Blogging The Odyssey: Part 2 (The One Where We Find Out What the Hell Even Happened to Odysseus)

In case you missed it, I’m Elodie and I’m blogging The Odyssey, a book that is very heavy. Guys, it’s so heavy. I have dainty spaghetti arms and no upper arm strength. I am Suffering.

Luckily for you, however, you don’t have to lug this book around; you can leave it in your bedroom, or your locker, or your underground witch dungeon (I don’t know where you keep your books), because I’ll be summarizing the boring stuff with hilarious quips and recycled memes. Let’s go!

BOOK 3: King Nestor Remembers

If Telemachus and Athena are ever going to find Odysseus, they’ll need to do some serious sleuthing. They visit King Nestor, who fought alongside Odysseus during the Trojan War. Telemachus asks Nestor where Odysseus might be, and Nestor begins what will become a trend of people telling us instead where Odysseus is not. He says what amounts to “Your father is not here, Telemachus. He is also not in any of these other places. Presumably, however, he is somewhere. Maybe the afterlife. He could be dead, I don’t know.”

Nestor tells us about the war. He drops some pretty heavy names, like Achilles, greatest of the Greeks, and Ajax, the other greatest of the Greeks. Kind of seems like they’ll just let anyone be the greatest of the Greeks, doesn’t it? He also mentions Diomedes, breaker of horses, which is weird, because we’re told Nestor is also the breaker of horses.

Sidebar: this is the problem with ancient honor culture. There are only so many epithets you can dish out before you have to start recycling old ones. It would be like:

• Harry Potter being The Boy Who Lived, but Cormac McLaggen also being The Boy Who Lived
• Daenerys Targaryen is the Mother of Dragons, but so is Petyr Baelish
• We’ve got Katniss, The Girl on Fire. There’s also Peeta, the other Girl on Fire

But I digress. Anyway, we’re told that the two brothers who won the war, Menelaus and Agamemnon, decided to split up after it was over. Menelaus took back his wife (you know her as Helen of Troy), and they got the hell out of Dodge; Agamemnon, however, stayed behind on the shores of Troy to do an extra day of worshipping. Our boy Nestor, breaker of at least a handful of horses, went with Menelaus; Odysseus remained with Agamemnon.

“Okay,” you might say. “Now we’re getting somewhere. So what happened to Agamemnon?”

“Good question,” Nestor might respond. “Allow me to go off on an unrelated tangent and we’ll circle back to this topic in roughly twelve hours.”

Turns out, Agamemnon is dead. He was stabbed by a man who seduced his wife and stole his entire kingdom while Agamemnon was off fighting in the Trojan War. Agamemnon’s son later killed the guy in revenge.

Nestor says, “Are you hearing me, Telemachus? He killed the guy. The guy who stole his dad’s kingdom. Just straight-up murdered him, with a sword. Now, can we think of anyone else who’s lost a kingdom? Anyone at all? Anyone who owns a sword?”

He really wants Telemachus to go back home and kill the suitors who are lusting after his mother. Telemachus thinks it over but decides to table the discussion of murder, at least for now. As he’s leaving, Nestor’s daughter oils him down and slaps a gold cape on him for good measure. This seems really forward, at least to me, but maybe this is why I can’t get a date.

BOOK 4: The King and Queen of Sparta

Telemachus and Athena travel to Sparta to speak with Menelaus, who was the last one to see Odysseus and his crew alive. They’re oiled down again, because sure.

When they arrive, it’s to see that Menelaus and Helen are celebrating the marriages of their son and daughter. I know what you’re thinking, but it’s definitely different marriages to different people and NOT to each other. I’m pretty sure about this. I’ve now re-read the passage several times specifically for this purpose.

Menelaus proceeds to talk our collective ears off with his personal anecdotes. I see now why Helen originally left him to be with Paris, and it’s not just because Paris was young and hot and Menelaus is old and dusty. His stories are How I Met Your Mother levels of excessive and long-winded—basically it’s How I Got Salty Because Your Mother Left Me So I Started the Trojan War.

Example: there’s this whole thing where Menelaus was shipwrecked on an island and had to trick one of the sea gods, Proteus, into helping him escape, even though Proteus could turn into a leopard and also a tree. We’re just going to skip that part entirely, because I care about you guys. You’re welcome.

Menelaus tells us that many, many heroes (like, a ridiculous amount of them) died during the war—like Hector, yet another breaker of horses, as well as Achilles and his boyfriend Patroclus. But a lot of important deaths actually happened in the aftermath of the war, too. Agamemnon, for instance. Also Ajax, who made it home but said “TAKE THAT, GODS” like an idiot, at which point Poseidon had him soundly murdered for his hubris.

Odysseus, however? Not one of those guys. Menelaus tells us that the last he heard of Odysseus, he’d been kidnapped by the nymph, Calypso, on a desert island and was presumably still there to this day. I have no idea why he’s been sitting on this information for ten years, but probably I just need to stop asking stupid questions.

With that, Telemachus has what he came for: the knowledge that Odysseus is still alive. Now he can tell all those sex-crazed interlopers currently courting his mother to GTFO.

Meanwhile, back in Ithaca, the aforementioned sex-crazed interlopers have realized Telemachus is gone. It’s weird, because someone saw him leaving with Mentor a few days ago, only someone else saw Mentor just yesterday! Almost like the first guy wasn’t Mentor! Almost like it was a goddess running around in a Mentor man-suit! Since they now know Telemachus has a goddess on his side, you’d think the suitors would take the hint and not murder him, lest they meet a horrible, gods-related end like Ajax or Achilles or any number of other well-oiled Greek men. Alas, they do not take the hint. Instead, they sit around plotting to kill him the second his boat hits the shore.

Penelope learns that Telemachus has left home, and she panics. She’s already lost her husband, and now her son will probably die at sea as well. Athena comes to her in some bonkers hallucination and tells her not to worry; Telemachus will be fine, probably. Penelope asks if the goddess can tell her anything about Odysseus, but Athena says, “No spoilers.”

Discussion questions:

1. It’s been ten whole years since anyone’s seen Odysseus, and they’re all still like, “ODYSSEUS? BEST MAN I EVER KNEW.” Is this realistic? For comparisons’ sake, there are people I haven’t seen in three months whose faces I can barely remember and who are, essentially, dead to me.
2. Discuss the theme of revenge.
3. What would be your epithet? Mine would be Elodie the Great, or maybe Elodie the Valkyrie, although if we’ve learned anything it’s that the guy who break-dances for nickels at the bus stop is probably already Stan the Valkyrie.

Image credit: CBS.

Looking for the rest of our Blogging the Classics series? Check it out here! For all of Blogging The Odyssey, click here!