Masculinity Lessons from Homer
Telemachus and the loss of initiation rituals
Homer’s Odyssey, one of the earliest classics of Western literature, explores not only Odysseus’ journey back home from the Trojan war but also his son Telemachus’ journey from boyhood to manhood. “You must not cling to your boyhood any longer — / it’s time you were a man,” Athena tells him in the first book. But modern society, unlike any other society throughout human history, offers young men no masculine initiation ritual. As a result, countless adult boys wander aimlessly through a wasteland of effeminacy and insecurity.
The way Telemachus becomes a man has five important lessons to teach them. I first read this poem when I was 17, but I recommend fathers read it to their sons a lot younger in the one of good children’s versions that are available.
Whereas his father has “roved around the world” (17.567), Telemachus is at first passive and inactive. He hasn’t built anything. Instead of building, in fact, he’s more often bitching. After giving a speech to the the suitors trying to win his mother’s hand in his father’s absence, for example. he cries: “down on the ground he dashed the speaker’s scepter — / bursting into tears” (2.86-7). To become a man, he will have to stop these tantrums and learn to control his emotions.
He also lacks social confidence. He’s anxious about asking King Nestor for information about Odysseus: “I’m hardly adept at subtle conversation. / Someone my age might feel shy, what’s more, / interrogating an older man” (3.24-7).” But after Athena encourages him, exposing him to what he’s afraid of, he begins to sound more like his father. As Nestor remarks, “I look at you and a sense of wonder takes me. / Your way with words — it’s just like his — I’d swear / no youngster could ever speak like you, so apt, so telling” (3.138-40). Menelaus, too, recognises this: “Your father’s son you are — your words have all his wisdom” (4.227-9).
Skill in speech, then, is one of the marks of manhood, and another is how Telemachus holds himself physically. Entering the assembling of Ithacan men, “[he] strode in…a bronze spear in his grip / and not alone: two sleek hounds went trotting at his heels. / And Athena lavished a marvellous splendour on the prince / so the people all gazed in wonder as he came forward, / the elders making way as he took his father’s seat” (2.10-14)[2]. The spear shows Telemachus is now ready for action. Later, Menelaus comments, “You must be born of kings, / bred by the gods to wield the royal sceptre” (4.69-71). A man’s physical bearing matters.
Telemachus’ journey towards manhood is also a journey away from dependence on his mother. After Athena first calls him to action, he orders his mother to her room to keep her safe. Although ‘astonished’, she recognises his ‘clear good sense’. He tells her to keep to women’s tasks. ‘As for giving orders, / men will see to that, but I most of all. / I hold the reins of power in this house” (1.410-14)[3]. She obeys him unquestioningly.
Having distanced himself from his father, Odysseus then becomes increasingly like his father. Odysseus is a “cool tactician” (20.252), and Telemachus “cool-headed” (1.445); Odysseus has a “mind in full control” (17.260), and Telemachus is “thoughtful” (2.411); Like his father, he now holds back tears (Odysseus in 19.242-5, Telemachus in 17.540-2), and both plot revenge together, their minds “churning with thoughts of bloody work.”
Homer’s presentation of Telemachus’ journey to manhood thus reminds modern man-boys of these five vital, counter-cultural messages:
Don’t bitch. Build.
Get out your comfort zone, and master public speaking.
Remember that your body is your billboard to tell the world what you’re about.
Don’t be a mummy’s boy.
Form a strong relationship with your father.
In a world that encourages whining, social withdrawal, physical softness and single-mother homes, these are important emphases. Of course Odysseus isn’t an ideal man. Dante places him lower in hell than Achilles because he lies whereas Achilles loses his temper. But no boy has an ideal man as a father, nor will he become one. The scene where Odysseus and Telemachus go to the armoury together to take back their home is an important one for men to contemplate.