§2.57 In the Iliad the stories about Nestor’s youth that relate to Patroclus are told in such a way as to conceal their true purpose and point. Their relevance is not on the surface of the poem, but just below the surface. Something similar is at work in Nestor’s account of the departure from Troy. In the Iliad what is deliberately withheld is Nestor’s myth, in which he does not save his warrior brother, but takes his place. In the Odyssey the same myth remains {173|174} the essence of the figure Nestor, and it explains what really took place when Nestor last saw Odysseus. What must also be kept in mind, however, is the meaning of Nestor’s name, for this is central to his role in the Odyssey. Néstōr is “he who brings home,” and when he parts company from Odysseus at the very moment of the Achaeans’ homecoming from Troy, he reenacts his own myth, for just as he did not save his brother, he does not bring Odysseus home. What the consequences of this are for Odysseus remain to be considered, but they do involve a kind of death, just as in the case of Nestor’s brother Periklymenos. Although Odysseus will return from this death it will not be by Nestor’s agency, but through others. In and of itself, Nestor’s role in the homecoming of Odysseus is a negative one based on his own myth, and this is the unspoken point of Odyssey 3.

§2.58 The key point in this, and the point with which we begin, is that a nóstos has an essential connection with the Indo-European twin myth. This is not an obvious point when we think of the return home from Troy of an entire army or its various contingents. Nestor too knows from hearsay how various contingents fared once they departed from Troy, and he passes this information on to Telemachus, mentioning the safe return of the Myrmidons under Achilles’ son, of Philoktetes, and of the Cretans under Idomeneus (Odyssey 3.186–192). But this is not the heart of his story. Phemios also sings of the “return of the Achaeans” to the suitors in Odyssey 1, and in the brief description of his song this return is characterized as a “grim” one (Odyssey 1.326–327):

It is this grim return, brought on by Pallas Athena, that Nestor recounts first, and from firsthand experience, to Telemachus. If we follow his account in detail, we will find not only how the entire Achaean nóstos is conceived of in terms of the twin myth, but also how this myth relates to Nestor and Odysseus.

§2.60 But things changed after Troy was captured, as is signaled by the word, autár, “however,” as Nestor’s story continues; what happened “during the war, on the one hand” (heîos mén, Odyssey 3.126) was not the same as what happened after the war (autàr epeí, “however, when,” Odyssey 3.130). But the significance of the word autár for the relationship between Nestor and Odysseus after the war had ended will not be brought out for another twenty-nine lines. First we will hear what befell the Achaeans as a whole after Troy was sacked. This is the story of the “grim return” of the Achaeans that Phemios began to tell in Book 1. In Nestor’s account, it was first of all Zeus who devised this “grim return” for the Argives, because of the wrongs committed by some of them. But, as in Phemios’s song, it was Athena, who, {175|176} because of her own anger, caused the actual destruction of many of the Achaeans (Odyssey 3.130–135):

What Athena did first to set this “grim return” in motion was to cause a quarrel (éris) between the two Atreidai, the commanders-in-chief of the Achaeans: ἥ τ’ ἔριν Ἀτρεΐδῃσι μετ’ ἀμφοτέροισιν ἔθηκε (Odyssey 3.136). The scene of the quarrel was a drunken and disorderly assembly of the entire army which the Atreidai called at nightfall (Odyssey 3.137–140):

The Atreidai had called the assembly to consider the army’s return, but they disagreed over what should be done. Menelaus spoke first, and he urged the Achaeans “to remember their nóstos,” but this did not please Agamemnon, who foolishly wished “to restrain the army,” and to try to appease the angry Athena with sacrifices (Odyssey 3.141–147): {176|177}

§2.62 The division between the Atreidai had consequences not only for themselves, but for the Achaean army as a whole. When the Atreidai quarreled in the assembly about their nóstos, the army was split in two (Odyssey 3.148–150):

The two factions passed the night harboring harsh thoughts toward each other in their minds, and when dawn came one part of the army, including Nestor, prepared to set sail (Odyssey 3.151–154):

But the half of the army remaining with Agamemnon was “restrained” as the others put out to sea (Odyssey 3.155–158):

