Episode 72L – Coming Unraveled – Myths Your Teacher Hated

Episode 72L Show Notes

Source: Greek Mythology

This week on MYTH, Telemachus is going to be a little bit all over the place. You’ll discover you can be an expert in bird omens, that Penelope is crafty in every sense of the word, and that it’s important to know when you’re talking to a goddess. Then, in Gods and Monsters, we’ll journey into the distant past to witness the birth of that goddess. This is the Myths Your Teacher Hated podcast, where I tell the stories of cultures from around the world in all of their original, bloody, uncensored glory. Modern tellings of these stories have become dry and dusty, but I’ll be trying to breathe new life into them. This is Episode 72L, “Coming Unraveled”. As always, this episode is not safe for work.
When we left the story last time, we’d picked up just after the end of the Trojan War. . Things had gone bad almost immediately, and wise Odysseus had led his men into disaster after disaster: getting bloodied after raiding a random city for shits and giggles, getting his men stoned on premium lotus, getting men killed in the home of Polyphemus the Cyclops and then getting cursed by said Cyclops because Odysseus was too prideful not to reveal his real name, almost getting home before getting blown off course again, getting most of the crew eaten by cannibal giants, cavorting with a sorceress for a year, traveling to the Underworld for some advice that they’re all going to ignore, surviving the sirens but losing more men to Scylla and Charybdis, and then getting everyone but Odysseus himself killed after eating the sun god’s cattle (despite having been warned not to in the Underworld). Floating aimlessly on the shattered remains of his ship, Odysseus floated to the island of the nymph Calypso where he became her boy toy for seven long years. On the up side, Athena managed to get the gods on Odysseus’ side, which means he can finally make it home, 20 years after he first set out. Athena took a little jaunt to Ithaca to meet up with Odysseus’ son Telemachus, who is watching as the men trying to steal his inheritance by marrying his mother eat and drink away everything he owns in an endless, epic party. In disguise, Athena encouraged Telemachus to go look for news of his missing father and, in the meantime, think about how he could slaughter the suitors if his father doesn’t come back in time.
Telemachus had a healthy portion of his father’s famous cunning (and his mother’s as well, as we’ll soon see), so he figured out that this mysterious stranger full of sage advice was probably a god in disguise. As such, he figured that it would be wise to heed this probably-divine advice and head out to Sparta to seek news of his father from King Menelaus (who had been the primary driver in assembling the Greek army for the Trojan War, remember). A bard hired by the party-loving suitors (at Telemachus’ expense of course) launched into a ballad about the journey home of the Achaeans from Troy and all of the hardships they had endured. This ballad made no mention of Odysseus, of course, as his fate was still unknown back in Greece.
The strains of this melancholy tune met Penelope, wife of the long-absent Odysseus and mother of Telemachus, as she made her way down the stairs from her chamber with two of her handmaids. Twenty years of grieving her missing husband had not dimmed her radiant beauty, which was at least part of why so many of these suitors were still clogging up her home after so many years. Penelope knew this song, and it understandably made her think about Odysseus’ continued absence, which equally understandably brought her to tears. She collected herself as best she could at the foot of the stairs before breaking into the gathering. “Phemius, you know hundreds of songs with enthralling stories about men and gods that don’t involve the war that took my husband from me. Stop this one and sing any one of those, for the sake of my grief. I already live with his memory each and every day, and I don’t need help remembering the raw wound still bleeding in my heart.”
Frankly, I think this is a completely reasonable request, but Telemachus was all fired up after his pep-talk from Athena. “Why stop the bard from entertaining us however his spirit moves him? It’s not his fault that dad’s not here, it’s Zeus’! Besides, it’ll do people good to be reminded of all the horrible things that happened to the Achaean army on their way back from Troy – dad wasn’t the only one cursed by the gods, remember? If you don’t want to listen, fine. Go back to your room and busy yourself with whatever woman’s work you do all day. Tend to your loom and your maids, but leave it to the men to give the orders around here. Leave it to me, mother – I still hold the reins of power in this house.” Telemachus clearly has some issues to work out, but that doesn’t excuse his poor treatment of his mother here. Sure, he’s had to grow up without the father he barely knew and that’s a rough row to hoe, but his mother had to raise him alone while mourning for the man she loved and while being hounded by a bunch of assholes who only see her as a path to wealth and power. I get that he’s touchy around the idea of his father being forgotten, but that’s not what’s happening here.
