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Telegony

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For effect of the male element on the female reproductive system, seeTelegony (inheritance).

TheTelegony(Ancient Greek:Τηλεγόνεια,romanized:Tēlegóneia;Latin:Telegonia) is alostancient Greekepic poemaboutTelegonus,son ofOdysseusbyCirce.His name ( "born far away" ) is indicative of his birth onAeaea,far from Odysseus' home ofIthaca.It was part of theEpic Cycleof poems that recounted the myths of theTrojan Waras well as the events that led up to and followed it. The story of theTelegonycomes chronologically after that of theOdysseyand is the final episode in the Epic Cycle. The poem was sometimes attributed inantiquitytoCinaethon of Sparta(8th century BC), but in one source it is said to have been stolen fromMusaeusby Eugamon orEugammon of Cyrene(6th century BC)[1](seeCyclic poets). The poem comprised two books of verse indactylic hexameter.

Title

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InAntiquity,theTelegonymay have also been known as theThesprotis(Greek: Θεσπρωτίς), which is referred to once byPausaniasin the 2nd century AD;[2]alternatively, theThesprotismay have been a name for the first book of theTelegony,which is set inThesprotia.Such naming of isolated episodes within a larger epic was common practice for the ancient readers of theHomericepics.[3]

A third possibility is that there was a wholly separate epic called theThesprotis;and yet a fourth possibility is that theTelegonyandThesprotiswere two separate poems that were at some stage compiled into a singleTelegony.

Date

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The date of composition of theTelegonyis uncertain.Cyrene,the native city of purported author Eugammon, was founded in 631 BC; but the narrative details may have existed prior to Eugammon's version, perhaps even in theoral tradition.There is a distinct possibility that the author of theOdysseyknew at least some version of theTelegonystory (the Thesprotian episode and Telegonus' unusual spear in theTelegonymay have been based onTiresias' prophecy inOdysseybook 11; but it is also possible that theOdysseypoet used the Telegonus story as a basis for Teiresias' prophecy). Certainly, Eugammon's poem is most likely to have been composed in the 6th century BC.

Content

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Only two lines of the poem's original text survive. For its storyline, we are dependent primarily on a summary of the Telegonus myth in theChrestomathyof one "Proclus".[4]

TheTelegonycomprises two distinct episodes:Odysseus' voyage toThesprotia,and the story ofTelegonus.Probably each of the two books of theTelegonyrelated one of these episodes. The poem opens after the events depicted in theOdyssey.According to Proclus' summary, theTelegonyopens with the burial ofPenelope's suitors.[5]Odysseus makes sacrifices to theNymphs.[6]He makes a voyage toElis,where he visits an otherwise unknown figure Polyxenos, who gives him a bowl depicting the story ofTrophonius.Odysseus returns to Ithaca and then travels toThesprotia,presumably to make the sacrifices commanded byTiresiasinOdyssey11. There, he weds the Thesprotian queenCallidice,who bears him a son,Polypoetes.[7]Odysseus fights for the Thesprotians in a war against the neighbouringBrygoi;the gods participate in the war,Aresrouting Odysseus and the Thesprotians, countered byAthena,ever Odysseus' patron;Apollointervenes between the battling gods. Later, after the death of Callidice, Odysseus makes their son Polypoetes king of Thesprotia and returned to Ithaca.

Meanwhile, it transpires thatCirce,with whom Odysseus had an affair for a year in theOdyssey(books 10-12), has borne his son,Telegonus(Τηλέγονος, "born far away" ). He grows up living with Circe on the island ofAeaea.On the goddessAthena's advice, Circe tells him the name of his father. In a detail inserted into the account in the Epitome of theBibliotheke,she gives him a supernatural spear to defend himself, which is tipped with the sting of a poisonousstingrayand was made by the god Hephaestus.[8]A storm forces Telegonus onto Ithaca without his realizing where he is. As is customary for Homeric heroes in unfriendly land, he commits piracy, and unwittingly begins stealing Odysseus' cattle. Odysseus comes to defend his property. During the ensuing fight, Telegonus kills Odysseus with his unusual spear, thereby partially fulfilling Tiresias' prophecy inOdyssey11 that death would come to Odysseus "out of the sea" (i.e., the poison of the ray).[9](In another respect, however, Odysseus' death contradicts the prophecy of Tiresias, who predicted (Od.11.135) that a "gentle death" would come to Odysseus "in sleek old age." ) As Odysseus lies dying,[10]he and Telegonus recognize one another, and Telegonus laments his mistake. Telegonus brings his father's corpse,Penelope,and Odysseus' other sonTelemachus,back toAeaea,where Odysseus is buried and Circe makes the others immortal. Telegonus marries Penelope, and Telemachus marries Circe.[11]

