Book XVII · Episode 1 of 6
Telemachus Returns Home
Telemachus returns, embraces Penelope
Scenes
- Telemachus Sets Out — Telemachus arms, beggar may follow
- Telemachus laces sandals, takes up spear
- Hopes to ease his mother’s grief
- Admits he cannot feed every guest
- Odysseus says begging suits town best
- Beggar asks to warm by the fire
- Reunion with Penelope — Telemachus defers Penelope’s questions
- Telemachus plots the suitors’ ruin
- Eurycleia and handmaids weep, kiss him
- Penelope embraces her son in tears
- Urges her to bathe, vow a hecatomb
- Hurries off to fetch his guest
- Marketplace and Piraeus — Telemachus meets Piraeus, Theoclymenus
- Penelope bathes and prays as told
- Athena makes Telemachus radiant in town
- Suitors crowd him with false courtesy
- Piraeus offers to send Menelaus’s gifts
- Wary of suitors, asks Piraeus to wait