§2.63 Nestor’s account, having made clear that the basic terms of the Achaeans’ nóstos are those of the twin myth, next focuses on his own role in this nóstos. As we have seen, Nestor was with the half of the army that set sail on the morning after the army was split by the quarrel. His account is about to come back to the point from which he began, and which has been left hanging in the meantime, namely his relationship with Odysseus. During the war, he said, he and Odysseus never disagreed with one another in an assembly or council, but “with one mind” they devised what was best for the Argives by their wits and shrewd council; but when Troy was sacked, things (we infer) changed. We have heard how Zeus devised an evil homecoming for the Achaeans, and how Athena split the army in two. Now, twenty-nine lines later, we learn that the unanimity between Nestor and Odysseus during the war did indeed change after the war, just as the word autár in Odyssey 3.130 implies. For when those with Menelaus reached the nearby island of Tenedos, and stopped to offer sacrifices, another quarrel (éris) broke out. Nestor does not say who the parties to the quarrel were but Odysseus was clearly one of the parties, for he turned back and returned with his ships and men to Agamemnon. Who the other party was Nestor does not say, but he makes clear that he himself was no longer of one mind with Odysseus as he had been hitherto. For when Odysseus turned back to Agamemnon, Nestor fled in the opposite direction (Odyssey 3.159–166):

§2.64 Nestor does not say that it was he who quarreled with Odysseus on the island of Tenedos, but it is clear from his account that this is what happened. When Nestor says that he “realized that the god intended evil,” he shows that he had a clear view about the situation that confronted them on Tenedos, and when he says that he fled with his ships, he shows that he had a firm conviction about what to do and acted on it. No more need be said to show that Nestor and Odysseus, who had always been of one mind during the war, quarreled bitterly and split from each other after the war on the issue of their nóstos. This is what the subtle design of Nestor’s whole account is intended to show. Nestor is giving this account to Odysseus’s son, who has come to him to find out about his father, and it is thus more than fitting that he suppress an explicit statement of the quarrel that constituted their final leave-taking from one another. This suppression is also wholly consistent with Nestor’s role in the Iliad, as we have examined it in the story of Patroclus in Iliad 11 and 23. In the way that Nestor’s role is handled poetically there is no difference between the Iliad and the Odyssey, and this as an important point in its own right. It means that we may continue to expect the kind of subtlety that marked his role in the Iliad in the Odyssey as well.

§2.66 For Nestor’s own story his name is of equal significance. Nestor’s myth is not to bring his brother back to life, and the same negative fact is repeated in his failure to bring Odysseus home. But Nestor, “the homebringer,” does more than simply return home in his story in Odyssey 3. Others did that, and the simple fact of returning does not bring out what is special about Nestor. Nestor, if we follow his story closely, brought another hero home. When Nestor fled from Tenedos in the opposite direction from Odysseus, he was not alone; Diomedes fled with him (Odyssey 3.165–167):

Nestor and Diomedes are a pair on their nóstos, as is made clear by the next lines, which concern Menelaus, the leader of the half of the army that had left Troy for home after the first quarrel. Nestor and Diomedes leave Tenedos together, and Menelaus only overtakes them when they stop on the island of Lesbos to ponder a major decision about the rest of their journey home (Odyssey 3.168–172): {182|183}

The issue was whether to cut straight across the Aegean for home, with all the risks that the open sea entailed, or to take a safer course to the south by way of Mount Mimas on the mainland and the Cyclades islands, and risk being caught by the divine wrath through this delay. A divine sign was asked for and given, to cross the sea directly to Euboea, which they did, landing on the southern tip of the island in Geraistos, where they offered a sacrifice of thanks to Poseidon (Odyssey 3.173–179):

Menelaus is not heard of again in this account, but we learn later in Odyssey 3, when Telemachus asks Nestor where Menelaus was when Agamemnon was {183|184} murdered, that Menelaus accompanied them from Geraistos as far as Cape Sounion in Attica, where his helmsman Phrontis, the son of Onetor, died and was buried (Odyssey 3.276–285). Menelaus later departed from Sounion on his own and was blown off course when he rounded Cape Maleia, but that has nothing to do with Nestor and his return, which is the subject of Nestor’s first account. This account mentions only Diomedes, who, after sacrifices were made at Geraistos, safely reached home in Argos on the fourth day (Odyssey 3.180–182):