Penelope was understandably shocked at this cruel outburst from her son, and she retreated back upstairs to grieve for Odysseus in peace. She lay there, sobbing, until she cried herself to sleep. Down in the main hall, an argument soon broke out as each of the suitors began to vie with each other to be the man to head upstairs to try and comfort Penelope. Naturally, all of these assholes think that their dick is the best comfort a woman could ask for, and assume that whomever gets into her bed first gets to bed her and wed her, becoming the next king of Ithaca.
Telmeachus didn’t just shout his mother to tears to let this bunch of asswipes make a game out of getting in her pants. “Alright, listen up you little shit-stains! You get one more night of drinking and dancing and listening to this fine bard on my dime under my roof, but after that? You all get the fuck out of my house. Take this shitty party somewhere else, devour your own estates – hell, you can make it a traveling party, going house to house with each of you taking a turn. I don’t care what you do as long as you do it somewhere else. If you’re still here in the morning, I will curse you all and cry out to Zeus and the undying gods to smite all of you with righteous vengeance! I’ll ask him to smash you all to a little bloody smear right here in my house while I stand aside and laugh!” As threats go, it’s a little weak. It sounded like he was building up to a promise to drive them out of his house himself if needed, but a threat of ‘I’ll pray really hard that something bad happens’ just doesn’t carry much weight.
Shockingly, the suitors are not impressed by Telemachus’ posturing. Eupithes, son of Antinous, spoke into the awkward silence following Telemachus’ little speech. “You’re certainly as arrogant as a god, Telemachus. You talk a big game, but I doubt you can back it up. I pray that Zeus never makes you the king of Ithaca (even if the crown is yours by birthright).”
“You’re absolutely right, Eupithes – the crown is mine by right. Thanks for acknowledging that. Are you offended by my claim to my own goddamned house? Tough! This place is full to bursting with Achaean princes here to try and take what is mine with great Odysseus out of the picture, but I swear to all of you that I will be the lord of this house. I will rule over everything that King Odysseus won by strength of arms. I will be king!”
Another suitor, Polybus’ son Eurymachus, piped up this time. “That’s not really your call to make, Telemachus. Surely the gods will decide which of us ends up ruling Ithaca. I was wondering though: who was your guest earlier? It was a little rude of him to dash in here, speak to you in secret, and the race off again without even making proper introductions! Does he bring some news of Odysseus? Or maybe he was here on his own business? Come on, tell us!”
“Eurymachus, I no longer trust the rumors that my father yet lives in some distant place and will be home any day now. He’s dead, and he’s never coming back. I won’t bother listening to another bullshit prophecy from another bullshit magician called by my mother to try and see the future. My guest was an old family friend – Mentes of Taphos. He was just stopping by on his way somewhere else.” Telemachus knew that pretty much every word of this was a heaping crock of shit. He knew that his guest was a god in disguise, and he believed that his father might still live. He just didn’t want these assholes knowing any of that.
The suitors looked at each other, shrugged, and went back to partying. None of them were terribly worried that Telemachus was going to do anything to make good on his super-vague threat. As the celebration of nothing much at all wound down, everyone wandered out into the night to go and pass out in their own beds in their own homes. Telemachus likewise went up to his chamber, but sleep was a long time in coming. Too many fears and doubts and worries capered about in his troubled mind to find rest.
Telemachus was attended by his favorite slave, Eurycleia, daughter of Ops. The translations I’ve found tend to dance around this issue, calling her his devoted nurse, but let’s call a slave a slave. The story makes it clear that Odysseus bought her as a young woman for the expensive price of 20 oxen and that he never raped her because he was too afraid of what Penelope would think if she found out. Yeah, he doesn’t get any brownie points for not raping his slave because his wife might get mad. She took his dirty shirt as he undressed for bed and then left him to his own devices. He lay there for a long time after she left, turning Athena’s words over and over in his mind.
Sleep did eventually find him, and Telemachus rose with the sun the next morning. He leapt from bed full of fire and determination, took up his keen sword, strapped on his sandals, and headed out to meet his destiny. He roused the heralds and told them to summon all and sundry for assembly. It didn’t take long for curious people to show up at the meeting grounds to hear what the young prince had to say.
