Homer - The Odyssey - Episode 2 - Telemachus Begins The Journey To Manhood And Finding Odysseus! - a podcast by Christy and Garry Shriver

Homer - The Odyssey - Episode 2 - Telemachus Begins The Journey To Manhood And Finding Odysseus!

 

Hi, I’m Christy Shriver and we’re her to discuss books that have changed the world and have changed us. 

 

And I’m Garry Shriver, and this is the How to love lit podcast.  Today is our second episode covering the first and perhaps foremost author in what is often described as the Western Canon- Homer and his famous epic, The Odyssey.  Last week, we discussed a little of the historical context surrounding the mysterious origins of the story- the Bronze age, the Myceneans and the Trojan war.    But besides the origins of the stories, we also discussed the origins of Homer himself, if there was such a man.  It is thought that Homer lived 400 years after the timeframe of the settings of the stories he tells in his epics.  His version of The Odyssey was solidified in or around 750 BCE.  Tradition claims he was a blind bard who began this famous tale invoking the muse who had shared it with him, and within his stories the religion and cultural heritage of the Greeks has not only been preserved and passed down, but the tales have influenced the writing, thinking and worldviews of innumerable cultures around the world. Like most first book episodes, however, in episode 1 we didn’t get far into the story itself, we stayed in the opening of book 1.  At the beginning of book 1, we meet Homer himself invoking the Muse to tell us Odysseus’ story.  But then, the skies are opened before us and we are swiftly taken upward to the mighty Mt Olympus where we are privileged with a glimpse  inside a discussion between the gods where Zeus brings up Agamemnon’s son, Orestes, avenging his father’s murder by killing his own mother and her lover after they plotted and killed him on his return from Troy.  We are reminded by Zeus himself that men tend to blame the gods for everything that happens to them, but that there are many things that happen to us that are indeed our own fault.   Zeus talks about the case of Agamemnon’s son avenging his death as an example.  Following this, Athena brings up the case of Odysseus, the mortal she likes.  She requests Zeus’ permission and help to help bring Odysseus home, even though he has foolishly angered Zeus’ brother, Poseidon, god of the sea, by blinding one of his sons, the cyclops, Polyphemus.   

 

The Odyssey really has quite a complicated set up in some ways, and this week’s episode which will cover the Telemachy is really more set up before we even meet the namesake main character, Odysseus in book 5.   

 

There is a lot going on, there are a lot of Greek characters, a lot of backstory to explain why things are the way they are. Certainly a lot of intrigue and treachery has already taken place before we meet Odysseus on Ogygia’s island, and we learn a lot of this context in the Telemachy.   

 

 

True- the Telemachy or the first four books in the epic centers around Telemachus- and that is the name of Odysseus’ son.  Odysseus’ wife is named Penelope, and they had a son right before he had to leave against his will for the Trojan War.   The Odyssey opens with the story of Odysseus’ son, but here in the Telemachy we also meet Penelope.  We meet Eurycleia.  She’s a slave who has been a nurse for both Odysseus.  We meet Mentor.  It starts about a month before Odysseus arrives back in his homeland after his absences of 20 years.  In these first four books, we learn that Ithaca is in total chaos.  There is no leadership, no code of morality, no enforcer of the rules.   There has not been a assembly of the community in twenty years.  After the first four books of the Telemachy , the story switches over to Odysseus’ captivity in book 5, where Hermes arrives at Ogygia and tells Calypso she must let Odysseus get home explaining to the reluctant nympyh that it is not his fate to stay with her forever.  The story of Odysseus’ difficult journey from Calypso’s island is from books 5-9- the stories about his journey over the last 10 years are told in the context of a flashback.  In chapter 15, we resume the Telemachy, with Telemachus arriving back home, and then in Book 16 Telemachus and Odysseus reunite and from there the story takes a totally different direction as these two seek to restore order and justice to Ithaca.  So, yes, it’s slightly complicated.  But what do we expect from an epic!!!    