Nestor was with Diomedes from the beginning of his nóstos to the end, and having left him safely in Argos, he completed his own nóstos effortlessly with a godsent wind that never abated (Odyssey 3.182–183):

This completes Nestor’s account of what he saw and experienced at first hand during the nóstos Akhaiō̂n. He reached home with great speed, and learned nothing of the fate of the other Achaeans; about them he can only tell Telemachus what he has learned from hearsay (Odyssey 3.184–187):

The second passage is in Iliad 15, when Apollo destroys the Achaean wall and the Achaeans themselves are hemmed in by their ships. All pray to the gods, but Nestor most of all, and in his prayer he seems to refer to the same sign from Zeus that he recalls in Iliad 2 when he calls on Zeus to remember if he ever promised a safe return to “anyone” (Iliad 15.367–376):

Presumably Nestor had as clear an idea of what the gods intended when he first left Troy with Menelaus, for he calls Agamemnon “foolish” to think that by staying he could pacify Athena’s wrath with sacrifices, since the mind of the gods is not easily changed (Odyssey 3.146–147):

§2.70 The word nóos is not present in Nestor’s description of his nóstos, but the word does have an interesting occurrence earlier in his account, when he describes the harmony that existed between himself and Odysseus as counselors for the Argives during the war. He says that he and Odysseus never disagreed in assembly or council, “but having one mind we counseled what was best for the Argives with nóos and shrewd counsel” (Odyssey 3.126–129):

Nestor of course stresses the like-mindedness of Odysseus and himself with the phrase héna thumòn ékhonte, and the harmony between them at this stage {192|193} is the point. The phrase epíphroni boulē̂i, “with shrewd counsel,” nevertheless suggests Odysseus more than it does Nestor: the phrase occurs only one other time in Homer, namely in Odyssey 16, when Odysseus reveals himself to his son, and Telemachus repeats what he has always heard about his father, that he is both a warrior and “shrewd in counsel” (Odyssey 16.241–242):

§2.71 There is another hero besides Odysseus whom Nestor fails to bring home from Troy, and this is his own son Antilochus, who dies in the war. The loss of Antilochus is a matter of close personal grief to Nestor, who in Odyssey {193|194} 3, in recalling all the grief that the Achaeans suffered at Troy (ὀϊζύος, Odyssey 3.103), remembers the death of his own son most of all (Odyssey 3.108–112):

Antilochus’s death is also a matter of grief to Peisistratos, Nestor’s youngest son, when he accompanies Telemachus to Sparta, and Menelaus’s warm speech of regret for the missing Odysseus turns the minds of all to grief. Peisistratos grieves for his brother Antilochus, whom Memnon, son of the dawn goddess Eos, slew (Odyssey 4.186–188):

For Nestor there is perhaps a special pathos in the fact that, whereas he brings Diomedes safely home, he cannot bring his own son home. The pathos is deepened by the fact that Diomedes is close in age to Antilochus, or even younger. In the council at the beginning of Iliad 9, when Diomedes defiantly rejects Agamemnon’s defeatism and says that he and his companion Sthenelos will remain to take Troy alone if necessary, Nestor gently rebukes him, as a father would his youngest son, for not reaching the “goal” (télos) of his words. Nestor himself then takes over for Diomedes, and remedies the {194|195} deficiencies in his advice by going through everything at length and in detail (Iliad 9.53–62):

§2.72 The relationship between Nestor and Diomedes, which is compared to that between a father and son in this passage, should be kept in mind in Odyssey 3. Indeed Nestor’s claim that Diomedes has not reached the “goal” of his words (ou télos híkeo múthōn) and that he himself, by contrast, “will go through everything” (pánta diíxomai), should be seen in close relation to their eventual nóstos together, when it will be Nestor who will guide them through each new turn, at Tenedos and Lesbos, to the “goal” of their journey. The relationship between Nestor and Diomedes that is depicted in the Iliad is thus consistent with, and serves to flesh out, what is implied in the Odyssey. {195|196}

