1 00:00:04,079 --> 00:00:09,088 In Books I through IV of Homer's Epic, we're gonna see the story unfold according 2 00:00:09,088 --> 00:00:13,087 to the thread of Telemachus. He's gonna pull us through the different 3 00:00:14,005 --> 00:00:17,069 twists and turns of the plot to get us started on the story. 4 00:00:17,086 --> 00:00:22,020 We're gonna learn about Odysseus and his house, about Ithaca, about Penelope, 5 00:00:22,020 --> 00:00:26,088 mostly through the eyes of Telemachus. We're gonna learn about what it is to be a 6 00:00:26,088 --> 00:00:30,076 Greek hero through Telemachus's representation, but most of what 7 00:00:30,076 --> 00:00:35,021 Telemachus is gonna teach us about hero-ness is gonna come in a negative way. 8 00:00:35,021 --> 00:00:38,079 Telemachus is a young man, and he's not quite ready to step up into 9 00:00:38,079 --> 00:00:44,046 the hero role that we're going to see his father has been executing out there in the 10 00:00:44,046 --> 00:00:49,003 wider world for his adult life. Telemachus is indeed a young man. 11 00:00:49,003 --> 00:00:53,060 He's twenty years old. His father's been gone for ten years of 12 00:00:53,060 --> 00:00:57,034 of fighting and ten years of wandering. Not quite back yet. 13 00:00:57,034 --> 00:01:01,014 So he's a young man. And surely by the standards of our day 14 00:01:01,014 --> 00:01:05,007 that would count as a youth. Now in the Greek take on things though 15 00:01:05,007 --> 00:01:09,012 twenty is plenty old enough to be out there taking some action. 16 00:01:09,012 --> 00:01:12,079 In fact, the great Greek warriors who become grand heroes 17 00:01:12,079 --> 00:01:16,070 get started on things at about that age, or a little bit younger. 18 00:01:16,070 --> 00:01:20,065 Achilles was off conquering whole swatches of territory at this age. 19 00:01:20,082 --> 00:01:25,585 Twenty is plenty old enough to step up and get things done, but Telemachus is just not quite 20 00:01:25,585 --> 00:01:28,073 there yet. Now when we need him, we need him in 21 00:01:28,073 --> 00:01:31,019 repose. He's in a reclining kind of position. 22 00:01:31,035 --> 00:01:35,497 In this sort you can imagine a kind of silk like form that he has. 23 00:01:35,497 --> 00:01:39,731 This is David's representation of him filtered through the Renaissance. 24 00:01:39,731 --> 00:01:44,213 But truly captured something of what Homer had in mind with this figure Telemachus. 25 00:01:44,213 --> 00:01:52,299 Young man not quite ready to take action and in this feeling of kind of languor over 26 00:01:52,299 --> 00:01:57,352 the situation. When we meet Telemachus, he is in a 27 00:01:57,352 --> 00:02:00,396 strange situation. He is daydreaming. 28 00:02:00,396 --> 00:02:05,526 We, we have Athena come up and make contact with him, she's in disguise; makes 29 00:02:05,526 --> 00:02:10,359 contact with him and then we jump in, the narrative jumps into Telemachus's head. 30 00:02:10,359 --> 00:02:14,064 He could almost see his magnificent father here in the minds eye. 31 00:02:14,064 --> 00:02:19,166 If only he might drop from the clouds and drive these suitors all in a route 32 00:02:19,166 --> 00:02:24,591 throughout the halls. So Telemachus is just waiting for something, like a miracle to 33 00:02:24,591 --> 00:02:28,014 happen, right? Well, you know, chances are his father is 34 00:02:28,014 --> 00:02:32,020 not gonna just drop from the clouds and take care of things. 35 00:02:32,039 --> 00:02:37,087 So he's waiting for something impossible and that's just not, sort of, natural hero 36 00:02:37,087 --> 00:02:42,006 stuff to have happen. Instead, if something's going wrong and a 37 00:02:42,006 --> 00:02:45,048 hero is around. A hero is gonna take care of business. 