The next several chapters discuss conversations that have both i) an above average number of turns and ii) elaboration or variation of some kind in between the individual speeches. These chapters focus primarily on elaborations in typical speech framing language, rather than on changes to the turn structures, in the conversations to be discussed. Hence they will contain a greater quantity of detailed close readings of specific passages from Homeric poetry than the chapters in Part II, all of which are centrally concerned with changes in turn sequences in common conversational patterns. Chapters 1 and 2 focus on the Odyssey (Chapter 1 on conversations involving various different characters, Chapter 2 on conversations between Odysseus and Penelope), while Chapter 3 focuses on elaborate conversations in the Iliad. Chapter 3 is much shorter than Chapters 1 and 2, because the Odyssey contains a greater number of elaborate one-on-one conversations than the Iliad does. In addition, the elaborations to these conversations tend to be more extensive. {50|51}

Specific elaborations that occur within conversations in the Odyssey tend to highlight this tension or its effects on the characters. These elaborations generally depict one of two things: they show either the dynamics of this conflict as it plays out over the course of a particular interaction, or several interactions; or they highlight moments when the tension is finally resolved in favor of establishing a relationship and abandoning concealment. Conversely, situations in which concealment does not conflict with an urgent desire to establish a connection (as with Odysseus and Eumaeus when Odysseus first returns to Ithaca) do not result in conversational elaborations. The Odyssey is interested in the tension between concealment and relationships, not in concealment per se. The Iliad, as we will see, uses one-on-one conversation rather differently.

Not only Athena herself marks this transition, in that she begins Odysseus’ homecoming and re-entry into a basically realistic environment by being the first person he meets on Ithaca and providing his disguise. Poseidon, too, puts an end to the fabulous story-world of the first half of the Odyssey, not only for our poem but for good, by sealing off the Phaeacians on their island and preventing them from playing host to any more refugees. Starting from the general observation that Athena appears here at the beginning of Odysseus’ homecoming because she helps to make it possible, this investigation will focus on the specific ways that the meeting between Athena and Odysseus sets the stage for the reunions that occur later in the poem. More particularly, through manipulations of the sequences and formulas of one-on-one conversation, it {52|53} highlights the conflict that Odysseus feels between telling the truth and being circumspect and cautious, and it depicts his self-control and cleverness in being able to subdue his impulse to reveal himself inadvisedly. Athena, as a master of cunning herself, provides a particularly effective interlocutor for Odysseus here. If Odysseus can converse with a god and hold his own in deception while doing so, his deceptive abilities are outstanding indeed.

Odysseus’ reply, however, shows no signs of the emotions that the speech frame preceding it depicts. Despite the strength of his joy at learning where he is, his capacity for concealment asserts itself almost immediately. The strength of the two opposing impulses—toward happy reunion with his home, and toward concealing himself—and the rapidity with which one follows the other very effectively highlight the conflict between them. Not only does Odysseus not admit that he is Odysseus come home, but he reinforces his silence on this point with a fluent and elaborate false identification for himself (256-286). Athena replies admiringly to this cool-headed deception by saying that anyone, even a god, would have difficulty surpassing him in resourcefulness (ἐν πάντεσσι δόλοισι [in any contriving], 292), and reveals her identity to him. In a sense, the narrator depicts Athena as less tricky than Odysseus has been: the introduction to her speech reflects and reinforces the content of it instead of creating a complement or contrast with it.

This introduction includes language which mentions Athena’s amusement at the duplicity of her protégé (μείδησεν, 287), her affection for him (χειρί τέ μιν κατέρεξε, 288), and her transformation into goddess form.

This passage as a whole is functionally equivalent to the formulaic single verse τὸν δ’ αὖτε προσέειπε θεὰ γλαυκῶπις Ἀθήνη (then in turn the gray-eyed goddess Athene answered), which appears repeatedly elsewhere in this conversation (see note 10 above). The details that appear here highlight from Athena’s point of view Odysseus’ skill in putting the need to conceal ahead of the desire to reveal himself: his behavior both amuses the goddess and causes her to decide to reveal herself to him. Insofar as there is a veiled contest of concealment taking place in the context of this conversation, Odysseus wins. All the language that this passage contains is {58|59} formulaic and appears in other speech frames. We can construct different hypothetical versions of this particular passage that would refer to Athena’s amusement, but not her transformation (287, 290); a shorter and therefore less emphatic version could be formed by omitting verse 289. The passage as we have it effectively depicts Athena’s affection for Odysseus, which the sequence of speeches up to this point implies is based on his capacity to conceal himself. This indirectly highlights that capacity and shows how effectively he has managed the conflict he feels here between concealment and revealing himself.

