Odysseus Returns to Ithaca: The Disguised King Meets His Son Telemachus

[00:00:01]Odysseus is home for the first time in 20 years, and he does not know it.

[00:00:07]He wakes on a beach [music] surrounded by the treasures the Phaeacians gave him, but the mist Athena has spread over the island changes the look of everything. The roads, the harbor, the familiar hills of his childhood.

[00:00:21]Believing himself abandoned once again on a strange shore, he falls into despair, checks his riches fearing the Phaeacians have tricked and robbed him, >> [music] >> and curses his luck.

[00:00:33]Then a young shepherd approaches him, and Odysseus, true to his habit of trusting no one, immediately invents a false story about who he is and where he comes from.

[00:00:45]But the shepherd is Athena in disguise, and his cunning, far from annoying her, delights her.

[00:00:54]She recognizes in him the most resourceful of mortals, just as she is the most cunning of the gods.

[00:01:02]She reveals herself as she truly is, and tells him the truth that changes everything.

[00:01:11]You are in Ithaca, Odysseus.

[00:01:14]You have come home.

[00:01:17]But the joy lasts only a moment [music] because Athena explains the state in which he will find his home.

[00:01:23]>> [music] >> For 3 years, dozens of nobles from Ithaca and the neighboring islands have occupied his palace.

[00:01:31]They court Penelope, his wife, having given him up for dead, [music] and meanwhile they eat through his herds, empty his storerooms, and consume his wealth day after day, waiting for the queen to finally choose one of them.

[00:01:48]If Odysseus presents himself openly, they will kill him all at once before he can do anything.

[00:01:57]So the goddess lays out a plan.

[00:02:00]Together, they hide the Phaeacian treasure in a cave. Then, Athena transforms [music] Odysseus so that no one can recognize him. She wrinkles his skin, withers his body, dims the brightness of his eyes, strips away his hair, and dresses him in filthy rags.

[00:02:18]The king of Ithaca becomes a wretched old beggar.

[00:02:21]Disguised this way, unrecognizable, he can enter his own land and find out who is loyal to him and who is not.

[00:02:30]Athena sends him first to a safe place, the hut of Eumaeus, the swineherd, the most loyal of all the servants who ever served him, who tends the pigs in the hills far from the palace.

[00:02:43]Eumaeus does not recognize his king beneath the beggar's rags, but he receives the poor old man with exemplary hospitality, exactly the kind the suitors have forgotten.

[00:02:55]He invites him in, feeds him, wraps him in his own cloak against the cold of the night, slaughters one of the pigs to honor his guest, and shares with him the little he has.

[00:03:07]And as they eat, he laments with grief the men who shamelessly devour his absent master's estate.

[00:03:16]"My lord lies dead somewhere in the world or lost at the bottom of the sea," says Eumaeus, "and these men divide up his house like vultures, slaughter his finest animals, and drink his wine as if it were their own.

[00:03:31]I still weep for the master who left and who will never come back."

[00:03:37]Odysseus listens and tests him. He tells him a false story, that he is a traveler from Crete fallen on hard times, and assures him he has heard reliable news that Odysseus is alive and about to return.

[00:03:51]But Eumaeus, worn down by years of broken hope, does not dare believe him.

[00:03:57]Too many wanderers have promised the same thing in exchange for a plate of food.

[00:04:03]Meanwhile, another journey is about to end.

[00:04:06]Telemachus, Odysseus's son, who was a baby when his father left for war and is now a young man, has traveled to [music] distant lands seeking news of him.

[00:04:17]The suitors, fearing he might return and stand in their way, have prepared an ambush to kill him at sea on his way back.

[00:04:25]But, Athena warns him in time, has him avoid the trap, and guides him so that on landing he does not go straight to the palace, but first to Eumaeus's hut.

[00:04:37]Telemachus arrives at the hut, and Eumaeus receives him with tears of joy, like a father getting back a son.

[00:04:44]The young man, not knowing who the beggar sitting by the fire is, treats him with respect.

[00:04:50]He then sends Eumaeus to the palace to tell Penelope in secret [music] that her son has returned safely.

[00:04:58]And once father and son are alone, the moment comes.

[00:05:02]Athena, from outside, restores Odysseus to his true form. She makes him tall, strong, [music] and dignified once more.

[00:05:10]Telemachus, seeing the old beggar transformed into an imposing man, steps [music] back in fear, believing he is looking at a god.

[00:05:18]"I am no god. I am your father, Odysseus, for whom you have suffered so much.

[00:05:25]I have come back after 20 years."

[00:05:30]Telemachus cannot believe it. He says no man changes shape like that, from ragged old man to warrior in an instant, and that this must [music] be some god's trick to make him suffer even more.

[00:05:42]But, Odysseus explains that it is Athena's work, and tells him things only a father would know.

[00:05:49]Then at last, the wall breaks. Father and son throw themselves into each other's arms and weep together without words with a deep and desperate crying, like the cry of a bird whose chicks have been stolen from the nest before they could fly.

[00:06:08]Telemachus embraces a father he does not remember because he was a newborn when his father left.

[00:06:15]Odysseus embraces the son he left in the cradle and finds grown into a man. 20 years of absence pour out in that embrace, and for a long while neither of them can speak.

[00:06:29]But there is no time for grief or celebration. The impossible must be planned.

[00:06:35]Odysseus asks how many the suitors are, and the answer confronts him with the scale of the problem. Not 10, not 20, but more than a hundred young armed men with their own servants besides.

[00:06:49]Telemachus tells him plainly that the two of them alone have no chance against such numbers.

[00:06:56]We are two against an army, father. How can we defeat so many?

[00:07:03]We will not be alone.

[00:07:04]Athena and Zeus himself are on our side, and that is worth more than a hundred men.

[00:07:11]When the time comes, you will understand.

[00:07:17]Odysseus then gives him the plan, and it is a plan of patience [music] before strength.

[00:07:22]He will return to the palace disguised as a beggar, and Telemachus must pretend [music] completely not to know him.

[00:07:29]However much he sees his father humiliated, insulted, even struck by the suitors, he must not react or give him away with a single look.

[00:07:39]He will have to swallow his rage and wait.

[00:07:43]At the right moment, the two of them will secretly remove the spears, shields, and swords hanging on the walls of the banquet hall, so that when the fighting begins, the suitors will find themselves unarmed and trapped.

[00:07:58]And one rule above all, no one, absolutely no one must know that Odysseus has returned.

[00:08:06]Not the male servants, not the maids, not even Penelope until the time comes.

[00:08:13]One slip, one loose tongue, and both of them would be killed.

[00:08:20]The plan is set. The king has returned to his island, has gotten his son back, and knows his enemy.

[00:08:27]Now, all that remains is to enter his own house through the servants' door, dressed in rags, and bearing silence the mockery of the men who sleep under his roof and courted his wife.

[00:08:40]The trap is beginning to close.