The Odyssey -Book 2 - Telemachus confronts the suitors

• Reading time: about 26 minutes

• What's right is right — the Greek concept of Nemesis

• For us, the word nemesis means someone or something by which one must inevitably be defeated.
• Nemesis in Greek has different connotations.
  • Nemesis is the goddess of retributive justice or vengeance
  • a righteous assignment of anger, wrath at anything unjust, just resentment
• Here, in the beginning of Book 2, Telemachus invokes the concept of nemesis when he berates the suitors
  • "You should be ashamed yourselves, mortified in the face of neighbors living round about."
  • He throws his scepter down on the ground in anger.
  • Three times Telemachus uses the concept of nemesis here (lines 69, 153, 155)

• Talking Trash — Telemachus and the suitors

• Eurymachus, one of the two leading suitors of Penelope, will figure prominently in the scenes when Odysseus returns. Here we get a good look at him when he mocks Halistherses and rejects Telemachus's command that the suitors leave his house.
• Examine how Telemachus addresses the assembly. What does he say to them? How does he say it? Is this the kind of speech Athena hoped to inspire in him in 1.335-351?
• Mentor speaks against the suitors as well, and his words are rejected.
• Finally, after the meeting breaks up, Athena pays a visit to Telemachus and encourages him.
• Reflect on what you have learned about Telemachus in this book. Like Hamlet, he has been given a command, but at this point, like Hamlet, it is unclear what he will need to fulfill the command. What does Athena say to him? Why do you think Homer has placed this scene of conflict with the suitors here? Why does Telemachus leave on the voyage to learn about his father rather than setting to work to the task of cleaning his house of the suitors? [Discuss Ody Bk02 Q01]