38 00:02:45,068 --> 00:02:49,054 Heroes take things into their own hands and get things done. 39 00:02:49,074 --> 00:02:54,428 Telemachus is not quite ready for that. Instead what he typically does is blame 40 00:02:54,428 --> 00:02:59,748 the gods, blame the situation, blame fate, blame others, but especially he blames the 41 00:02:59,748 --> 00:03:03,073 gods. Take a look at what he does on page 85 42 00:03:03,073 --> 00:03:06,677 shortly after we meet him. Page 85 in Fagles's translation. 43 00:03:06,677 --> 00:03:11,839 Once we were a wealthy house now the gods have reversed have reversed our fortunes 44 00:03:11,839 --> 00:03:15,208 with a vengeance. The gods have invented other 45 00:03:15,208 --> 00:03:20,332 miseries to plague me as well. So Telemachus blames what's happening on 46 00:03:20,332 --> 00:03:21,683 the gods. Well, sure 47 00:03:21,683 --> 00:03:26,240 from this we can understand that the Greeks did have a very broad understanding 48 00:03:26,240 --> 00:03:29,958 of divine involvement in the world. And it might make perfect sense for 49 00:03:29,958 --> 00:03:33,433 someone to turn around and say it's, you know, the gods' fault. 50 00:03:33,433 --> 00:03:36,628 They're controlling things in a certain way, right? 51 00:03:36,628 --> 00:03:41,789 Take a look at another example of this, pages 88 and 89. Telemachus jumps in, at a moment in 52 00:03:41,789 --> 00:03:45,057 the conversation. Penelope has just come down, from her 53 00:03:45,057 --> 00:03:50,724 chambers, she hears Phemius the bard singing tales of homecomings of the great heroes coming 54 00:03:50,724 --> 00:03:53,052 back from Troy. Recall what we're reading here. 55 00:03:53,070 --> 00:03:57,028 Homer's Odyssey is itself one of these kind of homecomings. 56 00:03:57,028 --> 00:04:00,002 So Phemius's for us, doing within the Odyssey. 57 00:04:00,002 --> 00:04:04,092 A kind of Odyssey taking about homecomings of the great heroes from Troy. 58 00:04:04,092 --> 00:04:10,027 When Penelope hears this, she's sad, she wishes that Phemius would stop, and says "oh 59 00:04:10,027 --> 00:04:16,276 please poet relent, don't do this." At which point Telemachus jumps in and says "mother that's 60 00:04:16,276 --> 00:04:21,231 actually not fair, you shouldn't be blaming Phemius the bard, because bards are not to 61 00:04:21,231 --> 00:04:26,442 blame." He says, pages 88 and 89, "Zeus is to blame. He deals tp each and every 62 00:04:26,442 --> 00:04:31,512 laborer on this earth whatever doom he pleases." Now heroes typically don't jump 63 00:04:31,512 --> 00:04:36,490 in with this kind of fatalistic talk. Yes, indeed it's true the gods are busy, 64 00:04:36,490 --> 00:04:39,772 the gods are active, the gods are engaged in the world. 65 00:04:39,772 --> 00:04:43,806 But they don't typically blame the gods for all the things that go on in the 66 00:04:43,806 --> 00:04:47,170 world. When they reference that kind of aspect of 67 00:04:47,170 --> 00:04:51,001 things, it'll be a different, something else is going on in a hero's mind. 68 00:04:51,001 --> 00:04:55,692 And, if some nasty stuff is happening right in a hero's face, the hero doesn't 69 00:04:55,692 --> 00:05:00,111 say, oh, there's nothing I can do, and just step back and say, the gods must be 70 00:05:00,111 --> 00:05:04,248 in control of it, so, instead, I'm gonna sit back powerless, and withdraw. 71 00:05:04,248 --> 00:05:09,748 They don't take divine involvement in the world as a way to sit back and exonerate 72 00:05:09,748 --> 00:05:13,585 themselves from action that they're responsible for taking. 73 00:05:13,585 --> 00:05:17,571 Heroes always jump in and try to take action as best they can. 74 00:05:17,571 --> 00:05:22,356 There is a kind of double determination that's at work in the Homeric world. 