Here again, an elaborate speech frame falls between Athena’s speech (330-351) and Odysseus’ response (356-360), but this passage differs from the two discussed above: although it falls between two speeches in an ongoing {59|60} conversation, it is not structurally equivalent to a single verse reply formula. This is because Odysseus is not replying to Athena in his speech, but praying to a group of Naiads, which means that it is necessary to identify both the addressees and the special nature of his utterance.

In this passage, unlike the previous two elaborate speech frames, only one verse of the four contains detail unnecessary for avoiding confusion. Verse 352 describes the action of Athena that results in the unveiling of the island of Ithaca. Odysseus is named in the following verse, which is necessary to identify him as the speaker of the following speech since the alternating turn structure of one-on-one conversation is disrupted here. Finally, verse 355 tells us the kind of speech Odysseus made and the identity of those to whom he made it. However, verse 354 is not necessary to make the situation clear to the audience: while κύσε δὲ ζείδωρον ἄρουραν (kissed the grain-giving ground) describes a physical act and not a purely emotional response, this behavior enacts Odysseus’ emotion rather than clarifying the plot.

Let us consider how the passage would work if verse 354 were removed.

This abbreviated passage makes sense in the context. We do not lose any crucial information without 354, but the evocative picture of Odysseus’ joyful reunion with the soil of his home vanishes, as does the contrast between his purely internal response to the disguised Athena’s verbal identification of Ithaca (250ff.) and his outward demonstrations here when the goddess shows him the land. For Odysseus, seeing is believing, in relation to both Athena and his home. In contrast, nothing in their subsequent discussion of the situation in the palace of Ithaca, or their plans for the future and the suitors, calls forth this kind of elaborate emphasis. The way this conversation is depicted highlights the deceptions of both Odysseus and Athena surrounding his arrival on Ithaca, his “reunion” with the land itself, and Odysseus’ response to these deceptions.

This meeting between Athena and Odysseus is the only time in the poem that the two spend a significant amount of time together. As Odysseus effects several more reunions and recognitions and dispatches the suitors, Athena lends her aid in various ways. She speaks to Odysseus again on several occasions, often in her own persona (e.g. before his reunion with Telemachus in Book 16). Moreover, an intervention by her closes the poem, insofar as she prevents renewed warfare from breaking out among the bereaved families of dead suitors and has (literally) the last word in the poem (24.542-544). But once Odysseus meets mortals from his family and household, it is his relations with them that assume center stage. He and Athena do not meet again in the extended and expansive manner that they do here, when Odysseus has just arrived on Ithaca and has not yet started the process of reintegrating himself into the society of Ithaca. At the point in the poem when Odysseus is between the fabulous and the familiar, he has his most developed meeting with the one figure who has been or will be with him (in some way) in both settings. It is to Odysseus’ relationships with the members of his family that we now turn.

The reunion of Odysseus and Telemachus in Book 16 begins with Odysseus and Eumaeus eating breakfast and the return of Telemachus from his voyage in search of news of his father. Odysseus asks Eumaeus who this young man is (8-10). However, Telemachus arrives at the hut before Odysseus finishes asking his question (οὔ πω πᾶν εἴρητο ἔπος [his whole word had not been spoken], 11). Although his speech is not so abbreviated as to contain any partial lines, Homeric speakers are not generally interrupted before they get to the end of what they want to say. Thus, at the very beginning of the reunion, contact between Odysseus and Telemachus disrupts the usual conventions of Homeric conversation.

When Telemachus first speaks to Odysseus after his exchange of welcome and greeting with Eumaeus, he thinks the old beggar is a ξεῖνος (friend, guest: 44), having as yet no reason to think anything else. An unusual speech introduction, Τηλέμαχος δ’ ἑτέρωθεν ἐρήτυε φώνησέν τε (but Telemachos from the other side checked him and said to him, 43), precedes his courteous greeting to the supposed stranger. His appropriate behavior as a host toward Odysseus contrasts with his awkward performances as a guest of Nestor and Menelaus in Books 3 and 4 of the poem. The description of Telemachus immediately after this speech as Ὀδυσσῆος φίλος υἱός (beloved son of Odysseus, 48), implicitly contrasts their polite and unemotional contact as ξεῖνοι (guest-friends) with the love that they bear for each other as father and son.

