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Telemachus’ ship pulls into Pylos after dawn as sacrifices are being made on the beach to Poseidon. Telemachus follows Athena, who is disguised as Mentor, from the ship. She urges him again to seek news of his father. Telemachus feels self-conscious about approaching Nestor because of his age and status. Athena reassures him and they approach Nestor, who is having a banquet with his sons, Pisistratus and Thrasymedes. Because Athena appears as a more senior man, Nestor addresses him/her first and encourages her to eat. Telemachus is also then invited. Athena is then given wine ahead of Telamachus, which Athena approves of. She says a prayer to Poseidon for the glory of Nestor and his sons, and for safe passage home for her and Telemachus. She next offers the cup of wine to Telemachus and they eat from the feast.
After they have eaten, Nestor enquires who they are and where they are from. Telemachus, his courage inspired by Athena, identifies himself as Odysseus’ son and says they are searching for news of his father’s fate, presuming that he has died. Nestor’s memory is drawn back to Troy where great fighters fought and died. He recalls the long struggle and the favour that was shown to Odysseus by the goddess, Athena. Nestor admits that Telemachus reminds him a little of Odysseus because of the way he speaks.
Nestor recalls that he and Odysseus always got along and commanded well together. But after Troy was sacked and they wanted to leave Zeus contrived that they would suffer a bad journey home. Nestor says that Athena encouraged dissension between Agamemnon and Menelaus. They summoned the Achaean armies together at sunset. Agamemnon wanted to detain the troops and appease Athena with sacrifices, while Menelaus disagreed and the armies became restive. Nestor and his men were part of a group that left at dawn the following day while those who aligned with Agamemnon remained. Nestor’s group reached Tenedos, but Zeus caused a feud among Nestor’s group, too. Odysseus returned to Agamemnon while Nestor continued the journey for home. Diomedes and Menelaus also headed for home. But first, they sought the advice of a god for the best route home, and they headed straight to Euboea. Diomedes moored at Argos while Nestor sailed all the way home to Pylos, not knowing the fate of any of the men who remained with Agamemnon. From hearsay, Nestor says he knows that the Achilles’ Myrmidons, Philoctetes and Idomeneus also returned home safely. But he informs Telemachus that Agamemnon was murdered when he returned home. Nestor chiefly blames the murder on Aegisthus. He says that Orestes took revenge and killed Aegisthus, an action thought honourable and worthy of fame. Telemachus laments that he feels incapable of taking revenge against his mother’s suitors, like Orestes. Nestor suggests that Telemachus is allowing the suitors to take control and that they plot his ruin. Nestor doesn’t know if Odysseus will return and take revenge, but he wishes Athena would favour Telemachus as she once did his father. Telemachus expresses his feeling that Athena would never favour him.
Athena objects to this. She says it would be better spending long years travelling home than die as Agamemnon did on his return. She says that even the gods cannot save a man marked by fate. Telemachus asks not to speak of this, since he cannot believe his father will return. Instead, he asks Nestor to give him the details of Agamemnon’s death. First, Nestor considers what Menelaus would have done had he found Aegisthus in Agamemnon’s place upon returning from Troy: how Aegisthus would have been given no funeral honours or memorial. But Menelaus was delayed after Apollo shot and killed his helmsman, Phrontis. Menelaus delayed his return to bury Phrontis properly, but was then further delayed by a hurricane sent by Zeus. The fleet was cut in half. One group sailed to Crete where it was wrecked against rocks, though the ship’s crew escaped harm. The rest of the fleet was swept towards Egypt. Meanwhile, Nestor describes how Aegisthus seduced Clytemnestra; how he got closer to her after sending a bard tasked with chaperoning her to a desert island. He took over Mycenae but eight years after he killed Agamemnon, Orestes returned and killed him. Orestes held a feast and buried Aegisthus and his mother the day Menelaus finally returned home.
Nestor finishes by advising Telemachus not to stay away too long from his home in case his wealth and position are finally taken by the suitors. Nevertheless, he still advises Telemachus to go speak with Menelaus and offers him a chariot to go by land if he wishes. Athena praises Nestor for his story and says they must pour libations and then be on their way. Once they pour libations they begin to leave for the ship, but Nestor insists that Telemachus should accept his hospitality and sleep in his house, rather than in a ship, before leaving. Athena agrees. She says the crew, who are all young like Telemachus, should be invited to the house (with two men left to guard the ship). She says she will also sleep at the ship that night before going to see the Cauconians in Anatolia who owe her a debt. She says Telemachus should accept Nestor’s offer of a chariot. With that, she turns into an eagle and flies away. They then realise they have been speaking to Athena. Nestor vows to make a fine sacrifice to her.