Later traditions

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According to a later Hellenistic tradition, Circe brought Odysseus back to life after his death, and he arranged for Telemachus to marry his half-sisterCassiphone,Odysseus and Circe's daughter. But after a quarrell with Circe, Telemachus slew his mother-in-law, and in rage Cassiphone killed him, avenging thus the murder of her mother.[12]

The 1st-century AD RomanfabulistHyginusdiffers from Proclus in adding a few details. First, it is both Odysseus and Telemachus who engage Telegonus in combat. Hyginus then adds that Odysseus had received anoracleto beware his son.[13]Finally, Hyginus attributes to Telegonus a son namedItalus,the eponymous founder of Italy; and to Telemachus he attributes a son namedLatinus,whose name was given to theLatin language.

Numerous Latin poets[14]make Telegonus the founder ofPraenesteorTusculum,importantLatintowns.

Dante's invention

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InDante'sDivine Comedy,in theeighthbolgiaof theInferno,[15]Dante and his guide meet Ulisse among the false counsellors, and receive a variant accounting of Ulisse's death "from the sea", in a five-month journey beyond thePillars of Hercules,that has ended in a whirlpool drowning as the mariners approach the mountain ofPurgatory.No Greek source was available to Dante, only the Latin recensions ofDictys and Dares.

Among the manyoperasbased on the myths of Odysseus and those around him, there is but one[16]based on Telegonus, Carlo Grua'sTelegono(premiered in Düsseldorf, 1697) of which an aria "Dia le mosse a miei contenti" may be noted. Divine intervention, a death and multiple weddings at the end all assorted easily with the conventions ofopera seria.

Notes

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  1. ^"Some have seen in the 'burst of happy marriages' in which theTelegoneiaends an explanation for its being ascribed to Eugammon, a name which apparently means 'Happy-Marrier' ", Edmund D. Cressman remarks (Cressman," Beyond the Sunset "The Classical Journal27.9 (June 1932:669-674], p. 671).
  2. ^Pausanias 8.12.5.
  3. ^For example, Book 10 of theIliadis called theDoloneia,and book 5 and part of book 6 were known as "theAristeiaofDiomedes".The first four books of theOdysseyare called theTelemachy,as those books describe the journey of Odysseus' sonTelemachusas he looks for news about his missing father; Odysseus' descent to theUnderworld(Odyssey11) is known as theNekyia.
  4. ^Possibly to be identified with the second-century AD grammarianEutychios Proklos). TheBibliothecaoffers a much more abbreviated account.
  5. ^The beginning ofTelegoneiasuggested to G.L. Huxley (Greek Epic Poetry: From Eumelos to Pamyassis,Harvard University Press, 1969:171) that theOdysseyas it was known to Eumelos in the sixth century ended with the killing of the suitors, without the so-called "Continuation" in the version we read today. Joseph Russo, reviewing Huxley inThe American Journal of PhilologyOctober 1972:623, expressed his own feeling "that Eugammon was free to begin his poem about Telegonus wherever he wanted, the main criterion being that it suit his artistic design, which we are in no position to judge adequately".
  6. ^Presumably the nymphs are intended in whose cave he had hidden the treasure he brought with him to Ithaca: seeOdyssey13.
  7. ^"In the non-Homeric poems of the Cycle, the character of Odysseus appears much less admirable than it does in Homer," Edmund D. Cressman remarks (Cressman 1932:670).
  8. ^Epitome vii.36. See also the scholium ad Od. 11.134.
  9. ^As all prophecy in myth "comes true", most readers attribute the interpolation of this marine detail to an attempt to make Odysseus' death "come from the sea".
  10. ^Sophocles' lostOdysseus Acanthoplexalso brought him inadvertent death at the hand of Telegonus.
  11. ^The plot summary by Eutyches Proclus, which is followed here, is translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White,Hesiod, Homeric Hymns and Homerica(Loeb Classical Library), 1914,
  12. ^Visser, Edzard (2006)."Cassiphone".In Cancik, Hubert; Schneider, Helmuth (eds.).Brill's New Pauly.Translated by Christine F. Salazar. Basle: Brill Reference Online.doi:10.1163/1574-9347_bnp_e610200.RetrievedNovember 19,2023.
  13. ^This detail makes Telemachus' presence in Ithaca unusual, but might provide an unstated reason for Telemachus' absence in the accounts of Proclus and Apollodorus; namely, Odysseus banished him from Ithaca for fear of the oracle.
  14. ^Cressman 1932:672 notesHorace,Ovid,PropertiusandStatius.
  15. ^Inferno,Canto XXVI.
  16. ^According toLatin Notes Supplement,December 1926 (noted by Chessman 1932:673).

Editions

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