Book 1: A Goddess Intervenes

Guest Blogger Telémakhos, son of Odysseus
I was overwhelmed by the suitor’s in our house. How dare they? These suitors enrage me, all claiming they will win my mother when she is already married. My father has been gone for many years but I do not believe King Odysseus is dead. He must be merely delayed, as our visitor, Mentês, said. He told me he was an old friend of my father’s but I secretly believe my guest was immortal. Mentês gave me specific instructions to call an assembly of the islanders to send the suitors home and then travel to Sparta to speak to Meneláos for he is the last man home of all the Akhaians and he may have news of my father. I felt so lost and confused; I don’t know whether my own father is dead or alive. Of course I’d like to think he is, but living each day with such uncertainty is hard. However, I think things will get better when I follow our guest’s advice. It’s the only path I have.

Odysseus
My poor son, he has no father to guide him and I must say he is rather lost without me. A boy needs a father to show him how to be a man. If Athena had not intervened, Telémakhos may have been content to stay in the warm, protecting blanket of childhood forever. He had accepted that there was nothing he could do to find or help me. If only I were there I could teach him that crossing frontiers is hard, but necessary. It’s the only way we learn and grow. And Telémakhos has a lot of learning and growing to do if he ever hopes to be a good king.

Father and son relationships, of course, continue to be important into this century! However, in this instance, the father and son are usually separated by the father’s economic goals rather than the fact that someone *cough* *Poseidon* *cough* won’t let the father sail home. http://psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-19930901-000031.html