Telemachus' confidence in speaking serves as yet another sign his father's legacy. As Nestor marvels: "Your father, yes, if you are in fact his son . . . / I look at you and a sense of wonder takes me. / Your way with words – it's just like his – I'd swear / no youngster could ever speak like you, so apt, so telling" (137–40).
And yet, Telemachus initially conveys deep hesitancy about his speech, confessing to Mentor(/Athena): "How can I greet him, Mentor, even approach the king? / I'm hardly adept at subtle conversation" (24–25).
(Recall Moses' similar hesitation at the call to approach Pharoah:
And Moses saide vnto the Lord, O my lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken vnto thy seruant: but I am slow [kaved] of speach, and of a slow tongue. (Exodus 4:10; 1611 KJV)
Did Moses have some kind of speech impediment (a stutter)? Was he simply reluctant to take on this enormous task? Was he divinely assisted? Or did he not know he could do it until he made himself do it?)
 |
| Attic red figure pelike vase, 510 - 500 BC. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. |
The counter-model of the vengeful Orestes keeps haunting Telemachus: "Ah, how fine it is, when a man is brought down, / to leave a son behind . . . And you, my friend – / how tall and handsome I see you now – be brave, you too, / so men will sing your praises down the years" (222–23; 225–27).