Poetry for Students, Volume 35

with bushes, buildings, and great grunting pigs.

A garden choked with weeds; some queen or other.

Grassandhugestones...Telemachus,myson!

To a wanderer the faces of all islands

resemble one another. And the mind 15

trips, numbering waves; eyes, sore from sea

horizons,

run; and the flesh of water stuffs the ears.

I can’t remember how the war came out;

even how old you are—I can’t remember.

Grow up, then, my Telemachus, grow strong. 20

Only the gods know if we’ll see each other

again. You’ve long since ceased to be that babe

before whom I reined in the plowing bullocks.

Had it not been for Palamedes’ trick

we two would still be living in one household. 25

But maybe he was right; away from me

you are quite safe from all Oedipal passions,

and your dreams, my Telemachus, are blameless.

Poem Summary

Stanza 1
The title of the poem and the first-line saluta-
tion announce ‘‘Odysseus to Telemachus’’ as a
letter, written from the father Odysseus to his
son Telemachus. It begins with the point that
the siege of Troy is concluded and the remark-
able admission by Odysseus that he cannot
remember who won. Odysseus laments that
many Greek soldiers’ bodies remain on the
battlefield. The journey home to Ithaca has
been longer than Odysseus anticipated. It
seems to him that perhaps Poseidon, god of
the sea, has stretched the waters to extend the
trip. In this last observation, Odysseus sug-
gests collusion between space and time to
heighten the subjective sense one has of being
far removed from home.

Stanza 2
Odysseus laments his poor memory and his
confusion regarding his location. Listless, dis-
heartened, and vague, Odysseus admits he can-
not tell one island from another, does not know
the island where he is, and does not know its
ruler. He repeats that he does not know the
outcome of the siege of Troy. He cannot calcu-
late his son’s age either. Homeric hints in this
stanza regarding a queen and pigs identify the
island and ruler for readers who know Homer’s
Odyssey.Odysseus’s lassitude suggests he may
be drugged.

Stanza 3

Regret increases in the final stanza, as Odysseus

reflects on how much time he has missed of his

son’s life, and he imagines that Telemachus is

now grown up. But for the trick of Palamedes,

which entrapped Odysseus and enlisted him

against his will in the siege of Troy, father and

son would have shared these many years

together; Telemachus would have grown to

adulthood with his father in his life. Now, Odys-

seus thinks maybe his being away from his son

has been for the best. This way the fatherless

Telemachus has been able to grow up free of

oedipal feelings and blessed by guilt-free dreams.

THEMES

Effect of Time on Point of View

The Odysseus of Brodsky’s poem has reached

a point in his life when he ponders what all his

MEDIA

ADAPTATIONS

In 1988, Harperaudio produced an audio

cassette,Joseph Brodsky Reads His Poetry.

The filmO Brother, Where Art Thou?(2000)

is a modern retelling of Homer’sOdyssey.

The film is set in Mississippi during the

Great Depression.

Based loosely on Homer’s Odyssey, but

including some material from Virgil’sAeneid,

director Wolfgang Petersen’s 2004 filmTroy

stars Brad Pitt as Achilles and reenacts

the siege of the walled city in Asia Minor

(modern Turkey).

The 2007 DVD travelogueGod’s Lair: Chios

and Inoussesfilms a visit to the area where

Homer is said to have been born.

An undated audio file fromA Century of

Recorded Verse, volume 4, records Brodsky

reading ‘‘Odysseus to Telemachus.’’ This

recording is available at various sites online.

Odysseus to Telemachus