Telemachus strode in once everyone was there, bronze spear in his fist, flanked by two sleek hounds. Athena, watching his coming performance in secret, gave him a little magical glamour to make him seem more princely and commanding. The people stared up at him with a newfound awe as he made his way to the dias and took his father’s seat. The respected elders gathered at the front of the crowd, and it was one of them, an old lord named Aegyptius, who spoke first. One of his sons had actually sailed away with Odysseus to Troy and never made it back – Antiphus was actually the last of the men eaten by Polyphemus the Cyclops back in Episode 72C. One of his other sons, Eurynomus, was eating Telemachus out of house and home with the other suitors while the other two worked the family farm.
“Listen to me, everyone. We have not had an assembly like this since King Odysseus sailed away with our sons. Who now summons us – one of our venerated elders or some young whippersnapper? What disaster is bearing down on us now? Is there an army on the march, or is there maybe just some public matter that needs to be discussed? Whatever it is, thank Zeus he had the balls to call an assembly after all these years.”
Telemachus’ heart soared at these words. Having the support of a respected lord was going to make the next bit easier. Eager to seize the initiative, Telemachus leapt to his feet and took the staff of office from the herald, as custom dictated. “Thank you for your kind words, Aegyptius. You’re not far off the mark. Yes, my lords, it was I who called you together today. Something has been gnawing at my heart: a crisis certainly, but a private one, not an army on the march or some other public matter. Disaster lurks in my house, a double blow no less. First, my noble father vanished somewhere between here and Troy and is lost to us. That was hard enough to bear, but now a second, much grimmer doom has befallen my home, a plague of vicious locusts trying to scour away my father’s estate until nothing’s left but ruin. These suitors hound my mother, forcing themselves into our lives against our will – yes, the sons of some of the very people gathered here right now. Yes, I mean your shitty kids.
“They’re all scared shitless to approach Penelope’s father and try to get Icarius’ blessing on a new wedding, so instead they infest our palace, they butcher our livestock, they swill our finest wine like there’s no tomorrow, and they don’t contribute a goddamned thing in return. They’re leeches, pests! Odysseus isn’t here to drive this dire curse from his house, and I’m not the soldier he is. If I had the skill, I’d drive them out of here with my sword this instant, but I know how that would end. You should all be ashamed at the way you’ve let them treat us! You should be mortified to look your neighbors in the eyes after everything your sons have put us through!
“If you don’t have the good sense to feel shame, then feel fear instead. Fear the wrath of the gods before these foul deeds wheel about and the gods rain justice down on your miserable heads. If you won’t help, the fucking least you could do would be to leave me and my mother alone with our grief for the great king of Ithaca. That is, unless you think Odysseus was such a bad ruler that we deserve to be punished in his name like this! You’re supposed to be the elders, the wise men of this kingdom. If it were you eating all of my treasure and slaughtering all my cows, I’d just come to you and ask for reparations and I’m sure we’d come to agreement in no time. But with those assholes? There’s nothing I can do, and you all do nothing but add to my suffering!”
Burning with a justified rage, Telemachus hurled the speaker’s staff to the earth and burst into manly tears. Seriously – there was no shame in crying with passion. Only Antinous (whose son Eupithes had been the one to insult Telemachus the night before for having the audacity to ask them to please leave his house) was able to find words in the wake of Telemachus’ fiery speech. Spoiler alert – it’s about to be very clear where Eupithes gets his shitty entitlement from).
“So high and mighty, Telemachus, and so angry. How dare you fling accusations at us! You pathetic little shitstain, you really think our sons are the problem here? It’s your bitch of a mother who’s the root of all our problems, that sly, selfish woman! She’s been toying with the tender hearts of our poor sons for almost four years now. It’s all her fault, leading them on like that, encouraging first one and then the other but somehow never settling on anyone. Oh no, that dreadful woman has her own secret plans and uses her wiles to try and hide her schemes. You know it’s true – she set up that great loom in the royal hall to weave a shroud for her father-in-law Laertes. She claims that she only wants to be prepared for the terrible day when that great man finally kicks the bucket and that she would die of shame if a man of such power and wealth should have to lie in state without a proper shroud. Fools that we were, we all believed her lying words. Every day, she weaves that accursed rag and every night, she unravels it all again by torchlight (which is one of those very cool moments from this story that kind of gets glossed over). For three long years, she’s blinded us with her coy smiles and crocodile tears and it wasn’t until just recently that one of her servants caught her in the act and told us the truth about what she’d been doing. That was the end of that. We forced her to finally finish the damned thing and no more stalling. None of us gave a fuck what she wanted – she was going to do what we wanted, dammit!