The father-son relationship, then, has a prominent and complex role from the very beginning of Odysseus and Telemachus’ meeting. The simile before Eumaeus’ greeting simultaneously brings forward the general idea of fathers and sons and refers indirectly to the web of connections among the characters present. This very effectively brings out the strength of the watching Odysseus’ emotions, and accordingly, his strength in concealing them. Telemachus is the acknowledged surrogate son of Eumaeus and the (as yet) unacknowledged child of Odysseus, whose own position as a son as well as a father is invoked by the simile’s description of a child who has been away from home for a long time. When Telemachus speaks to his father for the first time, the unusual introductory verse at 16.43 makes his words stand out. Yet the words themselves are nothing but the merest social politeness of inviting a {66|67} guest to sit down. The use of a patronymic in the verses immediately following this speech reinforces the contrast between the momentousness of the first meeting between father and son and the banality of the words and actions of the meeting. Watchers of the action from outside the poem feel this contrast, as does Odysseus, but Telemachus is ignorant of it. His ignorance, in light of the strength of his desire for his father throughout the earlier books of the poem, lends pathos to the situation. Moreover, the gap between his ignorance and Odysseus’ understanding and self-control that is depicted so effectively here plays a central role in the unfolding of their meeting, as we are about to see.

Once Eumaeus journeys to the city to relay the message that Telemachus has returned safely (154-155) and the coast is clear, father and son converse alone. Athena transforms Odysseus’ appearance to a strong and hearty man, and departs (155-177). The emotions of each come out much more strongly here than when Eumaeus is still with them. The astonished Telemachus casts his eyes reverently down at the sight of the transformed erstwhile beggar who reenters the hut. At the same time, the narrator calls him φίλος υἱός (beloved son, 178). In the speech immediately following, Telemachus not unreasonably concludes that his suddenly changed “guest” is in fact a god who should be propitiated (181-185). For Telemachus, in contrast to his father, the conflict which arouses the audience’s sympathy does not take place within himself or between conflicting impulses of his own. Rather, the tension here arises between his partial understanding of the situation (and his perfectly sensible response to it as he understands it), shown through his behavior and his speech; and the real state of matters, underlined by the narrator’s way of identifying him before his speech. Nevertheless, this conflict draws on the same basic notions of concealment versus reunion that underlies the internal conflicts that Odysseus feels.

At this point, we see that Telemachus is feeling the opposing pull of his desire to believe Odysseus and his skepticism, while Odysseus has put aside his desire to conceal his identity and whole-heartedly desires a reunion with his son. This puts him and Telemachus into a kind of tension as well. With one exception, the reply formulas for Odysseus in this conversation use the πολύτλας δῖος (long-suffering great) epithet, not the more regular πολύμητις (resourceful) one. The “long-suffering” epithet appears in the introduction to Odysseus’ reply to Telemachus’ first speech (186), in which Odysseus identifies himself as the young man’s father (187-189). Odysseus tells his doubtful and wary son that he is not a god, but Telemachus’ father (ἀλλὰ πατὴρ τεός εἰμι [but I am your father], 188). The expanded speech frame before Telemachus’ reply to this assertion, at 190-193, calls further attention to Telemachus’ dogged insistence that this mysterious changeling beggar is a god and not his long hoped-for father.

Odysseus, who at long last has put aside concealment in favor of making a connection with Telemachus, is now stymied by the same circumspection that has marked his own behavior in the past. The language and structure of the conversation here dramatize the shifting gulf that exists for Telemachus as the scene progresses: whereas at the beginning of his meeting with Odysseus, his partial understanding contrasts with the real identity of his “guest,” Telemachus now faces an internal conflict between the information he has received and his own skepticism of it. This is similar to the opposing claims of honesty and concealment that Odysseus has experienced before, but at this point has put aside. Telemachus’ hesitation creates a gulf between himself and Odysseus.