 

I think it’s likely that if you were Greek listening to this story being sung by Homer, himself, you already knew the stories at least in part, so the complicated plot line and characters weren’t confusing like they can be for us today. But even today, so many of us are familiar with many of these story lines from different places.  For example, just the name mentor- I’ve heard that word used all my life, but I didn’t know Mentor was the name of a man in the Odyssey who mentored Telemachus.  There’s a lot of references in pop culture to a lot that we’re reading- from the various gods that show up in movies, or monsters that have found their way in video games, or even just portions of the stories that have been told in things like cartoons.   Things like cyclops and sirens are a part of the culture of the world, and it seems I’ve always known what they were not necessarily knowing they came from The Odyssey.  For me, the best way to read this book, is not to try to keep track of all the names and characters.  It’s easy to get  lost in the details of the different digressions. I found that just reading through is the best plan- and if I forget who Mentes is or Eurymachus, I can still understand what’s happening in the story.  It doesn’t hurt the overall understanding if we don’t understand every detail of every story Menelaus, Nestor or Helen want to share with Telemachus.   

 

No, I agree, the main ideas are easy to follow.  For one reason and this was also one thing we talked about last week is how Homer pares down the complicated Greek pantheon of gods to a number small enough for us to manage, so the pantheon of gods isn’t what is going to confuse us.  Once you know who Athena, Zeus, Poseidon and Hermes are, you are pretty much good to go, and these we will learn in context. But another reason is because the focus isn’t on the gods it’s on the family- and even that is pared down.  We are concerned about Odysseus’ family.  The value and the place of the family is very important to Homer and to Greek culture.  Odysseus, as well as the other characters, but let’s focus on Odysseus, always identifies himself in relation to his family- his father, Laertes, his son, Telemachus,  and/ or his wife, Penelope.  Understanding what these basic family relationships mean is of great interest to Homer.  What does it mean to be a father, a son, a wife?  What do we do with these roles?  How do they form our identity? 

 

 So,the Telemachy which is the first four books of the Odyssey focuses on Telemachus as the starting point of the story, which is a little unusual.  Telemachus is not the protagonist of the Odyssey.  He’s also not very heroic, at least not as we think of Greek heroes.  In fact, a lot of literary critics absolutely reject Telemachus as anything but drain on Odysseus.  I am not going to see him like that.  I see Telemachus’ role as unique, for sure.  And, he definitely is not a returning hero like his future, but he is still the future- but it is a different future.  He is the future for Odysseus, the future for Ithaca and will have to be defined differently.  Whatever Odysseus is to be in this world after he returns from Troy, he will be it in the context of his family relationships- and when we see Odysseus on the island with Calypso, we see him understanding himself just in that way.  Calypso has offered him immortality, but it’s not what he wants.  As great as he is, as a hero, as a warrior, as a pirate, he is nothing alone, and so before we meet Odysseus in chapter five crying and groaning for home, we start by looking at Telemachus- the personification of Odysseus’ home.  One thing to notice about Telemachus as a character, and this is something I didn’t know until I researched him for this podcast, is that Telemachus is the ONLY character in Greek literature that is not a static character.   

 

Just as a refresher, let me remind everyone that Static characters are characters that don’t change in stories. The character traits that define them at the end of the story are the same as the ones in the beginning and usually the one that creates the tragedy.  We saw this in both Oedipus and Antigone.  No one in those stories is willing to change- hence the problem.  Dynamic characters are characters that are changed by the experiences of the story- either for the better or for the worse, so you’re saying that NO other characters besides Telemachus experience change over time or grow up? 

 

I’m not saying it.  Greek scholars CMH Millar and JWS Carmichael made that claim in the journal Greece and Rome, but yes- that’s it exactly.  Greeks are famous for their tragedies, but how the stories are set up with those chorus’ and all, it’s not designed for characters to develop inside the story- maybe between stories- Oedipus certainly changes between stories, but not within a story.  Telemachus is the only character where, the point of him is to see him change over time. So, whatever this change is, is obviously something very important to Homer.  And for Homer, the change is explicitly stated- it is not implied- it is absolutely stated through the various characters who will talk to Telemachus.  Homer is interested in showing us how a boy becomes a man.  Now, let me make the one obvious disclaimer, I am going to use gendered language because this is the way the ancient Greeks thought of this idea today we call coming of age- but please understand that this journey of self-discovery is not exclusively male – it’s not even exclusively a path from childhood to adulthood, although that’s always the language we employ and a good way of understanding this. 