“As for you, Telemachus, listen up you mewling puppy – you tell that bitch you call your mother to marry somebody, anybody. I don’t care if her father picks or she picks, but somebody pick already! If she’d just sucked it up and married somebody four years ago, you wouldn’t be having all of these problems you won’t shut up about. She needs to learn her fucking place and stop using her womanly wiles against the kingdom. Athena gave her great gifts – a skilled hand, a fine mind, and subtle intrigue – more than even the great queens in the old stories were said to have, but our patience is gone, got it? So no, we won’t ask the suitors to leave. They’re going to stay and keep eating your shit until you grow a set of balls and force your mother to marry one of them.”
Telemachus shot a shit-eating grin at the older man. “Antinous, do you really expect me to force my own mother out of her own house? Can you imagine what Icarius would do to me if I tried that? Not to mention what the gods would do to me for breaking their laws in such a cruel fashion! Shit, they’d probably sick the Furies on me, and I wouldn’t blame them. No, I’m not going to kick my mother to the curb because you want to help your son steal my inheritance. Shame on you, on all of you! Get your brats the fuck out of my house! They can party themselves sick until they all drop dead as long as they do it somewhere else. If you can’t keep your hands off my shit, then beware! Zeus will pay you back with a terrible vengeance, and all of your homes will be destroyed.”
Zeus, who had been swayed over to the Ithacan cause by Athena, sent two great eagles soaring down from the mountains towards the assembly. The glided down, wingtip to wingtip in perfect harmony, until they pulled up just above the heads of the assembled assholes. The two eagles screeched a challenge and whirled on each other, slashing with razor-sharp talons. Their airborne battle carried them away from the assembly and over the homes of the ringleaders. It was a clear sign of Zeus’ approval of Telemachus’ prophetic speech, and the people stared at the omen in silence.
In the crowd that day, there happened to be a man who was an expert in reading bird omens. Really. His name was Halitherses, and he had been a great warrior in his day. “Hear me, men of Ithaca – but especially the suitors and their dads: disaster is boiling on the horizon and bearing down on our heads. The signs are clear: Odysseus won’t be kept from his family for much longer, and his shadow draws nigh. When his foot treads on our beaches once more, red death comes for the invaders in his home, but there will be pain for the rest of us too. We were wrong to let them behave like this for so long, and if we don’t step up and stop them now, it’s going to get very, very bad. I promised you all those many years ago, when Odysseus first boarded the black ships for Troy, that he alone would make this journey home, though countless disasters and 20 years lay between then and now. Lo and behold, 19 years have come and gone, and I tell you truly that Odysseus is coming home, but you won’t know him when he does, the worse for all of you.”
Eurymachus, son of Polybus, got up in the warrior-seer’s face. “Get the fuck out of here, old man – go tell your fairy tales to children but spare the grown ups your nonsense. I’m better at reading omens than you’ve ever been, and I’m telling you that not every bird that goes fluttering by carries dread portents. Odysseus is dead and he’s not coming home from the Underworld just because you want to prove you were right decades ago. I just wish you’d gone off and croaked with him. At least then I wouldn’t have to listen to your obnoxious voice any longer. What, do you think this little boy is going to give you a pretty gift if you speak on his behalf? Fuck off. Here’s my prophecy, old man, one that’s guaranteed to come to pass. If you encourage this little puppy to bite, we will strike him down first and then come for you. We’ll beat you senseless and then make you pay a fine for wasting our time.”
He wheeled on Telemachus. “As for you, you little shit, here’s my advice: send your mother back to her father and make her marry one of us before something bad happens. If you quit whining and do it, we’ll leave your house in peace and you can cry your little eyes out as much as you want. No one here is afraid of your pompous threats, nor those of the old man yapping on your behalf. In fact, if you don’t do as I say, we’re going to spend your money twice as fast and leave your home in utter ruin. Bet on it. Until she gives in and picks one of us, we’re gonna make your life a living hell.”