§2.75 The connection between Iliad 8 and Odyssey 3 goes beyond Diomedes. The real point of Nestor’s account in Odyssey 3 is not that he brought Diomedes home, but that he did not bring Odysseus home. This point is also alluded to in Iliad 8, with a role reversal paralleling that in the case of Nestor and Diomedes. For just as Nestor does not save Odysseus in Odyssey 3 in the context of their nóstos, Odysseus very pointedly does not save Nestor in Iliad 8. When Diomedes sees the old man in trouble, he shouts to Odysseus to halt his shameful flight and help drive Hector back, but Odysseus pays no heed, and dashes on to the ships (Iliad 8.90–98):

§2.76 The episode in Iliad 8 thus alludes to the nóstoi of Odyssey 3 and to the death of Antilochus simultaneously. As the episode proceeds, the relationship between Nestor and Diomedes, which is destined to culminate in their nóstos together, is of primary interest. We have already seen that this relationship is depicted in Iliad 9, when Nestor reminds Diomedes that he is young enough to be his son, and therefore has not reached the “goal” of his words in addressing the Achaean leaders, as Nestor himself then goes on to do. This episode in Iliad 9 depends on the episode in Iliad 8 in that the contrast in ages, which Nestor turns to his advantage in the meeting of the leaders, was first brought up by Diomedes on the battlefield, when he chided Nestor for his old age, his weak attendant, and his slow horses. In such terms does he greet Nestor when, without the help of Odysseus, he comes to Nestor’s rescue by himself (Iliad 8.99–104):

The sign from Zeus is unambiguous. It is in fact a direct warning. Nestor, who is able to perceive subtle signs from the gods that others miss, does not {202|203} miss the intent of this one, and he tells Diomedes to turn back and flee: Zeus intends to give glory to Hector today, but some other day, perhaps, he will give glory to them. Diomedes, too, knows what the sign means, for he does not disagree with Nestor’s words. But still he is greatly pained that he must flee, for Hector will boast about it among the Trojans, and Diomedes would rather be swallowed up by the earth than endure that. Diomedes is impassioned, but Nestor prevails by chiding him, saying that the Trojan women whose husbands Diomedes has killed will not believe Hector if he calls him a coward, and with that Nestor turns the horses and retreats (Iliad 8.152–158):

As they flee, Hector taunts Diomedes, just as he feared, and he must listen to himself called a woman who will never take away the wives of the Trojans. Diomedes debates in his heart three times whether to turn back again and fight, but three times Zeus thunders from Mount Ida, giving a sign of victory to the Trojans.

§2.77 When Nestor gets onto Diomedes’ chariot in Iliad 8, and the two of them are paired as horsemen, the episode moves into the domain of Nestor’s oldest traditions, his chariot race against the Epeian twins at Bouprasion. In that race the youthful Nestor, who raced alone, lacked all “restraint,” and he was thus unable to make the turn around the turning post, and he crashed as a result. In Iliad 8 the aged Nestor, with Diomedes at his side, does turn back, and he thus avoids catastrophe. In this reversal there is a balanced pair {203|204} of twins, as it were, and not a single charioteer, but Diomedes represents “incitement” and Nestor, who is far now from his youthful self, represents “restraint.” His “restraint,” however, is not the physical act of holding the reins, although he does that too, but an act of moral persuasion. Nestor calms Diomedes with his words, and this act of “restraining” is what turns them back toward safety.

§2.78 When the youthful Nestor lost control of his chariot, the reins flew from his hands, and the horses careened off the end of the course. This is of course not described directly in Iliad 23, when Nestor speaks of his loss to the twins, but indirectly, when Idomeneus speculates among the spectators about the reason for Eumelos’s disappearance from the race (Iliad 23.465–468):

We have seen that this description, which does not apply to what actually happened to Eumelos, in fact describes what once happened to the youthful Nestor. In Iliad 8, in an episode that is meant to bring Nestor’s youthful race to mind, the aged Nestor again lets the reins fly from his hands when Zeus hurls the thunderbolt in front of Diomedes’ horses (Iliad 8.135–138):

