Fame that outlives you, and honour shown to you now.
In the world of the Odyssey a person’s worth is confirmed in public, through how they are treated and what is said about them. Kleos is the fame that outlives you, and timē is the honour shown to you now; Telemachus begins the poem with neither.
1.97–108 the suitors’ disrespect 1.113–135 Telemachus as host 1.211–212 the great name lament 1.253–263 Athene’s promise 1.258–263 Orestes as the model
Have your Book 1 workbook open alongside this page. Quotations on this page give the workbook’s own line numbers.
Homeric society is often described as a shame culture, as opposed to a guilt culture.
This is why so much of the Odyssey is about reputation, treatment and appearances in front of an audience. A character’s worth is confirmed publicly, through speech, treatment and story, and it is never settled privately in their own mind.
Kleos comes from the verb kluō, to hear. It is what others hear about a person, so it exists in other people’s mouths and ears, outside the person themselves. Three things follow.
The Iliad supplies the classic case. Achilles is offered a long life with no kleos or a short life at Troy with fame that lasts forever, and he chooses the fame. Scholars sometimes call the strongest form kleos aphthiton, imperishable fame.
Timē means honour, but more precisely worth or value: the value placed on a person by their community. Unlike kleos, which is a legacy, timē is experienced directly, in the moment, through how a person is actually treated, and because it depends on treatment it can rise and fall. It is shown through concrete, visible things.
Gods have timē too. Each god has a sphere of honour, and mortals maintain it through sacrifice, prayer and correct behaviour. Poseidon’s anger at Odysseus is partly a matter of timē: blinding Polyphemus injured Poseidon’s honour through his son.
Moses Finley argued that timē among mortals was maintained above all through gift-exchange, in which no gift was free and each created an obligation to return.
A reliable test: is the person receiving this now, in front of people, or being talked about after the fact? Present and physical is timē; future and told is kleos.
The two are related, since honour shown now can become the detail a storyteller repeats later, but they can also come apart.
| Kleos | Timē | |
|---|---|---|
| When | After death; permanent once won | While alive; can change |
| Where | In stories and songs | In treatment: seat, food, gifts, deference |
| Given by | Whoever tells and hears the story | The people physically present |
| Form | Immaterial: words | Material: objects, portions, places |
| Needs | A witness and a teller | Presence: the person has to be there |
Book 1 shows timē being denied and conferred in the same hall, and gives Telemachus his first reasons to think about kleos: his father’s missing fame, and the fame that Athene says he can win for himself.
The suitors sit at the door on hides of Odysseus’s oxen while his servants wait on them.
Telemachus gives “Mentes” the best chair, a footstool, food and wine, served from gold and silver.
Telemachus grieves that his father vanished, when a death at Troy would have left a mound and a great name.
On Olympus Athene plans to send Telemachus for news of his father, so that he may win the praise of men.
Athene holds up Orestes, who won a name by killing his father’s murderer, and tells Telemachus to be as brave.
Telemachus overrules Penelope over the bard’s song and sends her upstairs.
She found the insolent Suitors sitting in front of the door on hides of oxen they themselves had slaughtered, playing with counters; their squires and pages were busy round them, some blending wine and water in the mixing-bowls, and others carving meat in lavish portions and wiping down the tables with sponges before they set them ready.
Book 1, workbook lines 97–102
The suitors occupy Telemachus’s hall and consume his household’s wealth without any deference to him as heir. His timē is denied daily, in front of him, in his own house. Later he tells his guest that the suitors are “courting my mother and wasting my property” and “eating me out of house and home” (workbook lines 219–222). Timē is lost here through treatment, exactly as it is gained.
He then conducted her to a beautiful carved chair, over which he spread a linen cloth, and seated her there with a stool for her feet. …
Presently a maid came with water in a fine golden jug and poured it out over a silver basin for them to rinse their hands. … Meanwhile a steward served them plates of various meats he had selected from his board, and put gold cups beside them, which a steward filled with wine as he passed on his frequent rounds.
Book 1, workbook lines 115–130
This is timē conferred: the guest is present and physically receiving honour. It is also a hospitality scene, as the Xenia lesson explained, and the two themes overlap here because correct hospitality is one of the main ways timē is shown.
‘His death itself, if he had fallen among his men at Troy or died in friendly arms at home with all his fighting done, would have caused me less distress. For in that case the whole Achaean nation would have joined in building him a mound, and he would have left a great name for his son to inherit. But there was to be no famous end for him; the Storm-Fiends have snatched him away. He has gone where he cannot be seen or found …’
Book 1, workbook lines 208–214
This is grief specifically about missing kleos. A death at Troy would have been witnessed and told; a disappearance at sea is neither.
‘Meanwhile I myself will go to Ithaca to instil more spirit into Odysseus’ son and encourage him to call the long-haired Achaeans to an assembly and speak his mind to that crowd of Suitors … After that I shall send him to Sparta and to sandy Pylos to seek news of his father’s return. It is possible that he may hear of him, and so win the praise of men.’
Book 1, workbook lines 80–86
Kleos is promised in advance, for after the journey. It is future-facing, and it is a story other people will tell, which is what makes it kleos.
‘You are no longer a child: you must put childish thoughts away. Have you not heard what a name Orestes made for himself in the world when he killed the cunning Aegisthus for murdering his noble father? You, my friend – and what a tall and splendid young man you have grown! – must be as brave as Orestes. Then future generations will sing your praises.’
Book 1, workbook lines 258–263
Avenging a father earns both immediate respect for the act and a story retold across generations as an example. This is the first of several times the poem uses Orestes to show Telemachus what earning both at once looks like.
‘… So go to your quarters now and attend to your own work, the loom and the spindle, and tell the servants to get on with theirs. Making decisions must be men’s concern, and mine in particular; for I am master in this house.’
Penelope was taken aback, but she retired to her own apartments, for she took her son’s sensible words to heart.
Book 1, workbook lines 311–316
When Penelope asks the bard to change his song, Telemachus tells her that the choice is his and sends her upstairs. It is a live assertion of timē in front of the household, and his first act of authority in the poem.
Most actions earn one kind of honour. Hosting a guest correctly earns timē. Dying visibly in a heroic cause earns kleos but, since the person is gone, no timē. A small number of actions earn both, and these tend to be the poem’s most significant moments.
That is why Orestes is held up twice in Books 1–3, and why Telemachus is being pushed towards the same double outcome. The comparison recurs because each time it is a live measurement of what Telemachus should already be doing.
These are positions for you to test. Decide how far the text supports each one, and mark your verdict.