Summary: Book 3
At Pylos, Telemachus and Mentor
(Athena in disguise) witness an impressive religious ceremony in
which dozens of bulls are sacrificed to Poseidon, the god of the
sea. Although Telemachus has little experience with public speaking,
Mentor gives him the encouragement that he needs to approach Nestor,
the city’s king, and ask him about Odysseus. Nestor, however, has no
information about the Greek hero. He recounts that after the fall
of Troy a falling-out occurred between Agamemnon and Menelaus, the
two Greek brothers who had led the expedition. Menelaus set sail
for Greece immediately, while Agamemnon decided to wait a day and
continue sacrificing on the shores of Troy. Nestor went with Menelaus,
while Odysseus stayed with Agamemnon, and he has heard no news of Odysseus.
He says that he can only pray that Athena will show Telemachus the
kindness that she showed Odysseus. He adds that he has heard that
suitors have taken over the prince’s house in Ithaca and that he
hopes that Telemachus will achieve the renown in defense of his
father that Orestes, son of Agamemnon, won in defense of his father.
Telemachus then asks Nestor about Agamemnon’s fate. Nestor explains
that Agamemnon returned from Troy to find that Aegisthus, a base
coward who remained behind while the Greeks fought in Troy, had
seduced and married his wife, Clytemnestra. With her approval, Aegisthus
murdered Agamemnon. He would have then taken over Agamemnon’s kingdom
had not Orestes, who was in exile in Athens, returned and killed
Aegisthus and Clytemnestra. Nestor holds the courage of Orestes
up as an example for Telemachus. He sends his own son Pisistratus
along to accompany Telemachus to Sparta, and the two set out by
land the next day. Athena, who reveals her divinity by shedding
the form of Mentor and changing into an eagle before the entire
court of Pylos, stays behind to protect Telemachus’s ship and its
crew.
Summary: Book 4
In Sparta, the king and queen, Menelaus and Helen, are
celebrating the separate marriages of their son and daughter. They
happily greet Pisistratus and Telemachus, the latter of whom they
soon recognize as the son of Odysseus because of the clear family
resemblance. As they all feast, the king and queen recount with
melancholy the many examples of Odysseus’s cunning at Troy. Helen
recalls how Odysseus dressed as a beggar to infiltrate the city’s
walls. Menelaus tells the famous story of the Trojan horse, Odysseus’s
masterful gambit that allowed the Greeks to sneak into Troy and
slaughter the Trojans. The following day, Menelaus recounts
his own return from Troy. He says that, stranded in Egypt, he was
forced to capture Proteus, the divine Old Man of the Sea. Proteus
told him the way back to Sparta and then informed him of the fates
of Agamemnon and Ajax, another Greek hero, who survived Troy only
to perish back in Greece. Proteus also told him news of Odysseus—that
he was still alive but was imprisoned by Calypso on her island. Buoyed
by this report, Telemachus and Pisistratus return to Pylos to set
sail for Ithaca.
Meanwhile, the suitors at Odysseus’s house learn of Telemachus’s
voyage and prepare to ambush him upon his return. The herald Medon
overhears their plans and reports them to Penelope. She becomes
distraught when she reflects that she may soon lose her son in addition
to her husband, but Athena sends a phantom in the form of Penelope’s
sister, Iphthime, to reassure her. Iphthime tells her not to worry,
for the goddess will protect Telemachus.
Analysis: Books 3–4
The setting broadens in Books 3 and 4 as
Telemachus sets out on his own brief odyssey around southern Greece
to learn of his father’s fate. Fittingly, this expansion in setting
prompts an expansion in the story itself, as each of Telemachus’s
hosts adds his own story to the Odyssey. Here,
as throughout the poem, storytelling serves the important function
of supplying both the reader and the characters with key details
about Odysseus’s travails. Additionally, Nestor’s, Menelaus’s, and
Helen’s recountings of various episodes related to the Trojan War
tie the Odyssey to cultural legends with which Homer’s
audience would have been extremely familiar.