§2.80 While Nestor is human and Athena is a god, and this difference is never forgotten in the Homeric poems, the two figures do have similar functions to a certain extent. We see this again in the case of Diomedes when Athena mounts his chariot in Iliad 5 and Nestor mounts his chariot in Iliad 8. This parallel, I think, is not an accident. Nor, I think, is the contrast between the two figures, for Athena mounts Diomedes’ chariot to urge him on to attack and wound the god Ares, but Nestor mounts his chariot to prevent him from challenging the clearly demonstrated will of the god Zeus, much as Diomedes is tempted to do so. Behind both figures who ride beside Diomedes on his chariot is the immortal twin, whose role is to provide “incitement.” But in Nestor’s case, although the role of the immortal twin is, so to speak, his by birthright, he has also acquired the role of the mortal twin, and in this episode he provides “restraint.” The contrast with Athena’s role in Iliad 5 has to do with the difference between human and divine, for as Nestor tells Diomedes, a man cannot force Zeus to change his mind, since Zeus is much stronger (Iliad 8.143–144):

§2.81 There is a link between Diomedes’ victory in the chariot race in Iliad 23 and his easy nóstos in Odyssey 3. In both cases he is not alone. But the link is indirect since it involves the transformation of Nestor’s future role as “homebringer” into a role played by the goddess Athena in the race. The link between Diomedes’ nóstos and Iliad 8, on the other hand, is direct. When Nestor turns the horses back to flee, he saves Diomedes from divine wrath, just as he does later, when he flees from Tenedos with Diomedes because he “realized that the god planned evil things.” Since the direct link with {206|207} Diomedes’ nóstos is made in Iliad 8, it does not need to be made again in Iliad 23, when Diomedes wins the race driving the same team of Trojan horses that carried him safely out of battle in Iliad 8. In Iliad 23, instead of having Nestor at his side to help him, Diomedes has the help of Athena from a distance, and this too is not unrelated to his nóstos. For if Nestor, and not Athena, helped him in his nóstos, it was Athena’s wrath that had to be escaped, and Athena’s favor for him, again from a distance, is implied by the fact that he did escape.

§2.83 Whereas allusions to Antilochus’s fate are indirect in Iliad 23, the allusion to his fate in Iliad 8 is direct. The situation is in this respect much {208|209} the same for Antilochus as for Diomedes. Significantly it is these two who are closest to Nestor and who mean most to him in terms of their return, in the case of Diomedes, or failure to return, in the case of Antilochus. In Iliad 8 the contrast between the death of Antilochus and the return of Diomedes is of primary concern in the episode’s rich interplay of allusions. We thus begin to see that from Nestor’s standpoint there was a need for the episode in Iliad 8. In Iliad 23 it is Nestor’s relation to Patroclus, and to Patroclus’s fate, that is of primary concern in terms of the episode’s hidden poetic agenda. Nestor’s relation to the contrasting fates of Diomedes and Antilochus is thus necessarily of secondary concern. But the fates of Diomedes and Antilochus were not of secondary concern to Nestor himself.

§2.84 Of the four main contestants in the chariot race of Iliad 23, we must still consider the race of Menelaus in relation to his nóstos. Menelaus finishes the race in third place, ahead of only Meriones, who is the worst driver and has the slowest horses (Iliad 23.530–531), and Eumelos, who would have finished first if he had not crashed. Menelaus finishes in the middle of the field of contestants, but his race is regarded as a loss rather than a victory because he is defeated for second prize by Antilochus. The reason for his defeat is that he deliberately holds back when Antilochus passes him on the narrow road. Antilochus’s act, which is one of “incitement,” is couched in terms of nóos in various ways, including his own statement in his apology to Menelaus that the nóos of a young man is “too swift.” Menelaus, who holds back when Antilochus surges ahead, hesitates in other contexts as well. On his nóstos, after leading half the army away from Troy to Tenedos, he falls behind Nestor and Diomedes when they flee from Tenedos. He overtakes them on Lesbos when they pause to seek a sign from the god, and he accompanies them to Geraistos in Euboea, and from there to Cape Sounion. If we compare his nóstos up to this point with his race in Iliad 23, we may say that he is still in the “race,” and if he has no chance of arriving home in Sparta before Diomedes reaches Argos, he has every chance of reaching home in second place after Diomedes. But then the same thing happens that happens in his race, namely he is forced to fall behind. His helmsman dies at Cape Sounion and, eager though he is to pursue his journey, he is detained in order to bury his companion and perform funeral rites; Nestor tells the story in Odyssey 3.284–285:

§2.85 Menelaus is blown all the way to Egypt, and he wanders there and in Phoenicia for eight years (Odyssey 4.82) before he is finally able to return home, the last of the Achaeans to do so according to Athena/Mentes (Odyssey 1.286). Menelaus’s nóstos is exceedingly slow in comparison with that of Nestor and Diomedes, and yet he does return home in the end. But if his nóstos is ultimately successful, why is his chariot race regarded as a defeat? The answer to this may lie in the fact that Menelaus races not just for himself, but for himself and Agamemnon at the same time. The two of them cannot of course actually compete together in the same chariot, but both of them are represented in the team of horses that Menelaus drives, one of which is his, the other Agamemnon’s. This curious team is described when Menelaus rises next after Diomedes to enter the race (Iliad 23.293–295):

Whereas Menelaus’s horse is a male, Agamemnon’s is a female, and this fact plays a part in the race. For when Antilochus calls on his horses to overtake Menelaus’s he shames them with the thought of losing to a female (Iliad 23.407–409):

In his reply Nestor defends Menelaus’s reputation valiantly, saying that Telemachus himself knows that Aigisthos would have received no burial, funeral rites, or lamentation if Menelaus on his return home had encountered Aigisthos alive (Odyssey 3.254–261). The truth is, however, that Menelaus returned too late not only to defend his brother, but even to avenge him, for Orestes had already slain Aigisthos when Menelaus returned home in the eighth year. He arrived on the very day that Orestes celebrated a funeral for his mother and Aigisthos. For Menelaus himself there is little joy in his own nóstos because of his brother’s murder. In Odyssey 4, when Telemachus admires the splendor of Menelaus’s palace, and Menelaus tells how he gained his possessions during his eight years of travel, he ends by saying that these possessions bring him no joy because while he wandered abroad gathering them his brother was slain (Odyssey 4.90–92):

§2.86 The hesitancy that cost Menelaus second prize in the chariot race, and that led to his long return home, continues to characterize him in his domestic life in Sparta. Compared to his wife Helen, who recognizes Telemachus as soon as she lays eyes on him from his similarity to Odysseus, Menelaus is slow to recognize him. Telemachus weeps when Menelaus says that he misses Odysseus most of those who fought at Troy, and Menelaus ponders whether to ask him who his father is or wait for him to say on his own (Odyssey 4.118–119). When Helen enters the room and surmises at once that this is Telemachus, Menelaus also perceives the likeness: οὕτω νῦν καὶ ἐγὼ νοέω, γύναι, ὡς σὺ ἐΐσκεις (Odyssey 4.148). Once Helen has pointed out the likeness, everything falls into place for Menelaus. He now sees many points of similarity to Odysseus, and he understands why mention of Odysseus made Telemachus weep (Odyssey 4.149–154). On his own, however, Menelaus perceived none of this. Helen takes the lead in other ways as well in Odyssey 4, as when she puts a drug in the wine to dull the pain of remembrance and tells a story in praise of Odysseus. Menelaus follows her lead with his own story in Odysseus’s praise (Odyssey 4.219–289). The contrast between Helen and Menelaus is still more sharply drawn in Odyssey 15, when a bird omen appears at the end of a speech of Telemachus; Peisistratos calls on Menelaus to interpret the omen, Menelaus hesitates, and Helen interprets it instead (Odyssey 15.160–173).

§2.87 Menelaus is a follower rather than a leader in the Iliad too in his relationship with Agamemnon. This is perhaps the origin of his characteristic {213|214} hesitancy, for Agamemnon is the commander-in-chief, and Menelaus necessarily follows his brother’s lead. In Iliad 10, with the Trojans camped nearby, Agamemnon and Menelaus both cannot sleep, and each rises from his bed to seek counsel. Agamemnon, who is described first, decides to seek out Nestor’s advice. Menelaus, on the other hand, goes to awaken his brother, whom he finds already up and arming himself (Iliad 10.32–34):

In this situation calling for wise counsel the direction of dependency is clear, with Menelaus seeking out Agamemnon, and Agamemnon seeking out Nestor. Nevertheless it is Menelaus who immediately suggests to Agamemnon the plan that is set in motion in Iliad 10, namely sending a spy against the Trojans (Iliad 10.37–38). The brothers then part to awaken different heroes and call them to council. When Agamemnon awakens Nestor, Nestor prepares to follow him and call others. But first he finds fault with Menelaus for sleeping and letting Agamemnon exert himself at this dangerous pass. When Agamemnon corrects Nestor’s misconception, he says that he is right to blame Menelaus at other times, for he often holds back and does not wish to exert himself, not out of hesitancy or dull-wittedness, but because he waits for Agamemnon’s lead (Iliad 10.120–123):