 

No- I think psychologically speaking, we could say that many adults never arrive to this sense of  manhood if you want to use the gendered language of the Greeks.  What Homer is clearly talking about is that place in a life’s journey where any individual takes up the burden of personal responsibility- the transition from passive agent in one’s life to active agent.  This is something that we think of as being nurtured by parenting because role models are how we learn in this world.  But parenting is a luxury not everyone experiences.  What do you do if you have no healthy role models in your world for whatever reason?   And what if you do- is a privileged birth a guarantee of future success? What we can see clearly in the life of Telemachus, especially if you compare him with the suitors and other sons in the Telemachy is that nothing is guaranteed- regardless of your advantages or disadvantages.  This acceptance of personal responsibility that the Greeks are representing through this language of becoming a man is something that no one can do for anyone else-  either a person takes on the burden of responsibility for his or herself and the others who are in their orbit or a person doesn’t.  The suitors certainly think there is a shortcut to success, and so did the man who killed Agamemnon.    

 

But, the gods don’t allow these kinds of people to succeed ultimately- in the cases you just mentioned  both of these groups experience  the same fate- death.  Homer’s gods absolutely make sure everyone gets hit with something- not even King Menelaus himself, married to the most beautiful woman in the world escapes the twists and turns of fate thrown at them by the gods.  But as we are told in the first lines of the story- what we do with the circumstances we are given are in large part what will seal the outcome of our existences.   

 

And so the challenge of facing one individual’s particular fate is broken down by looking at the particular circumstances facing Telemachus at this particular age.  Most scholars suggest he is probably 20, but that’s not explicitly stated anywhere.  I think it’s also interesting to note that the things he has to deal with are tremendously difficult problems and they are also not his fault.  Telemachus knows this and does what most people at least want to do when we are faced with tremendously large and difficult problems that are not our fault.  We meet Telemachus in the beginning  casting blame and sulking.  He’s angry, but honestly it’s easy life.  He gets pushed around by people who have literally injected themselves into his world, and he just sits in a corner.  

 

 I find it interesting that at one point Telemachus even claims that he’s not even sure who his father is- even though- no one else seems to question this at all.  It’s that kind of ‘who am I’ that seems to be casting blame.  None of what we see in Telemachus here is very admirable or helpful.   Homer clearly illustrates the cost of doing nothing- regardless of the reason- and there are lots of good reasons to do nothing-  Telemachus has reasons to be intimidated.   He’s young, he’s outnumbered by men who are better trained, larger and older than he is.   He doesn’t have any personal strength of mind, but maybe not of body either. At least at this point in the story, we can’t be sure of how strong or smart he is.  He hasn’t done anything to show us one way or the other.   

 

Yes- and I’m glad you brought up strength of mind-  you have brought us exactly back to Athena- the goddess of wisdom.  That’s who Telemachus needs and that who comes to intervene on his behalf.  The best of us are the ones who are good at listening to Athena, and thinking of wisdom as a Greek goddess speaking in our ear- is a very lovely way to conceptualize this.  In this case, he will hear a little voice speaking to him from outside of himself.  It will be on him to decide whether or not to listen to the voice.  Let us jump into the story and see how Athena meets Telemachus in book 1.  One magical element of the story is that Athena is a shape-shifter.  She can appear to people as anything or anyone she wants and that is what she does.  She is going to approach Telemachus as an old family friend, a neighboring king, a man by the name of Mentes.  As Mentes, she enters his house.   

 

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Telemachus receives her/him well.  He gives him a seat of honor and tries to take care of the stranger.  It doesn’t appear that he knows him.   

 

No, and Athena, as Mentes, prophecies that his father will come home.  But Telemachus is despondent.  He’s bitter at what has happened.  He’s angry people have moved in and are taking over his home, siphoning off his wealth, and that his mother can’t seem to do anything about it.  But it never occurs to him that HE can do anything himself.  He dreams of the day when his father will come back, he also longs to be famous in his own right. He dreams, but he cannot conceive of taking initiative himself.  Athena, the voice of wisdom must awaken him.  Let’s read what she says in the person of Mentes 

 

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First of all, he must remember who he is.  He is a son- a member of a family, he has responsibility to himself, but also to his father dead or alive as well as his mother.  Athena charges him to take up that banner of responsibility, but then she gives him a very practical plan.  Do this 1) get a boat, 2) find some associates 3) go get some advice from older successful men.  Find out the status of your family.  After you have information as to your actual status, come back and take hold of your own life.   

 

It’s also interesting that she compares him to this other prince we’ve heard about from Zeus, Prince Orestes who killed Aegisthus, a different lord who had made a play on his birthright and had taken him down.  There is this idea that gods will help you, but it’s on you to take down your rivals.  Over the next three books, Telemachus kind of wakes up to this idea that nobody is coming- although in his case, someone IS coming, but Athena doesn’t let him know that.  

