Who tells the stories, and whether to believe them.
The Odyssey is a story that constantly tells stories. A bard sings in the hall, old men narrate the past, and a disguised goddess invents a life history on the spot. In this world telling is a form of action, with purposes and consequences, so the question to ask of every story is who is telling it and whether to believe them.
1.1–10 the invocation of the Muse from 1.138 Phemius sings for the suitors 1.178–212 Athene’s invented life the song of the returns, Penelope and Telemachus (workbook lines 284–319)
Have your Book 1 workbook open alongside this page. Quotations on this page give the workbook’s own line numbers.
A bard sings in the hall in Book 1. Nestor spends most of Book 3 narrating the past. Helen and Menelaus compete to tell the better tale in Book 4. Even Athene, disguised, invents a life history on the spot.
Odysseus becomes the poem’s greatest storyteller in the books that follow, but long before that the Telemachy has shown that in this world telling is a form of action, with purposes and consequences. The poem is also aware of itself. It opens by asking the Muse to tell the tale through the poet, so from the first line it is a story about how stories get told.
It helps to separate who is speaking before deciding what to believe.
Common mistake. When Helen or Menelaus narrates, you are hearing that character’s version, shaped by what they want the listener to think. Do not treat it as the poem telling you what happened.
Book 1 contains all four layers of telling: the poet calling on the Muse, the bard singing in the hall, characters reacting to his song, and a goddess telling a false story about herself.
The poet asks the Muse to tell the story of the resourceful man, beginning wherever she chooses.
After the meal a herald hands the lyre to Phemius, the bard the suitors have forced into their service.
Asked who she is, “Mentes” supplies a father, a voyage, a cargo and an old family friendship.
Phemius sings of the Greeks’ disastrous homecomings. Penelope comes down in tears and asks for another song.
Telemachus says the poet is not to blame for what he sings and sends his mother back upstairs.
Tell me, Muse, the story of that resourceful man who was driven to wander far and wide after he had sacked the holy citadel of Troy. He saw the cities of many people and he learnt their ways. He suffered great anguish on the high seas in his struggles to preserve his life and bring his comrades home. … Tell us this story, goddess daughter of Zeus, beginning at whatever point you will.
Book 1, workbook lines 1–10
This is the first layer of telling: the poet, who asks to be believed. From its opening line the poem draws attention to the act of telling a story.
… when all had satisfied their hunger and thirst, the Suitors turned their thoughts to other activities, music and dancing, which add to the pleasures of a banquet. A herald brought a beautiful lyre and handed it to Phemius, the minstrel whom they had forced into their service. He had just struck the first notes for some delightful song …
Book 1, workbook lines 135–140
The poem shows the bard’s position as dependent: he sings for the people in power, whoever they happen to be. Later in the book Telemachus himself calls it “a lovely thing to listen to a minstrel such as we have here, with a voice like a god’s” (workbook lines 325–326).
‘I will tell you everything honestly,’ answered the bright-eyed goddess Athene. ‘My father was the wise prince Anchialus. My own name is Mentes, and I am chieftain of the sea-faring Taphians. … We are bound for the foreign port of Temesa with a cargo of gleaming iron, which we mean to trade for bronze. … As for our families, the ties between them go a long way back, as the old lord Laertes would tell you if you went and asked him.’
Book 1, workbook lines 158–167
This is a complete false story, delivered smoothly, and no one questions it. It has a job to do: it wins Telemachus’s trust so that her advice will move him. The first character in the Telemachy to tell a story about themselves is a god lying for good reasons, and she is the fourth layer of telling, the liar who asks not to be found out.
He found them listening in silence to a song which their famous bard was singing to them about the Achaeans’ return from Troy and the disasters that Pallas Athene made them suffer. …
‘Phemius,’ she said, ‘with your knowledge of the ballads that poets have made about the deeds of men or gods you could enchant us with many other tales, rather than this. Choose one of those now for your audience here, and let them drink their wine in peace. But give us no more of your present song. It is too sad; it never fails to wring my heart.’
Book 1, workbook lines 284–300
But the prudent Telemachus intervened. ‘Mother,’ he said, ‘why grudge our loyal bard the right to entertain us as the spirit moves him? Surely it is not the poets who are responsible for what happens, but Zeus himself, who deals with each of us toilers on earth as he sees fit? We cannot blame Phemius if he chooses to sing of the Danaan’s tragic fate, for it is always the latest song that an audience applauds the most.’
Book 1, workbook lines 303–309
This is the closest the Telemachy comes to a statement about poetry: bards deserve respect, their subject is not their fault, and the newest song is the one people most want to hear. Penelope goes back upstairs and weeps for Odysseus until she sleeps (workbook lines 315–319).
Asked for news, Nestor gives history instead: the quarrels after Troy, the separate departures, Agamemnon’s death and Orestes’s revenge. He tells at length and with purpose, holding Orestes up as a model. His stories are true, as far as the poem lets us judge, but they are also arguments aimed at Telemachus. Nestor is the teller as teacher.
Menelaus’s account of his own return, with Egypt, the sealskins and the shape-changing god, is the longest first-person adventure story in the Telemachy. It also contains the only hard news of Odysseus that anyone brings Telemachus, and it is delivered as a story within a story: Menelaus tells what Proteus told him. Even the truth arrives as someone’s narrative.
| Teller | Layer | What they tell | What they want |
|---|---|---|---|
| The poet | Poet | The whole Odyssey, by the Muse’s authority 1.1–10 | To be believed |
| Phemius | Bard | The sorrowful returns from Troy | To please whoever holds the hall |
| Athene as Mentes | Liar | A trading voyage and an old friendship 1.178–212 | Not to be found out; to move Telemachus |
| Nestor | Character | The leaders’ returns; Agamemnon and Orestes Bk 3 | To teach Telemachus what a son does |
| Helen | Character | She recognised Odysseus in Troy and kept his secret Bk 4 | To be seen as his ally |
| Menelaus | Character | The Horse; Helen’s luring voices; his own return Bk 4 | To praise Odysseus and to cast Helen as the danger |
| Proteus via Menelaus | Story in story | Ajax, Agamemnon, Odysseus alive Bk 4 | The only hard news, and it arrives third-hand |
Some of the stories can be trusted more than others. Athene’s is a deliberate fiction. Helen’s and Menelaus’s cannot both be the whole truth. Nestor’s may be accurate but is plainly selective.
The poem invites its audience to notice who is speaking, to whom, and why, and it rewards listeners who do. This is preparation for what comes later. The poem’s greatest storyteller, Odysseus himself, has not yet taken the floor, and when he does the audience will need exactly these habits.
Remember. For any story in the poem, ask three questions: who is speaking, to whom, and why.
These are positions for you to test against the text. Decide how far the text supports each one, and mark your verdict.