75 00:05:22,356 --> 00:05:27,499 It's a certain kind of determinism if Zeus declares something, yes indeed it's going 76 00:05:27,499 --> 00:05:31,492 to happen. If the gods are involved in it they're 77 00:05:31,492 --> 00:05:36,754 much stronger than here than we mortals, so they're gonna kinda make stuff happen, 78 00:05:36,754 --> 00:05:40,383 but that determinism doesn't turn. Into a kind of fatalism. 79 00:05:40,383 --> 00:05:44,507 At least in the heroes minds. Fatalism is a discussion of the weak and 80 00:05:44,507 --> 00:05:47,809 in this case Telemachus is expressing that weakness. 81 00:05:47,809 --> 00:05:53,501 Whereas what a hero does is step up and say, yes, great things happen by the Gods, 82 00:05:53,501 --> 00:05:58,942 and now, Gods, use my hands as instruments to execute your will and the fate of what's 83 00:05:58,942 --> 00:06:02,834 about to happen. The heroes assume that they are powerful 84 00:06:02,834 --> 00:06:07,388 cogs in the machineries of fate. And their hands are what's going to bring 85 00:06:07,388 --> 00:06:10,618 the fated outcome to fruition. They need to be involved. 86 00:06:10,618 --> 00:06:14,547 They need to be engaged. The more engaged the more heroic. 87 00:06:14,547 --> 00:06:19,180 The less engaged the less heroic. So, Telemachus is giving us a side, the 88 00:06:19,180 --> 00:06:23,706 less heroic version of this here. As if we needed more proof on this, we'll 89 00:06:23,706 --> 00:06:28,815 see lots of examples when we come to Odysseus, of him acting in this kind of a 90 00:06:28,815 --> 00:06:31,914 way. But take a look at the very beginning of 91 00:06:31,914 --> 00:06:34,758 the epic on page 78 of Fagles' translation. 92 00:06:34,758 --> 00:06:39,998 Within the first 100 lines, Zeus himself chimes in on this particular issue and 93 00:06:39,998 --> 00:06:43,908 says, how shameless the way these mortals blame the gods. 94 00:06:43,908 --> 00:06:46,829 From us alone they say come all their miseries. 95 00:06:46,829 --> 00:06:50,782 Yes, but they, themselves, with their own reckless ways. 96 00:06:50,782 --> 00:06:53,341 Compound their pains beyond their proper share. 97 00:06:53,341 --> 00:06:57,623 So Zeus is saying, you human beings. Sure, we're in charge of stuff, we run 98 00:06:57,623 --> 00:06:59,997 stuff. But you have to stop being reckless. 99 00:06:59,997 --> 00:07:03,617 And you've gotta get engaged, and take care of business yourself. 100 00:07:03,617 --> 00:07:07,675 Don't just sit back and blame us for all the bad things that happen. 101 00:07:07,675 --> 00:07:12,532 Now, when Telemachus needs to make this turn from the kind of a person that sits 102 00:07:12,532 --> 00:07:15,906 back and lets bad things happen, and feels bad for himself. 103 00:07:15,906 --> 00:07:20,728 To the kind of person more like Odysseus who takes action, and gets, gets things 104 00:07:20,728 --> 00:07:23,180 done. He's gonna need some guidance. 105 00:07:23,180 --> 00:07:27,063 He's gonna need some help. The help Telemachus is gonna get is gonna 106 00:07:27,063 --> 00:07:30,006 come in this figure of Athena, disguised usually as Mentor. 107 00:07:30,006 --> 00:07:32,953 When she's, the senior person helping Telemachus around. 108 00:07:32,953 --> 00:07:37,485 You'll see in the very, First time we see her in Book I, she's actually in the, in 109 00:07:37,485 --> 00:07:40,955 the figure of Mentes, another, elder figure who shows up, but 110 00:07:40,955 --> 00:07:44,113 typically as a Mentor. And for some of you out there who are 111 00:07:44,113 --> 00:07:48,493 saying, wait a minute, does that have anything to do with the English word. 112 00:07:48,493 --> 00:07:53,067 "mentor", from which we get a noun and a verb, mentoring, to bring someone along. 