These unique aspects of the formula draw out the conflict Telemachus is feeling between openness and skepticism, and they dramatize in a very concrete way the gap between him and Odysseus. Moreover, these two verses are not enjambed with the preceding lines describing Odysseus’ tender and emotional greeting of Telemachus, so that the usual one-line reply formula for Telemachus could have been used here instead of this couplet commenting on Telemachus’ demeanor. Indeed, the common reply formula for Telemachus could have taken the place of the entire passage (16.190-193) without loss of clarity. Yet the narrator’s aside describing the wary and suspicious son, contrasted with the kisses and tears of the father in the previous verses, very effectively depicts the gap between father and son and the shifting tensions between circumspection and acceptance that each experiences over the course of their interaction. However tempted he might be to welcome this supposed Odysseus, Telemachus is not convinced at all by Odysseus’ statement {70|71} of his real identity. He now repeats in essentially the same language as before his conviction that the beggar must be a god trying to cause him even more misery (194-200).

I believe that the simile illustrates an aspect of the situation that the narrative itself does not directly explore: the sadness and bereavement of the two because of the time together that has been lost to them. The birds of the simile have had their chicks, τέκνα . . . πάρος πετεηνά (children before their wings grew, 217-218), stolen by hunters. The detail of winglessness emphasizes both the youth of the chicks and their inability to defend themselves. Despite their own power as hunters—φῆναι ἢ αἰγυπιοὶ γαμψώνυχες (ospreys or vultures with hooked claws, 217) are both fierce birds of prey—the parents are unable to protect their offspring from harm. Just as the mighty parent birds are unable to keep their children safe, so the warrior and hero Odysseus has not fended off the incursions of the suitors against his still immature son Telemachus. The bereft birds, too, suggest that for Odysseus and Telemachus, the Trojan War and Odysseus’ long wanderings have irrevocably stolen the first stage of their father-son relationship. While we have seen several examples of speech frames that supply details that are otherwise not explicit about the emotional state of one or both speakers in a conversation, this simile goes far beyond the brief comments that appear in other conversations in terms of its length, its vividness, and the great deal of information that it implies.

Unlike other reunions between Odysseus and his household, the meeting with Telemachus marks the establishment of a relationship that did not previously exist, not the resumption of an interrupted one. They accept each other not by exchanging and recognizing σήματα (signs), as in other scenes of recognition between Odysseus and his household, but because Odysseus repeatedly states his identity and essentially forces Telemachus to accept him. Between Odysseus and Telemachus, indeed, there are no σήματα because as yet there has been no relationship between them. Telemachus has had to grow up without a father. While the father has now returned, they can never recover the loss of Telemachus’ boyhood, which is gone just as surely as the stolen chicks of the simile. Thus, while the simile seems at first glance to contrast with the narrative, in fact it brings out the underlying sadness of the happy reunion. The gap between the two characters is closed, and the conflict that each has felt between openness and concealment is over, but at the moment when this is finally accomplished, the simile tells us that the damage done by their former separation cannot be entirely undone.

And how does Telemachus acquit himself for the remainder of the poem? As the modern audience, and most likely the ancient audience as well, is fully aware, the reunited father and son successfully remove the suitors from the palace, Penelope eventually accepts Odysseus’ assertion that he is her long-lost husband, and order is restored. Athena appears at the poem’s conclusion {78|79} to force the characters into amicable coexistence, but the audience is nevertheless left wondering about how the feelings of uncertainty and hostility that must still remain among the inhabitants of Ithaca will be resolved. This feeling of being in progress even at the conclusion of the poem is as true of Telemachus’ emerging adulthood as it is of any other story line in the tale.

The return of Odysseus does not instantly make Telemachus a self-sufficient, independent adult: for the most part it is still Odysseus who makes the plans and arranges events to his own satisfaction. Yet the young man does show real changes as a result of his own travels and the return of Odysseus, beginning with his self-control and self-reliance at the end of the reunion of Book 16. For the remainder of the poem, he consistently dissembles to the suitors and to the members of his own family in order to conceal the fact of Odysseus’ return, a degree of self-command that is hard to imagine in connection with the awkward, uncertain youth of the early part of the poem. For Telemachus, unlike for Odysseus, the simple fact of his ability to conceal things from others who would be interested in the concealed information merits special notice from the narrator (in the form of the epithets that describe him when he speaks misleadingly). There is no sense in these scenes that Telemachus feels any internal conflict from a desire to reveal his privileged information. The noteworthy feature of his deceptions is not any conflict they entail for him, but his newly developed ability to practice them at all.

