Telemachus' Kindness
Louise Gluck (`943-2023)
Louise Gluck, who received the 2020 Nobel Prize for literature, often uses ancient mythology, quite appropriately I happen to think, as a mirror for our own society. Telemachus was Odysseus son, who grew up without a father watching his mother slowly lose control of their kingdom to a horde of insatiable suitors. In Telemachus, Gluck finds a perfect symbol.
"Telemachus' Kindness" - published 1996 in Meadowlands When I was younger I felt sorry for myself compulsively; in practical terms, I had no father; my mother lived at her loom hypothesizing her husband's erotic life; gradually I realized no child on that island had a different story; my trials were the general rule, common to all of us, a bond among us, therefore with humanity: what a life my mother had, without compassion for my father's suffering, for a soul ardent by nature, thus ravaged by choice, nor had my father any sense of her courage, subtly expressed as inaction, being himself prone to dramatizing, to acting out: I found I could share these perceptions with my closest friends, as they shared theirs with me, to test them, to refine them: as a grown man I can look at my parents impartially and pity them both: I hope always to be able to pity them.
Would you be tempted to pity yourself in Telemachus’ shoes? I think I probably would. I might draw inward in self pity and righteous anger at the unjust hand I was dealt. He did, for a time. But one critical realization saved him. All the other young men of Ithaca were dealt the same hand. Odysseus didn’t go to get milk and never come back. In fidelity to a treaty, he left to fight the Trojan war and took the fighting men of Ithaca with him. The understanding that Telemachus’ struggles, or sins if you like, were not in any way unique to him almost certainly saved his life. After the realization that the world may be cruel, but it isn’t especially cruel to him, he found he “could share these perceptions with my closest friends, as they shared theirs with me, to test them, to refine them.” This revelation led to empathy, to genuine friendship. Love of neighbor is a lot easier when you realize that “trials were the general rule, common to all of us, a bond among us.”
Love of neighbor, of your very closest neighbor, seems to me the preeminent theme in this poem. Despite their desire to love each other, Penelope was “without compassion for [Odysseus] suffering” and Odysseus had no “sense of her courage, subtly expressed as inaction.” Telemachus, on the other hand, was able to say “with humanity, what a life” his parents had. He saw them with pity, and you cannot pity what you do not first know and second love.
Don’t waste your pity on yourself.