They return to Nestor’s halls where Nestor pours a libation of wine. That night, Telemachus sleeps in Nestor’s house next to Pisistratus, Nestor’s son. The next morning Nestor takes his seat and holds his sceptre, while his sons Echerphron, Stratius, Perseus, Aretus, Thrasymedes and Pisastratus escort Telemachus to sit with them. Nestor orders that a heifer be selected from the fields to make a sacrifice to Athena. Laerces, the goldsmith, is sent for to adorn the heifer’s horns with gold. The ritual of killing the cow is then described: how it is led, how tufts of the animal’s hair are ritually cut and burned as the first sacrifice, and then the animal’s throat tendons are cut with an axe by Thrasymedes to hobble it. Next, its throat is cut by Pisastratus and its blood collected in a bowl by Perseus. Once dead the animal is cooked. During this ritual Telemachus is bathed by Polycaste, Nestor’s youngest daughter. Once the offerings have been made, they settle down to feast. After the feast is done, Nestor calls for the chariot he promised to be brought for Telemachus. The chariot and horses are prepared and Telemachus takes off, heading towards Sparta. He sleeps at Phera on the first night of travel, and the next day Telemachus travels until the sun is again sinking in the sky.
Telemachus travels to Pylos to seek news of his father from Nestor. However, Nestor can tell him very little about the fate of Odysseus. Nestor’s knowledge ends when Odysseus returned to Troy. However, Nestor’s hospitality and wise words are an example to Telemachus. Nestor demonstrates the role of a good host, in contrast to the incivility of Telemachus’ home which is now taken over by the unwelcome suitors who are much less guests, and are rather more like an occupying army.
Even in the first book of The Odyssey the matter of Telemachus’ resolve or ability to address the problem of his mother’s suitors on his own has been highlighted. The fact that Telemachus is now on a journey to find out his father’s fate is entirely to the credit of Athena, which is a problem in itself.
In the first book of The Odyssey Telemachus’ inability to act is contrasted with Orestes, who returned home to take vengeance on his mother and her lover for the murder of his father. Now, Nestor also speaks admiringly of Orestes:
It is clear that in this society it is a son’s duty to take revenge and regain honour on behalf of a father and his family. Orestes is the model and Telemachus falls short of the standard. In fact, it is hard to believe that Telemachus is capable of acting independently. Even when he and Athena/Mentor arrive at Pylos, Telemachus is almost too afraid to even speak to Nestor:
Telemachus acknowledges the fame of Orestes and the good example of his revenge based on the standards of this society, but he remains incapable of action, blaming the gods – “If only” – and expressing a willingness to acquiesce his position – “I must bear up” – because he cannot find the resolve to act:
Menelaus also provides a counterpoint to Telemachus’ inaction. Nestor tells the story of how Menelaus’ return home was delayed by the gods. Like Odysseus, he was delayed for years (about eight, in fact, according to the timeline presented in the narrative, which has him arriving home the day of Clytemnestra’s and Aegisthus’ funeral). As a result, Menelaus had no opportunity to take revenge on behalf of his brother. Instead, Nestor imagines a course of action he feels Menelaus would have been compelled to take had he arrived in time:
Nestor is critical of Telemachus while at the same time attempting to offer advice and draw him into an environment, as his host, where rites and social expectations are practised. Telemachus is urged to sleep under Nestor’s roof, and he is drawn into the feast with Nestor’s sons when the sacrifice to Athena is made. However, Nestor suggests that in Telemachus’ household, Telemachus is too passive and that, like a child, his only hope lies in his father’s return to right the wrongs being done by the suitors. He is failing his duty to step into his role as a man on his father’s behalf, as Orestes did:
Nestor’s advice to Telemachus is that he must act and he must act soon against the suitors if he is to retain his wealth and social position. Nestor understands that Telemachus’ preferred scenario is that his father returns home and takes control of the situation. But his rhetorical questions suggest this is merely a childish desire which now must be cast aside.
In this manner, Homer provides us with the beginnings of a character arc for Telemachus.
John Flaxman, a British sculptor, was commissioned to produce illustrations for The Iliad and The Odyssey with the intention that they would be engraved and published. Flaxman produced line drawings without colour that became highly popular in the 19th century.
This drawing depicts the scene in Book 3 of The Odyssey when Nestor sacrifices a heifer to Athena. The drawing captures some of the ceremony of the offering, with the animal’s horns garlanded as it is led in procession to the tripod where its organs will be cooked. It is difficult to attribute any of the figures to a specific character, although the man standing in front of the tripod with his arms raised could be safely assumed to be Nestor.
Homer gives a detailed account of the ceremony for sacrificing the heifer in lines 480 to 520 of Robert Fagles’ translation. I have tried to include as much of the details of the ceremony as practical within the summary for this book. The following is an extract from the ceremony illustrated by Flaxman:
Finally, the animal is sacrificed:
This black-figure amphora from the sixth century BCE does not depict the scene from book three of The Odyssey, but the ritual of an offering to the gods, possibly from the Panathenaea, an annual parade and offering to Athena held in Athens each year, traditionally thought to have begun in 566 BCE, shortly before this amphora was produced. The similarities with Flaxman’s drawing are obvious though. A cow is led to an alter where it will be sacrificed to the gods, or possibly to a specific god, Athena. Barley is offered prior to the slaughtering of the animal. In Nestor’s place is a warrior ready to receive the sacrifice. Sacrifices like this were important ceremonies conducted to pay respect to the gods in the hope of receiving their favour. Many such ceremonies are alluded to in The Iliad and The Odyssey, but the description of the ceremony is the most detailed, so far, in this book of The Odyssey.