“some of the words you’ll find within yourself, the rest some power will inspire you to say. You least of all — I know — were born and reared without the gods’ good will.”
Hello fellow-traveller,
Welcome to the Odyssey read-along. Here’s the schedule for you to navigate through this story.
This post, and the ones that will follow, are divided into sections so you can easily follow the text and re-read passages. It does not matter what translation you use — the lines should be the same, although translated differently.
This is the second post in the series, if you’re curious about what happened before, please feel free to read the previous week’s instalment.
In this journey, I am both an Odysseus and a Telemachus. I might get lost and get stuck on Calypso’s island, yet at the same time, like Telemachus, I need to awaken to act. These are the notes of a fellow-reader, not a scholar.
Later this month, I will also be publishing an interview about the Odyssey with Professor Emily Anhalt from Sarah Lawrence College on Genius & Ink.
I hope you will enjoy it.
This week’s journey (Summary) 🌊 :
Book 3: Telemachus arrives at Pylos and finds old Nestor presiding over a vast sacrifice on the beach — Nestor tells him of the quarrel between Agamemnon and Menelaus after the fall of Troy, and of the disastrous homecomings of many heroes — He has heard nothing of Odysseus — The ordered piety of Pylos stands in contrast to the disorder of Ithaca — Nestor sends Telemachus on to Sparta in his own son Pisistratus’s chariot
Book 4 Telemachus reaches the dazzling palace of Menelaus and Helen in Sparta — Menelaus weeps at the mention of Odysseus and speaks of his greatness — Helen tells of seeing Odysseus in disguise within the walls of Troy; Menelaus tells how Odysseus held the men silent inside the wooden horse — Menelaus recounts his own delay in Egypt and how he wrestled the shape-shifting sea-god Proteus, who told him that Odysseus lives, trapped on Calypso’s island — Back in Ithaca the suitors discover Telemachus has sailed and plot to murder him on his return
Proofread by Lisa Statler
BOOK THREE
I.
The entirety of human existence is chemistry. It is composed of different substances, feelings, emotions, thoughts, and aspirations, and combined with one another they produce a wave of results that at the end we call destiny.
This is also the central initiatory line of the Telemachy.
When they land on the shore of Pylos, Telemachus feels shy; he is afraid to approach Nestor and strike up a conversation. Athena’s response contains some of the most powerful words I have read in literature:
“Telemachus, some of the words you’ll find within yourself, the rest some power will inspire you to say. You least of all—I know—were born and reared without the gods’ good will”.
This is a remarkable insight into our essence, and one that my reader might have experienced personally. You may have an idea within your mind, yet it is only by putting those ideas into action that the truth is revealed.
Athena does not tell Telemachus that she will simply dictate his words for him; instead, she points inward. She suggests that without being pushed into the “arena,” you cannot discover your true potential.
Certain things are born within us, as she says, “some of the words you’ll find within yourself”, but others must come from an external source: “the rest some power will inspire you to say”.
This is the marriage between our inner world and the external world. This is precisely why I love the Greek mind: they understood that the world does not just live deep within our hearts to remain there. Instead, existence is always the marriage between the inner and the outer—the chemical reaction that unites them.
This shyness that Telemachus experiences here is different from modesty. Shyness is not a virtue but the paralysis of someone who has not yet inhabited their own identity. Athena’s push forward is the poem’s first true initiation to wisdom, which is not given from outside; it is discovered in the act of speaking.
II.
"More than all other men, that man was born for pain. Don't soften a thing, from pity, respect for me — tell me, clearly, all your eyes have witnessed."
We see this chemical reaction already in motion. How different Telemachus is now, standing on the shore of Pylos and about to address Nestor, compared to when we first met him. Then, he was a lonely boy sitting off to the side, surrounded by suitors who were destroying his own house, his palace, and his shelter. In those opening scenes, he was merely a daydreamer, imagining his father dropping from the clouds to drive the suitors out and regain his pride of place.
Now, we see an “upside-down” image of that young man. He addresses Nestor with full authority, giving his name, stating his mission, and asking for the unvarnished, pure truth about his father. Look at the weight of the words used here: he acknowledges that his father, more than all other men, was “born for pain”. He demands of Nestor: