Telemachus

A boy sitting helpless among his mother’s suitors until Athena, as Mentes, puts purpose in him: call the assembly, sail to Pylos and Sparta, seek word of your father. The Odyssey’s first four books are his education in kingliness at Nestor’s and Menelaus’s courts; its climax pairs him, spear in hand, beside the father he barely remembers, holding the doorway of their hall.