Telemachus shrugged, unimpressed. “Fuck it. I’m done asking. The gods know how things stand, and I gave you a fair chance. You do what you want, and on your heads be it. I’m taking a ship and a crew to Sparta to see what news there might be of long-lost Odysseus. I’ll give it one more year and if I don’t find him by then, I’ll ask Penelope to marry someone else.” It seems a little counterproductive to demand for the suitors to leave and then promise that they’ll win if they hold out for one more year, but he’s working from Athena’s playbook here. She’s the queen of crafty, and her plans are wheels within wheels.
An old friend of Odysseus named Mentor, a different man than Mentes who just left, who had been left behind to mind the household in his absence, stands up and gives another speech that’s mostly just a reiteration of everything that’s just happened. Another suitor named Leoncritus then stood up and warned that it would be impossible for old Mentor to fight all of the strapping young suitors if he tried to force them out of the palace and even boasts that Odysseus himself would meet death if he tried it. Yeah, that’s definitely not going to come back to haunt him in any foreshadowy way. After that, the assembly broke up, what with everyone butting heads and not really getting anywhere.
Once the crowd had mostly dispersed, Athena came back to speak with Telemachus, this time borrowing the face and voice of Mentor. “You have your father’s courage and determination, I think, so how can you fail? These suitors are madmen, but their time is coming. You go home and pack and pay those assholes no heed; I’ll hit the town and get you a solid crew for your journey.” As before, Telemachus heard the shiver of a god’s voice behind the words and took it as an omen.
As Telmeachus returned home, he was greeted by the suitor Antinous, who took his hand and invited the young prince to let bygones be bygones and come party with them. It’s not quite the gesture it seems, since Telemachus is being offered to share his own food and wine. Telemahcus was justifiably annoyed at this back-handed offer. He pulled his hand away from the suitor’s clammy one and told him that his anger wasn’t going anywhere, but he, Telemachus, would be sailing for Pylos in Sparta. From the growing party, someone shouted ‘god help us, he wants to slaughter us all! He’s off to Sparta to try and hire mercenaries and cutthroats to murder us in our beds, or maybe even to Ephyra to get some poison for our wine.’ Someone else joked that he might have the bad fortune to drown like his father and double their work in parceling out all of his stuff along with his father’s to whomever married his mother.
He asked his slave Eurycleia to fill traveling jars with wine for his journey and then to pull together rations for himself and his crew. She wailed at the thought of the young prince dying in some foreign land as well and leaving his mother and the slaves at the mercy of the awful suitors downstairs. He assured her that the gods were on his side in this, but even so, not to tell Penelope about it until he was a few days away from Ithaca.
While this was going on, Athena slipped out into the town in the form of Telemachus himself and roamed the town, hiring the best available crew for his ship. Then she took Mentor’s form again, cast a sleep spell on the suitors, and told Telemachus that it was time he climbed on his ship. Telemachus followed the goddess to the boat. They waited long enough to make the proper offerings to the gods, especially Athena, and then the ship pulled away from the shore.
Telemachus is about to set out to hear some of the stories we’ve already heard, bringing the two narratives towards the final climax. We’re going to leave him there for now, which means it’s time for Gods and Monsters. This is a segment where I get into a little more detail about the personalities and history of one of the gods or monsters from this week’s pantheon that was not discussed in the main story. This week’s goddess is Athena.
Athena is one of the major Olympians, and there are many stories where she plays a central role (some of which we’ve covered already). One of the most interesting stories, of which there are a few options, is the one about her birth. The earliest surviving reference comes from the Iliad (which we covered back in the Episode 26 series), where Ares accuses Zeus of being biased in favor of Athena since he fathered her. Given the other accounts of the story, it’s likely that the original phrasing was meant more as ‘you birthed her’.
One of the main accounts of the story comes from our boy Hesiod in his ever-popular Theogony. In it, Zeus is still married to Metis, the goddess of thought, wisdom, and cunning, who is his cousin and first wife. Wait, you’re probably saying – isn’t Hera, Zeus’ wife? Yes, Zeus does go on to marry his older sister (although she’s his 7th wife by this account) after he and his cousin are no longer a thing, and you’ll find out how that went down in this tale. Zeus and Metis have been doing the nasty on the regular, which was fine with Zeus until he got a warning from Gaia and Ouranos that the male child of Metis would become greater than his father and would overthrow him the way that he had overthrown his own father to become king of the gods.
