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Book 15
Laertes is still alive, but night and day
he prays to Zeus, waiting there in his house,
for the life breath to slip away and leave his body.
His heart’s so racked for his son, lost and gone these years,
for his wife so fine, so wise—her death is the worst blow
he’s had to suffer—it made him old before his time.
She died of grief for her boy, her glorious boy,
it wore her down, a wretched way to go.
In Book 15, Eumaeus (still believing Odysseus to be a beggar) confirms what Odysseus already knows after his visit to the Underworld—that his mother died of grief waiting for him to return. Eumaeus also tells him that Laertes, Odysseus’s father, is alive, but that grief and suffering have destroyed him.
Book 16
As a father, brimming with love, welcomes home
his darling only son in a warm embrace—
what pain he’s borne for him and him alone!—
home now, in the tenth year from far abroad,
so the loyal swineherd hugged the beaming prince,
he clung for dear life, covering him with kisses, yes,
like one escaped from death.
In Book 16, Telemachus arrives home from his journey and goes to Eumaeus’s hut, where the swineherd greets him like a son. Odysseus doesn’t reveal his identity just yet; the love, care, and relief expressed by Telemachus and Eumaeus reflect emotions Odysseus wishes he could show, and they foreshadow his own eventual reunion with his son. Read more about this quote in Quotes by Theme: Homecoming.
They cried out, shrilling cries, pulsing sharper
than birds of prey—eagles, vultures with hooked claws—
when farmers plunder their nest of young too young to fly.
In Book 16, at Athena’s urging, Odysseus reveals to Telemachus that he is his father. Their reunion, as hinted at earlier, is an emotional one; Telemachus was only a baby when Odysseus left for the Trojan War. The narrator compares their cries to those of eagles and vultures when farmers plunder their nests.
