Telemachus1.0077

Jacques-Louis David, 1748-1825, "The Farewell of Telemachus and Eucharis," oil on canvas, 1818, Getty Museum, Malibu, CA, 87.PA.27.

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 the younger Eucharis, one of Calypso's attendants. See Telemachus1.0007_Fénelon.