 

 He wakes up to his own independence- his separateness from his mother, his nurse, his mentor, even this father- he is going to become comfortable with his own personhood.  Leaving home was Athena’s strategy to enable this to happen in him.  He wakes up to a sense of responsibility- that it’s on him to make something happen but lastly, he also wakes up to the difficulties of his mother’s position.  He doesn’t come across as empathetic at first, but this changes as he himself matures and we see this in book 15- he moves to viewing his mother as a woman with complicated choices and respects what she’s managed to do and I, as a mom, appreciated this change in attitude, for sure. When Telemachus talks to his mom in book 1, and I know this is my own cultural understanding of a text of a different culture, but I was offended at how rude he appeared to me- more offended than Penelope was.  He bosses her around.  I want to read this, “So mother, go back to your quarters.  Tend to your own tasks, the distaff and the loom, and keep the women working hard as well.  As for giving orders, men will see to that, but I most of all: I hold the reins of power in this house.”  I would have wanted to say, young man, don’t talk to your mother like that.  But, her reaction is not one of offense, but the word the Fagles uses is “astonished”.  And she obeys him almost happy.  It says she took to heart “the clear good sense in what her son had said.”           

 

Well, I think she was astonished.  Here is this young man who has never taken agency in his life, and now he’s going to try to stand up to her and to the suitors.  She seems to be glad he’s at least owning the fact that he has responsibility in this household.  This is new.  In some ways, especially if you compare him to Orestes who is likely the same age as he is- that Telemachus might even be an embarrassment to her.  The suitors certainly have no respect for him.  In the very next paragraph it says they and I quote, “broke into uproar through the shadowed halls, all of them lifting prayers to lie beside her, share her bed.”  Penelope has been and IS  in real danger with no protection at all.  Now Telemachus tells the suitors to leave; they are amazed that he is willing to talk to them like that, even if they don’t show any signs of actually moving or conceding space.  Antinous says this, “I pray that Zeus will never make YOU king of Ithaca, though your father’s crown is no doubt yours by birth.”  In other words, I know this is your birth right but if you cannot claim it, you cannot have it.  The idea being, even if something is yours by birthright, it’s not really yours until you can claim it.    Leadership as we all know, is more than a position, there must be an element of person charisma that creates respect.  When someone is supposed to be charge who does have personal charisma and who cannot garner respect, someone else who does will snatch it regardless of who holds the official position.   

 

And that’s where we are in the story here in Book 1.  Telemachus should be a king, but he is trapped in a place where he can’t get anyone to respect him even if he wanted them to.  

 

According to Aristotle, albeit years later, one essential part of being a king or leader is the ability to dispense justice.  That is what kings do in the ancient world, and really that’s what good leadership is supposed to do to this day.  Telemachus has not done that up to this point; he has not been able to do that in any way for various reasons- and the reasons are understandable.  But that doesn’t matter.  He has not administered his properties; he is not administering justice in his realm of influence, and so Telemachus has no authority and his world has no harmony.  Until he can figure that piece out, he is not in charge, he is not a king.  And so the question the text brings up, is how can he do this?  And of course the first step is that he must realize it’s on him to do it.  Telemachus is going to have to construct his own authority in the eyes of those suitors. 

 

Well, that’s true, and honestly, he has to construct authority in the eyes of the reader of the text as well.  WE have to decide he’s worthy, especially after we see everything that Odysseus is and has been.  If Homer can convince us that Telemachus is worthy, then we can accept and even feel glee when we see what happens to the suitors at the end of the story.  It will feel like a king dispensing justice and not just vengeance.  That’s an important distinction.  Justice is for everyone; vengeance is personal.  And of course, at no time either in book 1 or in book 2 are we convinced that Telemachus is capable of of being a king.  In book 2, he calls an assembly together of all the Acheans.  This is a big deal.  No assembly has been called since Odysseus left twenty years before.   Everyone crowds around, the elders come in, Telemachus takes his father’s seat.  Nine speeches are given by various people, but on first pass nothing good comes out of any of this.  Telemachus is filled with anger, he complains about what they have done but ultimately he dashes the speaker’s scepter and bursts into tears.  None of that is great, but it IS a start.  The text says that everyone felt pity, but what does that do.  They just sat there in silence.  One of the suitors, Antinous, speaks up and basically says, well, it’s really your mother’s fault.  She won’t pick a new husband, but instead has tricked us.  She told us she would marry someone when she finished making this shroud for her father-in-law Laertes, but every day she weaved it and every night she unraveled her work, so that the shroud was never done.  This went on for three years. Antinous calls Penelope “matchless queen of cunning” which is quite the backhanded compliment, but ultimately, he is taking the focus away from Telemachus.  Telemachus appears to be a nothing here.  On the other hand, and let me ask this question, from a historical perspective,  I never really have understood why Penelope had to get married.  Why couldn’t she just be the queen?   