Menelaus “gives way,” not out of hesitancy or dull-wittedness, but because he needs his brother’s lead. The verb methieî, “gives way,” in Iliad 10.121 brings us back to Menelaus’s chariot race, in which he “willingly gave way” to Telemachus to avoid a crash (Iliad 23.434–435):

§2.90 We have now considered most of Nestor’s role in the Odyssey, which is essentially a negative one: Nestor did not bring Odysseus home; worse than that, when Nestor last saw Odysseus they had an angry dispute and parted permanently. This was the plain truth, and however unspoken it is left in Odyssey 3, it is in no way denied. But there are other factors that soften the harshness of what happened. In particular, Telemachus and Peisistratos, the sons of the two heroes who parted angrily, form a bond between them that heals that earlier breach. The presence of Athena, disguised as Mentor, also puts everything in a new perspective.

§2.91 Athena herself arranges for Peisistratos to take her place as Telemachus’s traveling companion (Odyssey 3.368–370). When the two youths leave Pylos for Sparta at the end of Odyssey 3 they together mount the chariot that Nestor has had prepared for them (Odyssey 3.481–484):

The quarrel that separated Nestor and Odysseus, with such dire consequences for Odysseus, is now made up by their sons, and that is the image that we are left with at the end of Odyssey 3, as Peisistratos takes Telemachus on his way. The role that Nestor plays in the nóstos of Odysseus is based on his version of the twin myth, in which he is permanently separated from his brother. So too he is permanently separated from Odysseus at the very moment of his {217|218} nóstos. But the image at the end of Odyssey 3 is one of reintegration, and the chariot in which this reintegration takes place suggests poetically the integration of twins. The quarrel between Nestor and Odysseus has not been undone, for it cannot be, and there are echoes of this quarrel even in the very last that we hear about Nestor in the Odyssey. For so I would interpret Odyssey 15, when Telemachus returns with Peisistratos from Sparta to Pylos, but does not stop to see Nestor before embarking for Ithaca. When Telemachus asks that Peisistratos allow him to do this because of the urgency that he feels to leave, he stresses his friendship with Peisistratos himself, which is based on the earlier friendship of their fathers, and which the journey to Sparta has increased (Odyssey 15.195–198):

It seems significant that the word used of their increased friendship is “oneness of mind” (homophrosúnēisin), for that is what Nestor and Odysseus had while their friendship was intact, and what they lost at the moment of nóstos. That former “oneness of mind” (héna thumòn ékhonte is Nestor’s own phrase) has now been restored in the younger generation. It also seems significant that when Peisistratos grants his companion’s request, his final word should concern Nestor’s anger. Telemachus is worried that Nestor will detain him in order to show him hospitality, so Peisistratos himself performs the obligations of hospitality, giving Telemachus the gifts that he himself received from Menelaus (Odyssey 15.206–207), and urging him to set sail before Nestor hears of his presence. For Peisistratos knows how overbearing Nestor’s spirit is, and that he will come for Telemachus and not return empty-handed; in any case he will be very angry (Odyssey 15.211–214):

