Telegony - Content

Content

The Telegony comprises two distinct episodes: Odysseus' voyage to Thesprotia, and the story of Telegonus. Probably each of the two books of the Telegony related one of these episodes. In current critical editions only two lines of the poem's original text survive. For its storyline we are dependent primarily on a summary of the Telegonus myth in Proclus' Chrestomathy. The poem opens after the events depicted in the Odyssey. According to Proclus' summary, the Telegony opens with the burial of Penelope's suitors. Odysseus makes sacrifices to the Nymphs. He makes a voyage to Elis, where he visits an otherwise unknown figure Polyxenos, who gives him a bowl depicting the story of Trophonius. Odysseus returns to Ithaca and then travels to Thesprotia, presumably to make the sacrifices commanded by Tiresias in Odyssey 11. There he weds the Thesprotian queen Kallidike, who bears him a son, Polypoites. Odysseus fights for the Thesprotians in a war against the neighbouring Brygoi; the gods participate in the war, Ares routing Odysseus and the Thesprotians, countered by Athena, ever Odysseus' patron; Apollo intervenes between the battling gods. However, Kallidike is killed in the war, Polypoetes succeeds to the kingdom and Odysseus returns to Ithaca.

Meanwhile, it transpires that Circe, with whom Odysseus had an affair for a year in the Odyssey (books 10-12), has born his son, Telegonus (Τηλέγονος, "born far away"). He grows up living with Circe on the island of Aeaea. On the goddess Athena's advice, Circe tells him the name of his father. In a detail inserted into the account in the Epitome of the Bibliotheke she gives him a supernatural spear to defend himself which is tipped with the sting of a poisonous stingray and was made by the god Hephaestus. A storm forces Telegonus onto Ithaca without his realising where he is. As is customary for Homeric heroes in unfriendly land, he commits piracy, and unwittingly begins stealing Odysseus' cattle. Odysseus comes to defend his property. During the ensuing fight, Telegonus kills Odysseus with his unusual spear, thereby partially fulfilling Tiresias' prophecy in Odyssey 11 that death would come to Odysseus "out of the sea" (i.e., the poison of the ray). (In another respect, however, Odysseus' death contradicts the prophecy of Tiresias, who predicted (Od. 11.135) that a "gentle death" would come to Odysseus "in sleek old age"). As Odysseus lies dying, he and Telegonus recognise one another, and Telegonus laments his mistake. Telegonus brings his father's corpse, Penelope, and Odysseus' other son Telemachus, back to Aeaea, where Odysseus is buried and Circe makes the others immortal. Telegonus marries Penelope, and Telemachus marries Circe.