113 00:07:53,067 --> 00:07:57,010 Yes, indeed, it does. The English word is just drawn directly 114 00:07:57,010 --> 00:08:02,543 from the Greek proper name and it becomes a very, well, prominent word, even in a 115 00:08:02,543 --> 00:08:06,901 contemporary discourse. So, Athena, in this disguise as mentor, 116 00:08:06,901 --> 00:08:11,170 leads Telemechus along and brings him on a, a, on a kind of. 117 00:08:11,170 --> 00:08:16,074 A journey literal as well as figurative in order that he can grow up. 118 00:08:16,074 --> 00:08:21,471 That kind of back-and-forth starts to happen in Book I as Athena jumps in and 119 00:08:21,471 --> 00:08:25,545 starts to help our youth, Telemachus along and she brings him 120 00:08:25,545 --> 00:08:30,337 through the things that he needs to, to, to, to do in order to gain these new 121 00:08:30,337 --> 00:08:33,275 capacities. To gain this new perspective. 122 00:08:33,275 --> 00:08:37,483 Just really to grow up. We're gonna see Telemachus's travels 123 00:08:37,483 --> 00:08:42,297 in our next book but in closing things off lets take an example of the old 124 00:08:42,297 --> 00:08:46,039 Telemachus, the early Telemachus. As he shows 125 00:08:46,039 --> 00:08:50,526 up Book I we see him feeling sorry for himself and daydreaming. 126 00:08:50,526 --> 00:08:55,723 Athena comes along and kind of gets him going, but she does then help him, nudge him into 127 00:08:55,723 --> 00:08:59,295 taking some action. So at the close of Book I he decides 128 00:08:59,295 --> 00:09:04,239 he's going to call an assembly. Opening of Book II he does call the 129 00:09:04,239 --> 00:09:07,368 assembly. When he does it's a pretty sad result. 130 00:09:07,368 --> 00:09:12,491 He brings all the people together and says "Oh. You, suitors, I've had it up to here 131 00:09:12,491 --> 00:09:15,521 with you." And he gesticulates and gets angry and 132 00:09:15,521 --> 00:09:18,586 fulminates and says that he, this all has to stop. 133 00:09:18,586 --> 00:09:23,239 At which point, what happens, his reaction in the crowd of the people who are 134 00:09:23,239 --> 00:09:25,711 violating him. They all feel sorry for him. 135 00:09:25,711 --> 00:09:29,926 They pat him on the head and they say aw, so sorry Telemachus we, you know, were 136 00:09:29,926 --> 00:09:34,134 eating you out of house and home I can see how that makes you sad but really don't 137 00:09:34,134 --> 00:09:38,240 blame us you should blame your mother. So they pass the buck and talk about as if 138 00:09:38,240 --> 00:09:41,072 there is some abstract thing that is hurting Telemachus. 139 00:09:41,072 --> 00:09:44,936 Don't take responsibility and they, and they surely don't engage Telemachus' 140 00:09:44,936 --> 00:09:47,904 attempt to engage them. So Telemachus is not quite ready. 141 00:09:47,904 --> 00:09:51,844 He does the right thing by calling the assembly, but he doesn't quite have the, 142 00:09:51,844 --> 00:09:54,508 heft. In, within his society to pull this off. 143 00:09:54,508 --> 00:09:59,643 Pity is not what you want to have happen when you come out and read a bunch of 144 00:09:59,643 --> 00:10:02,816 people the riot act. Instead, you're looking for something 145 00:10:02,816 --> 00:10:06,006 else. We're gonna see that something else get 146 00:10:06,006 --> 00:10:10,786 stirred up in the suitors, but it's gonna take a number of books before we get 147 00:10:10,786 --> 00:10:13,466 there. Once we do, those poor suitors, we, we 148 00:10:13,466 --> 00:10:18,403 might start to feel a little sorry for them instead of them pitying Telemachus. 149 00:10:18,403 --> 00:10:21,806 Next what we're gonna see is Telemachus off on his journey. 150 00:10:21,806 --> 00:10:24,037 We'll talk about that in the next lecture.