 

Well, I’m not totally sure, remember this culture is mysterious.  One idea might be that warring and pirating is such a key component of the culture, so as not have a warrior as the head would leave a kingdom vulnerable to invaders- that may be one idea.  But, I will say, just in general, that it’s important to understand that every single character in this story is an aristocrat.  These are not common people.  They are rulers, and in the world of aristocrats, and this is not just in Greek culture, but all cultures to this day, if we’re honest, people put a lot of effort in planning and selecting marriages.  Social interchange between families creates links of union and interdependence that are the hallmark of the history of humanity as a whole.  So, in that sense, marriage is a political and economic game that can be won or lost.  Men compete- and this is no more obvious than with this actual game we will see being played by these suitors.  I think it’s important to note that all of these suitors come from good aristocratic families.  These are not beggars or miscreants that are moving in on her.  They are Greece’s finest, so to speak, men who feel like they can compete and deserve to be a king.  What is a little difficult to understand here is who is supposed to be responsible for the choice of Penelope’s next husband, and we see different answers depending on who’s talking here. Athena tells Telemachus to send his mother back to her father and to let her father make this choice.   Antinous says something similar, but if Antinous sends Penelope back, the he’s the one in charge, not Telemachus.  If she goes back because Antinous told her to, basically the suitors have already seized authority over Penelope in making this decision for her and taking it away from Telemachus.  What we can say for sure, is there is a power vacuum in Ithaca- Telemachus may have the position of leadership because of his birthright, but he doesn’t possess the charisma or the moral authority at this point to exercise any leadership and be listened to.  He is ignored and irrelevant.   

 

That is the point of his own Odyssey.  And I think that’s the whole idea that people have intuitively understood.  The first step in manhood and I’ll use the gendered language of the Greeks, the first step to growing up is understanding that you have to do something and if you don’t- others will swoop in and make those decisions for you, but the decisions others make likely will not be in your best interest.   Even if you start out disadvantaged, just as Telemachus is starting here, there are things you can do to help yourself.  For Telemachus, that’s what he gets from listening to the goddess Athena and discerning her words of wisdom.  He gets up, calls an assembly, announces his plan.  He heard Mentes and figured out that those were words he should be listening to- they were the words of the goddess Athena.  But after listening, he still has to make a choice, he has to actually pick up and do what Athena told him to.  And he does.  He goes to the storehouse, collects goods for the trip, he talks to his nanny and tells her to not tell his mom for at least 10 maybe 12 days,  and he even faces down the suitors, clearly establishing to their faces that he views them as enemies.  He calls out the game.  And let me further note, as soon as he starts moving, Athena also engaged the world and pushed others to help him.  She also drugs the suitors so he can get out without being challenged.   

 

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 And off he goes first in book 3 and then in book 4 to older wiser men- King Nestor at Pylos and then King Menelaus at Sparta.  One interesting little side-bar is that scholars really do not agree  as to what he gets out of this trip if anything.  For sure, he doesn’t get what he sets out to get.  He doesn’t find his father.  They also don’t agree on how long he was gone.  Homer in a couple of places implies he’s only there a couple of days, but in other places, and if you match up Telemachus leaving Ithaca with Odysseus leasing Ogygia, he would need to have been gone about a month.  

 

 I think the month idea makes more sense especially if you think about the changes that occur in Telemachus while he’s gone. 

 

Well, I agree.  Also there’s that detail that the nurse was told not to tell her for 10-12 days, so that’s another hint, that Homer understands and expects his audience to understand Telemachus is gone longer than a couple of days.  Anyway, I’m not sure it matters a whole lot- the transformation is the transformation and the reunion on the other side will be the reunion on the other side.  In Pylos, he meets Nestor’s son, Peisistratus, who has had a much more normal upbringing than Telemachus had. Pylos is kind of the example of family that has gone right.  Nestor, even in the Iliad is kind of portrayed as a wise counselor who gives speeches and advice.  Although it has been pointed out that at no time does Telemachus ask their opinion on what he should do.  He seems to be interested just in learning about the past, who his father way, how things have worked. 

