Time to Become a Man and Be Dangerous - "The Odyssey" Book I by Homer
Stephen Alexander Beach
I am rereading through the Odyssey over the next few weeks, and will be posting helpful summaries and thoughts along the way! I have already posted about a few themes from my first reading, which you can find here.
The story opens with a meeting of the gods about the fate of Odysseus. After all his crazy journey to try to get home, he is stuck in the cave of Calypso, daughter of Atlas, who is a bewitching nymph who wants Odysseus for her husband. Athena advocates for Odysseus, and Zeus agrees since it is really Poseidon who has been angry at Odysseus for blinding his son Polyphemus. Poseidon is away though in another land, and so the gods send Hermes, their messenger, to tell Calypso that this is the year that Odysseus is to go free. Likewise, Athena goes to Ithaca to inspire Telemachus to manhood. Telemachus is Odysseus' son and has been without his father for twenty years. He is on the brink of manhood and yet has been left without his father and role model to help him. Athena shows up as a stranger to the palace, where hordes of suitors plague their family out of desire for Odysseus' wife Penelope. They party and feast on the family's property and cause chaos. Telemachus has not been able to stand up to them. And so Athena rouses him to manly courage and gives him a prophecy that Odysseus is not dead. She tells him to confront the suitors in the morning and to tell them to leave. Telemachus does just this and says that if they do not that Zeus will bring them to a bad end. Telemachus is also told to set sail to contact his father's old friends and fellow captains from the battle at Troy, Nestor and Menelaus (Agamemnon is already dead). 
Two Themes
First, while certainly it is mentioned that the gods control man's fate, this is well known, there is also a passage in Book One which makes it clear that man too plays a role in his fate. His actions, for good or ill, will have consequences. "'Ah how shameless--the way these mortals blame the gods. From us alone, they say, come all their miseries, yes, but they themselves, with their own reckless ways, compound their pains beyond their proper share." They then speak of Aegisthus who betrayed Agamemnon and killed him to take his wife. Adulterers, they say, will die a horrible death. And so he did, Agamemnon's son, Orestes, killed him. "Let them all die so, all who do such things." Not only this, but the gods warned Aegisthus about what his actions would cause. "Far in advance we told him so ourselves, dispatching the guide, the giant-killer Hermes. 'Don't murder the man,' he said, 'don't court his wife. Beware, revenge will come from Orestes, Agamemnon's son ... So Hermes warned, with all the good will in the world, but would Aegisthus' hardened heart give way? Now he pays the price - all at a single stroke.'" 1
A second interesting theme is one of maturation. Book One makes clear that in the absence of the father, king Odysseus, that there is chaos in his house. Things are out of order, and there is no one to discipline the unruly young men. If Odysseus were there he would have driven them off or slain them. And so Telemachus longs for his dad. And yet, Athena cannot leave him there in his longing, she must arouse him to fill those shoes of manly courage for his family. She gives him a call to adventure, to leave home and take action in finding news of his father. Likewise, she calls him to become dangerous. "Then, once you've sealed those matters, seen them through, think hard, reach down deep in your heart and soul for a way to kill these suitors in your house, by stealth or in open combat. You must not cling to your boyhood any longer -- it's time you were a man." And so Telemachus, being inspired, shows his first signs of manly courage confronting the suitors and threatening them. "But I'll cry out to the everlasting gods in hopes that Zeus will pay you back with a vengeance -- all of you destroyed in my house while I go scot-free myself!'" 2
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1 - Fagles translation pgs 78, 79
2 - 90
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