Book II · Episode 1 of 4
Telemachus’s Complaint
Telemachus convenes council, decries suitors
Scenes
- Council Convenes — Telemachus calls Ithaca’s first council
- Telemachus dresses at dawn, straps on sword
- Spear and two dogs at his heel
- Athena lends him a god-like bearing
- He takes his father’s seat among elders
- Aegyptius opens it, grieving for his son
- Telemachus’s Grievance — Telemachus denounces suitors wasting estate
- Takes the sceptre from Pisenor to speak
- Declares he himself called the council
- Grieves his lost father and besieged mother
- Suitors slaughter oxen, drain his wine
- Appeals to Zeus and Themis for shame
- Antinoüs Blames Penelope — Antinoüs blames Penelope’s shroud trick
- Telemachus flings down the sceptre in tears
- She promises marriage once shroud is done
- Unravels it nightly by torchlight for years
- Antinoüs demands she return to Icarius
- He refuses, fearing wrath and curse