Telemachus1.0042

Angelica Kauffmann, 1741-1807,"The Sorrow of Telemachus" (at Calypso's banquet, hearing the nymphs sing of Ulysses), oil on canvas, pendant painting for Monsignor Onorato Caetani to be hung alongside Kauffmann's "Telemachus and the Nymphs of Calypso", 1782-1783, Metropolitan Museum, New York, nos. 25.110.187-88, bequest of Collis P. Huntington. Further versions of "Sorrow," 1788, for Duke Peter Courland; 1789, for Mrs. Brayer, London.

Homer's so-called "Telemacheia", the education of the son in his fathers' virtues, fills Odyssey 1-4 and 15-24. Ancient myths explained that after Odysseus' death Telemachus married Circe (or Nausicaa).

François Fénelon wrote Suite du quatrième livre de l'Odyssée d'Homère, ou les Avantures de Télémaque, fils d'Ulysse (The Hague, 1699), a didactic prose romance, and published it surreptitiously. The publication marked the start of the Telemachus myth's remarkable resurgence during the enlightenment. Fénelon's narrative introduces plenty of non-classical elements to the story of Telemachus' own journey, what he did within the Odyssey's narrative framework before returning in book 15 to purge the house of Penelope's suitors. Fénelon tells how on Calypso's island, the nymph herself falls in love with Telemachus, but he falls for Eucharis, one of Calypso's attendants. See Telemachus1.0007_Fénelon. Kauffmann, in the depiction at right, shows Telemachus breaking into tears as he hears of his father's plight, while opposite Circe, Mentor and the goddess' attendants react to their handsome young visitor. Among them is Eucharis.