 

And he learns a lot about that.   Nestor talks  a lot about what happened at Troy- things I didn’t know.  He talks about Achilles and Patroclus, about Ajax, King Priam and the role Odysseus played in the war.  He also tells Telemachus about his own journey home, and we revisit again this story about Agamemnon being murdered by his friend and Orestes murdering his father’s murderer as well as his own mother.   

 

To which I notice Telemachus said, “If only the gods would arm me in such power I’d take revenge on the lawless, brazen suitors.”  Basically, saying, I wish I were like that guy.   It’s very obvious that Telemachus doesn’t know how to act in this world and that is exactly why Athena sent him out.  Ithaca is not the world of Pylos or Sparta.  In fact, it’s very different, but there are things to learn.  He learns by listening to how other men act and how he they interact with each other.  He learns how to conduct himself religiously, too.  How do I stay out of trouble with the gods.  The day after the big banquet Nestor throws, Nestor sends his youngest daughter Polyoaste to give Telemachus a bath.  There are those who suggest this detail of the bath is designed to express some sort of a baptism, if you want to see it that way.  Telemachus emerges and I quote, “looking like a god”.  I don’t know if that’s a stretch- sometimes literary people can stretch stuff.   

 

Maybe a bath is just a bath, 

 

yes or maybe it IS a baptism.  Who knows.  What we do know for sure is that Nestor sees something great in Telemachus, something the suitors haven’t seen.  Nestor sees leadership, something, we as readers haven’t seen either and Telemachus responds to this.  Nestor gives him horses, a chariot and sends him off with his own son to Sparta.  In Sparta, we are going to assume he stays for about a month, he will see and experience the life of the most successful man in Greece, Menelaus, husband to Queen Helen, the woman who started the Trojan war.  Telemachus is overwhelmed by the amazing opulence of this environment.  He’s never seen anything like this before.  In terms of wealth, this is the ultimate.   

 

The main takeaway from my perspective for Telemachus is comparing how Menelaus conducts affairs successfully and we can compare this to how things are going in Ithaca.  If we think about the last conversation Telemachus had about his mother not getting married, how interesting that we see Menelaus conducting not one but two marriages- and not even his child through his wife.  Menelaus is creating that most political of arrangements- marriages- two of them.  WE can already see that Telemachus is less awkward meeting Menelaus than he was meeting Nestor, even though this stage is even bigger.  He’s speaking is more controlled and more confident to the point that when Menelaus offers him three horses, and he actually declines because horses are impractical in Ithaca.  In other words, this version of Telemachus can engage a great man like Menelaus as an equal.   

 

Or man to man- to use a gendered expression- and this really impresses Menelaus.  WE don’t know what all happens in Sparta really.  We do get to hear Helen’s side of the Trojan war story, which I found really interesting, but we don’t really have time to get into that- suffice it to say, it’s not her fault.  The main takeaway is that by the time Telemachus leaves Menelaus which isn’t until book 15, he’s ready to go home.  The Telamachy won’t pick up again until book 15 when Athena sends him home.  But by book 15, Telemachus is aware of his responsibilities, and we see this new Telemachus- Telemachus 2.0 as a man of action.  I know it’s getting a head in the story if we look by chapters, but by book 15, Telemachus is going to offer political asylum to a wanted murderer in Ithaca.  This is stepping out in the realm of administering justice.  The man’s name is Theoclymenus.   Theoclymenus is a prophet and interprets for Telemachus and omen of a hawk who is appearing on the right with a dove in its talons.  He correctly predicts that “no family in Ithaca is kinglier than yours; you will have power forever.”  That’s always a nice thing to say.   

 

And so, there we go, now Telemachus is set up for the confrontation, now we just need to get Odysseus home.   

 

Yes- and that is what books 5-8 are about as well.  Odysseus also must find his way to those sandy shores- but before he does, he’s going to tell the King who will take him how he ever got himself in the mess he did.  And next episode, we’ll listen in and find out why you should never expect a Christmas party invite from a cyclops.  There’s the tip for the day.   

 

Ha!  Well, I’ll keep my hopes down on that score.  Thank you for listening.  If you are enjoying this series on Homer and the Odyssey, please remember to give us a rating on your podcast ap.  And of course, share an episode with a friend.  Also, don’t hesitate to connect with us via email, our website www.howtolovelitpodcast.com, Instagram, Facebook, linked in or any other social media ap you use.   And if you are listening to this in real time, we hope you are getting off to a great start in this year 2022. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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