Homer’sThe Odyssey

The sun climbs out of the sea and strikes the beaches of Pylos, where something extraordinary is happening. Four thousand five hundred men sit in nine companies on the sand, and each company has slaughtered nine bulls to Poseidon, lord of the sea. The thighbones burn. The fat crackles. The smoke rises in columns.

Into this scene sails Telemachus, with Athena still wearing the face of Mentor at his side. He has never been anywhere but Ithaca. He has never met a king who is not a ghost or a memory. Now he must walk up to one of the most famous warriors in the Greek world and ask for help.

He hesitates. What do I say? How do I begin? I am young, and he is old, and I have no practice at this.

Athena answers simply: some of it you will think of yourself, and some a god will put in your mind. You were not born and raised without the gods’ attention.

“Telemachus, you need not be shy. You sailed across the sea for this — to ask about your father. Go straight to Nestor. He will not lie to you.”

Nestor does not ask who they are. First he seats them on soft fleeces on the sand, gives them cuts of meat and pours them wine. Only after they have eaten does he ask their names. This is xenia — the sacred law of hospitality. You feed a stranger before you question him.

When Telemachus identifies himself, Nestor looks at him a long time. Your voice, he says. You speak just as he did. Then he tells his tale.

After Troy fell, the Greeks quarrelled. Menelaus wanted to sail at once. Agamemnon wanted to stay and sacrifice to Athena, to atone for Ajax’s crime in her temple. The army split in two — half sailed, half stayed. Nestor sailed with Menelaus. They parted at Lesbos. Nestor reached home safely. Menelaus was blown to Egypt. And Agamemnon — Agamemnon came home to the worst homecoming of all.

“His own wife’s lover was waiting. Aegisthus set a feast — and killed the king of Mycenae at his own table, like an ox at the manger.”

Of Odysseus, Nestor knows nothing. He last saw him at Troy. But he tells Telemachus to go to Sparta, to Menelaus, who wandered longest and heard the most. Arrange the events as Nestor told them.

It happens at dusk. Athena, still wearing Mentor’s shape, offers a prayer — and then simply leaves. But not on foot. Before their eyes, Mentor’s form blurs and lifts, and a great sea-eagle rises from the place where the old man stood, beats its wings twice, and is gone over the rooftops.

Silence. Then Nestor turns to Telemachus, and his old voice shakes. My friend, he says, you will be neither a coward nor a fool. You are young, and already the gods walk at your side. That was no mortal. That was Athena herself — the daughter of Zeus, who loved your father above all the Greeks.

Nestor immediately vows a sacrifice: a yearling heifer, broad-browed, unbroken, with gold laid on her horns. What would you do?

The next morning, Nestor has the heifer brought. A goldsmith lays beaten gold on its horns. The sacrifice is made in the courtyard, with the old king’s sons and daughters-in-law attending. It is a full royal ceremony — Nestor has decided that the child of Odysseus deserves nothing less.

Then Nestor does something shrewd. He will not let Telemachus sail to Sparta — the overland route is faster, and safer. Instead he gives him a chariot, fine horses, and his own youngest son, Peisistratus, as a companion and guide. Peisistratus is the same age as Telemachus. He is steady, good-natured, and brave. For the first time in the poem, Telemachus has a friend.

They ride south, past the wheat plains of Pylos, through the countryside, and as the sun sets they stop at Pherae for the night. At dawn they are off again, the horses eating the miles, until the hills of Lacedaemon rise before them and the palace of Menelaus and Helen comes into view.

“They held the reins and the horses flew, not unwilling, into the dusk. The sun went down and all the roads grew dark.”

Did you follow the voyage?

Five questions from the court of Nestor. Answer to see where each one leads.