The other two speeches preceded by τοῖσι δὲ καὶ/τοῖς αὖτις μετέειφ’ ἱερὴ ἲς Τηλεμάχοιο both occur during the contest of the bow, and show Telemachus actively pretending to be either weaker or stupider than he really is. 21.101 introduces the speech in which he announces his intention to try to string the great bow of Odysseus (102-117). In the course of the speech, he twice refers to himself with the adjective ἄφρων (witless, 102 and 105), when in fact by this point in the story he is nothing of the kind. His attempt to string the bow, so nearly successful but for the intervention of Odysseus himself, is followed by extravagant lamentations about his own youth and inability.

This pretense distracts the suitors from noticing that in fact Telemachus almost strung the bow, and the contest proceeds without the suitors seeming to realize Telemachus’ feat. Moreover, except for Odysseus himself, only Telemachus speaks more than once while attempting to string the bow. This gives Telemachus prominence in the contest of the bow, implicitly showing that of the young men present, he is the most nearly able to match his father’s strength and skill. Generally speaking, τοῖς αὖτις μετέειφ’ ἱερὴ ἲς Τηλεμάχοιο is found in the section of the poem in which Telemachus is capable of concealment and adult behavior. The specific contexts in which it appears all show Telemachus either dissembling for the suitors or frightening them with bold language, neither of which he was able to do persuasively in the early part of the poem.

In fact, this passage gives equal prominence to the response of Odysseus to his father’s grief as to the father’s response to what Odysseus has said. This is quite remarkable: not only are extended speech frames of any sort unusual in one-on-one conversation, but a speech frame that describes the effect of the listener’s emotion on the speaker who has just finished speaking is anomalous. This is also unlike Odysseus’ behavior on other occasions when he is confronted with a grieving relation. Odysseus does, of course, respond to the grief of other people many times during the poem, but he generally does this either in the breach (as in his first meeting with Penelope in Book 19) or else after he has already declared himself to be Odysseus (which happens with both Telemachus and Penelope). Elsewhere, Odysseus can manage the conflict between his desire for openness and his impulse to conceal himself, but here, it appears, he cannot.

Moreover, Odysseus responds to his father’s displays of grief by abandoning not only his plan to test Laertes, but even the alternating turn structure of the conversation. Laertes weeps and disfigures himself here in response to Odysseus’ reference to hosting “Odysseus” in his false persona, and Odysseus also makes the speech after this one (that is, he takes both the third and the fourth turn in the sequence of eight). There are only seventeen successive speeches in the entire Odyssey, and the other sixteen are made either to or in a group. This is the only one that occurs in a one-on-one conversation. Only in his father is Odysseus unable to face the spectacle of the grief and bereavement {87|88} of a relative who wrongly believes him to be lost. Only here does he abandon a previously designed plan to test and to lie because he is so deeply affected by the emotions of the person he sees weeping for him. The disruption of the turn structure itself is a fitting way to show that Odysseus cannot control the tension he feels between honesty and circumspection. Rather than simply describing this overwhelming emotion, the narrator depicts it overwhelming a typical pattern of one-on-one conversation that is observed everywhere in the Odyssey except for here.

Indeed, when he speaks, he does not say “I am Odysseus” or even “I am your son,” as he says “I am your father” to Telemachus in Book 16. Instead, he simply says κεῖνος μέν τοι ὅδ’ αὐτὸς ἐγώ, πάτερ, ὃν σὺ μεταλλᾷς (Father, I am he, the man whom you ask about, 321) asserting his own identity through the actions of his father. Although the structural anomaly in this conversation differs markedly from the long emphatic passages of simile and description that occur in other reunions in the poem, like those elaborations, it does rely on the typical patterns of one-on-one conversation to create its effect. In its own way, it shows a starker and more basic emotional upheaval for Odysseus than the striking similes that audiences have loved since antiquity in the reunion scenes with Telemachus and Penelope.

This chapter has argued that a consistent aesthetic outlook and approach to traditional materials operates in the various conversations in the second half of the Odyssey that mark important points in Odysseus’ homecoming. In each of these scenes, the narrator highlights a tension that Odysseus feels between revealing himself at once to the person with whom he speaks in order to re-establish a relationship with that person, and concealing his identity. Typical conversation patterns depict this conflict: the narrator manipulates or draws out the usual structures of one-on-one conversation without substantially changing them. When Odysseus meets Athena, his first conversation on Ithaca, and when he is reunited with his son, wife (as we will see shortly), and father, {90|91} a one-on-one conversation occurs that is unusually long and that contains elaborations of various kinds in between the individual speeches where we would normally expect single-verse reply formulas. These elaborations are one of the main sources of emotion and pathos in these various scenes.