different kind of foil for the family of Odysseus than we see in Pylos.

The murder of Agamemnon by his wife and his cousin Aegisthus appears in the opening scene of the poem on Olympus:

τοῖσι δὲ μύθων ἦρχε πατὴρ ἀνδρῶν τε θεῶν τε:
μνήσατο γὰρ κατὰ θυμὸν ἀμύμονος Αἰγίσθοιο,
τόν ῥ᾽ Ἀγαμεμνονίδης τηλεκλυτὸς ἔκταν᾽ Ὀρέστης:
τοῦ ὅ γ᾽ ἐπιμνησθεὶς ἔπε᾽ ἀθανάτοισι μετηύδα
"ὢ πόποι, οἷον δή νυ θεοὺς βροτοὶ αἰτιόωνται:
ἐξ ἡμέων γάρ φασι κάκ᾽ ἔμμεναι, οἱ δὲ καὶ αὐτοὶ
σφῇσιν ἀτασθαλίῃσιν ὑπὲρ μόρον ἄλγε᾽ ἔχουσιν,
ὡς καὶ νῦν Αἴγισθος ὑπὲρ μόρον Ἀτρεΐδαο
γῆμ᾽ ἄλοχον μνηστήν, τὸν δ᾽ ἔκτανε νοστήσαντα,
εἰδὼς αἰπὺν ὄλεθρον, ἐπεὶ πρό οἱ εἴπομεν ἡμεῖς,
Ἑρμείαν πέμψαντες, ἐύσκοπον ἀργεϊφόντην,
μήτ᾽ αὐτὸν κτείνειν μήτε μνάασθαι ἄκοιτιν:
ἐκ γὰρ Ὀρέσταο τίσις ἔσσεται Ἀτρεΐδαο,
ὁππότ᾽ ἂν ἡβήσῃ τε καὶ ἧς ἱμείρεται αἴης.
ὣς ἔφαθ᾽ Ἑρμείας, ἀλλ᾽ οὐ φρένας Αἰγίσθοιο
πεῖθ᾽ ἀγαθὰ φρονέων: νῦν δ᾽ ἁθρόα πάντ᾽ ἀπέτισεν."

The father of gods and mortals began to speak to them,
for he was remembering of the noble Aegisthus,
whom the far-famed Orestes, son of Agamemnon, killed.
Thinking of him now, he addressed the immortal gods:
“Ah for shame, how mortals put blame on the gods,
for they that evils come from us, but they themselves
have pain beyond measure by their own recklessness,
as even now Aegisthus, beyond what was given,
married the wife of Atreus’s son and killed him on his homecoming,
knowing it was sheer destruction, since we warned him beforehand,
having sent Hermes, the sharp-eyed slayer of Argos,
not to kill him nor marry his wife.
For vengeance would be coming upon him from Orestes, son of Atreus,
whenever he would grow up and yearn for his homeland.
Hermes told him, but he, though well-intentioned,
did not persuade the mind of Aegisthus. And now he has paid for everything."

Odyssey  1.28-4

This story, coming right after the proem, could not be more prominent. As the poet traces the ordeal of Odysseus, we are to keep the fate of Agamemnon in our minds, a dark foil for the happy reunion that Athena has arranged for Odysseus. Since we know the unhappy outcome of Agamemnon’s return to Argos, the story becomes a cautionary tale with troubling questions attached: Will Odysseus even make it back to Ithaka alive? If he does, what will he find there? Will Penelope have succumbed to the suitors and taken a new husband? Worse yet, will she help them to kill him? If so, will Telemachus have the desire to wreak vengeance on his father’s murderers? If so, will he be resourceful enough to do so? The answer to this last question seems still to be in doubt. The self-pitying side of Telemachus that we saw in Ithaka (2.70–81) resurfaces here: he admires Orestes’s retaliatory murder of Aegisthus but says he does not have the strength to emulate it. The gods have not decreed prosperity for him and his father, and they will simply have to accept their fate. Nestor and Athena try in vain to convince Telemachus to fight on, but he seems mired in despair. He asks for more details about the homecomings of Agamemnon and Menelaus.

Nestor’s response, an account of the treachery that led to Agamemnon’s death, builds on and expands the report we heard from Zeus in Book 1. Comparing the two passages can help us to see how the poet adapts the same story to a different context. In Zeus’s version, the emphasis is on Aegisthus as an arrogant, predatory male, as prelude to and cautionary tale for the suitors’ loutish pursuit of Penelope. Nestor’s account here adds details that expand the focus of the story in three ways:

1. Because the gods diverted him from his course, Menelaus was not in Argos when he might have saved his brother. Odysseus too will need the support of his family if he is to head off a rival from the usurping suitors.  He has no brother and his father, as we will learn in Book 11 (187–96), has already given up and moved to the countryside. Telemachus might fill one of two roles, then: rescuer of Penelope or avenging son.
2. While Nestor and the other Greek warriors were fighting at Troy, Aegisthus, εὔκηλος, (“at his leisure,” 263), stayed in Argos. The contrast between a relatively serene postwar society, where former soldiers recall their painful ten years at Troy, with the continuing battle of Odysseus to get home colors the portraits of life in Pylos and Sparta. The war is over for Nestor and Menelaus, but not for Odysseus.
3. Aegisthus is said to have stayed tucked away in Argos (μυχῷ, 263), “enchanting,” Clytemnestra (θέλγεσκ᾽, 254). Here a major theme is introduced. The noun μύχος means a “hidden place,” like the caves of nymphs, and θέλγω is the verb Homer uses for the magical enchantment that Calypso (1.57) and the Sirens (12.40, 47) practice on mortals. Aegisthus’s nefarious behavior carries a distinctively feminine fragrance, according to the assumptions about gender that inform early Greek poetry. But Odysseus himself can also “enchant” with his stories, (17.514), as we will see when, disguised as beggar, he wins over Penelope (19.165–219). Odysseus is called πολύτροπον, “versatile,” “making many turns” in the poem’s first verse. To triumph in Ithaka, he will need all his tricks, disguise, clever and deceptive speech, and perhaps, an enchantment the Greeks were more likely to associate with women than men.

Further Reading

Thalman, W. 1992. The Odyssey: an epic of return, 41–42. New York: Twayne Publishers.