That the last word in the Odyssey about Nestor should concern his anger is remarkable, but poetically it is exactly right. Overtly Nestor’s imagined anger has to do with a thwarted desire to show hospitality to the son of Odysseus, but beneath the surface it brings back to mind the role that Nestor played in the return of Odysseus himself, a role that is well summarized by the allusion to his anger. In his own account of events on Tenedos there was of course no mention of Nestor’s anger, and yet, if he was one party to the dispute, anger there must have been; we can judge this by the exchange of harsh words between Menelaus and Agamemnon in the first dispute on the shores of Troy: ὣς τὼ μὲν χαλεποῖσιν ἀμειβομένω ἐπέεσσιν… (Odyssey 3.148). The suppression of any mention of Nestor’s anger in the context where it is the main point, and the resurfacing of that anger at a safe distance, and with a crucial change of context from hostility to hospitality, is in line with the poetic treatment of Nestor in the Iliad. In Iliad 23 it was Nestor’s crash at the turning post in his race against the Epeian twins that was never mentioned directly, but which surfaced more than once indirectly in the chariot race for Patroclus. In the Odyssey the great unspoken event in Nestor’s past is his quarrel with Odysseus, and the hostility that that implied. However brief the hostility, it was the final moment in the relationship between these two heroes, and therefore all important. This final moment must be kept firmly in mind throughout Odyssey 3, and elsewhere in the Odyssey, to appreciate the full dramatic effect of Nestor’s presence in the poem, just as his crash at the turning post must be kept in mind throughout the chariot race of Iliad 23. At the beginning of Odyssey 3 the apprehension that Telemachus feels in approaching and addressing Nestor, which Athena, disguised as Mentor, helps him to overcome, has to do first of all with the coming of age of a young man with little experience of the wider world. But the drama of Telemachus’s reluctance is heightened when we understand just whom he is afraid to approach, and the circumstances under which this figure parted from his father. {219|220}

§2.96 After the fall of Troy Menelaus “reminds the warfolk” of their “return home” when he quarrels with Agamemnon over the very issue of “return.” As Nestor puts it, “Menelaus urged all the Achaeans to remember their nóstos” (Odyssey 3.141–144):

§2.99 Mentor for Athena is just a disguise. In her own persona she is in control of events, and Nestor, a mere mortal, does not rival her superior power. In Odyssey 3 much attention is given to the transfer of responsibility for Odysseus from Nestor (he did not bring Odysseus home) to Athena (she will). The theme is introduced with references to Athena’s care for Odysseus at Troy and the possibility that she may bring him home even now. Since Athena herself is present in disguise, all of this is highly ironic. Telemachus wishes that the gods would give him power to defeat his mother’s suitors, but says that the gods have not granted this lot either to him or to his father. Nestor counters his pessimism with the thought that the suitors may yet be punished, either by a returning Odysseus, or by Telemachus himself if Athena loves him as much as she openly loved and cared for Odysseus at Troy (Odyssey 3.216–224):

Telemachus refuses to believe that this will happen, even if the gods should wish it, and Athena/Mentor rebukes him sharply for his attitude (Odyssey 3.230–231):

When Athena finishes her mission in Pylos and flies off in the form of a bird, Nestor recognizes her at once, and realizes that Telemachus does indeed have the same goddess to protect him that his father did at Troy (Odyssey 3.371–379). Athena’s presence is as hopeful for Odysseus and his fate as it is for Telemachus, for she herself said shortly before that a god could easily save a man even from far away. But this implication is left unstated, for Nestor has more immediate thoughts in his mind. He prays to the goddess who has just visited him to give “good fame” to himself and his family, and he promises to sacrifice an unbroken heifer with gilded horns to her (Odyssey 3.380–384). Athena hears his prayer, and most of the rest of Odyssey 3 is devoted to the honor that Nestor pays her. When they go to bed at night, it is to Athena that Nestor makes his libation and prayer (Odyssey 3.393–394). When morning comes, the promised heifer is sacrificed in full ritual splendor, and the process is described in elaborate detail (Odyssey 3.404–474). In the course of the sacrifice Nestor “prays much to Athena” for yet a third time (Odyssey 3.445–446). The great honor paid to Athena at the end of Odyssey 3 balances the scene at the beginning of the book, when Telemachus and Athena arrive in Pylos in the middle of a sacrifice to Poseidon. The shift from Poseidon to Athena heightens the attention on Athena, without dishonoring Poseidon. There has also been another shift in Odyssey 3, and that is from Nestor to Athena as “homebringer” for Odysseus. This is a shift from human to divine, and the change of level is what is brought out in Nestor’s worship of Athena at the end of the book. Odysseus, despite his long absence, has a greater power on his side now than Nestor, with whom he quarreled and split to initiate his long absence. The shift from Nestor to Athena does not dishonor Nestor, although that possibility is present throughout Odyssey 3 because of the negativity of Nestor’s role in the nóstos of Odysseus. Perhaps it is to counter this possibility that Nestor explicitly prays for “good fame” (kléos esthlón) as soon as he recognizes Athena, and that she hears his prayer (Odyssey 3.380–381, 385). {225|227}

Footnotes