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Summary
Chapter 20
Circe understands that she must let Telegonus go to Ithaca, but she tells him he must wait two days because there are three tasks that must be completed before he can leave. First, Circe casts protection spells over Telegonus’s boat. Second, they have a long conversation in which Circe gives a lot of information to Telegonus. She goes over the route with him so he knows how to bypass Scylla. She tells him not to trust Hermes. She instructs him how to show respect to Penelope and gives him gifts to take. Above all, Circe tells her son to be wary of Telemachus since, as the heir, he will not welcome a second son of Odysseus to Ithaca and potentially threaten his inheritance.
The third thing Circe does is to go to Trygon, an ancient immortal ray that lives in the deepest part of the sea. The creature has a poisonous tail that is said to be instantly deadly for mortals but which can also deeply harm the gods. Circe defies her exile to go under the water, walking along to the deepest part of the ocean where she encounters Trygon.
She challenges him for his tail. Trygon says there’s no way for her to win in battle with him and that her brother, Aeëtes, already tried and failed. Circe is resolute, and Trygon tells her the only way to get his tail is to submit to its poison willingly. Circe steels herself and reaches out. He tells her that because she was willing, that’s enough to win the tail. He lets her take it, telling her to throw it back in the water to return to him when she’s done with it. Circe makes a spear out of the tail and gives it to Telegonus to protect himself against Athena in case she attacks him, and he leaves for Ithaca.
Chapter 21
Circe waits for Telegonus to return. She wonders what Odysseus will think of their son and hopes he will be proud. Circe also faces the idea of Telegonus’s mortality for the first time. Even if the boy survives the trip, Circe knows he will eventually die.
Telegonus returns, but he is traumatized. When he landed on Ithaca, he was welcomed into the palace but chose to stay on the boat as his mother instructed so her spells could protect him. He was walking along the beach, his spear in hand, when he saw his Odysseus return. Instead of a reunion, however, Odysseus attacked him and was accidentally scratched by Trygon’s tail and died. Telegonus is devastated and tells his mother that she should have let Athena kill him. Circe assures him that it was Odysseus’s fate, and they grieve together.
Telegonus reveals that he brought Penelope and Telemachus with him, and they are waiting in the boat. Circe is confused about why they would leave Ithaca. She’s sure they will take revenge and kill Telegonus before her. But Telegonus says that he trusts his brother. Since he is protected from harm on Aiaia, Circe tells him to bring Penelope and Telemachus to the house.
Circe extends her hospitality but eventually accuses Telemachus of intending to exact vengeance. Telemachus assures her that he has no such intentions. He reveals he is no longer welcome on Ithaca since he watched his father die and did not try to avenge him. He also grieves that he never knew the father everyone else talks about. Circe asks him to explain.
Telemachus tells her how suitors came to court his mother in Odysseus’s absence. When he returned from his adventures, Odysseus murdered them with Telemachus’s help. Odysseus was obsessed with revenge, ordering Telemachus to murder all the slave girls who had sex with the suitors even though they had no choice. He also threatened to kill all the suitors’ fathers who came for reparations, but Athena intervened. The aggrieved families of Odysseus’s lost crew also wanted reparations. He said not only was there no treasure but also the men ate Helios’s cattle and died as a result of their own actions.
Odysseus’s paranoia grew. He called Telemachus a coward and turned on him. Though they were once very close, Penelope grew distant from her son. Odysseus kept going raiding and was even rumored to have a second family somewhere. Telemachus went to be a shepherd to get away from his father’s palace. He went to the beach to help Telegonus when Odysseus returned.
Penelope and Circe talk next, and Penelope expresses her gratitude for Circe’s hospitality. She thanks Circe for helping Odysseus make it home to Ithaca, and she asks about Trygon’s tail and the spells Circe has for protecting the island.
Analysis
Trygon’s mighty tail represents the idea that one should demonstrate worthiness before being able to wield a mighty power. Circe proves that she deserves to win Trygon’s tail when she blatantly defies Helios to break her exile and accepts the possibility of dire consequences. Circe recognizes the torture she might have to endure if Helios or Zeus choose to punish her for disobeying them; she witnessed their brutal treatment of Prometheus and knows full well how hot her father’s fury burns. Once she gets to the bottom of the sea, she understands that she could die from the poison in the stingray’s tail or, at the very least, live with an eternity of pain. By willingly reaching out to be poisoned, she demonstrates a level of selflessness which Trygon reveals that no immortal has ever shown. Trygon’s decision to give Circe the tail as reward for her willingness to sacrifice herself emphasizes how worthy she is.
Telegonus’s brief but violent encounter with Odysseus reveals how even the most legendary heroes can be petty and vengeful while any ordinary boy can be more noble and worthy of respect than someone like the great Odysseus. Telegonus has heard stories of his father’s honor and courage, yet Odysseus receives the boy in a paranoid rage thinking he’s just some stranger who’s come to rob him. Even if Telegonus is just a random visitor, the norms of Greek society dictate that he should have been welcomed and treated as an honored guest. Telegonus himself demonstrates all the traits he’d formerly ascribed to his father, including honor, restraint, and humility in his interactions with Penelope and Telemachus, but it is Odysseus who shows distrust, anger, and a betrayal of hospitality to a visitor of his land. When Odysseus is scratched by Trygon’s tail, he is killed by his own arrogance and violence. In the end, Odysseus is felled by his paranoid, masculine need for violence while young Telegonus embodies the stories his mother told him of the humble and self-deprecating Odysseus she once knew.
Telemachus’s story reveals an aggressive twist in Odysseus’s character. In truth, he becomes someone Circe would not fully recognize. Despite him being somewhat justified in killing Penelope’s suitors, Circe herself is disgusted by Odysseus’s bloodbath. It’s revealing that even Athena, an immoral manipulator, feels the need to intervene when Odysseus moves toward murdering all the suitors’ fathers. His actions prove that his character has been irredeemably warped by his need for vengeance. As Telemachus continues his story, Circe realizes that as frank and blunt as he is, his description aligns with the things Odysseus said to her about a man’s need to be brutal in order to achieve his purposes. Telemachus also tells Circe that Odysseus branded him a coward when he would not agree with or join in on his father’s conspiracies, showing the difference between the true strength and courage Telemachus demonstrated and the bluster of Odysseus.
This section further explores how damage can result from even the best of intentions as Circe must come to terms with how her desire to protect those she loves has actually hindered them. With Odysseus, she gave him a life on Aiaia that was peaceful and trouble-free, using her witchcraft to soothe any irritation and keep him happy. While at the time she thought this was a form of love, her conversations with Telemachus allow her to understand that she allowed Odysseus to maintain his arrogant beliefs that he is entitled to live free of inconvenience and that deference is his due. In hindsight, she sees that she repressed her son in the same way. Keeping him on Aiaia under her protection might have kept him safe, but doing so could have stunted his personal development. Allowing him to leave was an important act that saved Telegonus from growing up pampered and protected with no knowledge of the larger world away from his mother. Likewise, Telemachus reveals that he and his mother are guilty of the same thing. They indulged Odysseus’s worst impulses, including having Telemachus participate in the slaughter of the suitors and the maids. Despite the intention of helping Odysseus recover his role of power on Ithaca, their actions resulted in the growth of Odysseus’s arrogance, violence, and paranoia and ultimately led to his death.