Zeus, fearing this above all things, decided to take a page from his dead daddy’s playbook. He sweet talks Metis into showing off her shape-changing abilities, then challenges her to do something difficult and become a tiny fly. She obliges and Zeus snatches her out of the air and swallows her whole. In the ancient Greek belief system, the stomach was the seat of wisdom, so Zeus was also symbolically adding Metis’ wisdom to his own by devouring her.
Unfortunately for Zeus, this strategy of eating his prophesied children doesn’t work out much better for him than it had for Cronus. It turns out that, given all of their god sex, Metis was already pregnant because of course she was. Metis, being every bit as immortal as the Olympians, just kind of sat around inside Zeus’ head (refusing to be swallowed into the stomach and merged), still very alive and very pregnant. She spent the time inside her now former husband (cannibalism is a marriage killer) making a helmet and robe for the child growing in her own belly. During this time, Zeus manages to go through five more wives before finally marrying Hera.
The hammering of metal on metal as she forged a helmet literally inside Zeus skull naturally enough gave him a literally pounding headache. It grew more and more unbearable until Zeus was willing to do almost anything to end the agony. Anything. He cried out in pain; the gods came running. According to Hesiod, it was Prometheus (from way back in Episode 1B) who answered the call. In others, it was Hermes and Hephaestus instead. In both versions, the decision was made to cut open Zeus’ head with a sharp tool of some sort (often a double-headed Minoan axe known as a labrys) to let out whatever was inside his head causing the pain. Out leapt Athena, already born and strong (in some versions, she’s still a child here while in others, she’s already an adult). She was already armed and armored thanks to Metis’ forging inside Zeus’ skull. Having been born of the goddess of thought and cunning and having marinated in the wisdom center of the king of the gods, she naturally became the goddess of wisdom and insight.
In Hesiod’s version, Hephaestus couldn’t have answered the call because he wasn’t born yet. In fact, he states that Hera was so annoyed at Zeus for giving birth without her that she went and had Hephaestus all on her own just to prove she could. As a woman, Athena’s power and intelligence weren’t a threat to the patriarchal Olympian throne and so she became a favorite of Zeus. Her appearance was so sudden and her personage so impressive that even Helios paused in his daily course across the sky to stop and stare.
The other versions of the story are all similar but with variations in details. Pseudo-Apollodorus’ Bibliotheca tells a similar version, only Metis isn’t Zeus wife but his victim. Zeus got horny, as Zeus is wont to do, and he didn’t much care about whether his object of desire was willing or not. Metis, being a goddess herself, fought back in the only way she could – she ran. She was a talented shape shifter; unfortunately, so was Zeus and he matched every shape she picked with something just a little better. He catches her, rapes her, and then eats her (either as punishment for fleeing or to hide his crime). Having super god sperm, Metis is already pregnant from this assault and the rest of the story plays out the same. There are also versions where Metis was pregnant not by Zeus, but by the Cyclops Bronte, the Dactyl Itonos (a mythological race of spirit-men), or Cronus king of Byblos, although each of these versions only comes from a single source and thus are not the usual version told. Regardless of the version, Athena makes good on her incredible, unusual origins to become a legit badass.
That’s it for this episode of Myths Your Teacher Hated. Keep up with new episodes on our Facebook page, on iTunes, on Stitcher, on TuneIn, on Vurbl, and on Spotify, or you can follow us on Twitter as @HardcoreMyth and on Instagram as Myths Your Teacher Hated Pod. You can also find news and episodes on our website at myths your teacher hated dot com. If you have any questions, any gods or monsters you’d want to learn about, or any ideas for future stories that you’d like to hear, feel free to drop me a line. I’m trying to pull as much material from as many different cultures as possible, but there are all sorts of stories I’ve never heard, so suggestions are appreciated. The theme music is by Tiny Cheese Puff.
Next time, we’ll follow Telemachus as he plays catch-up. You’ll see that some bulls just want to die already, that you shouldn’t leave Helen alone with the booze, and that Athena isn’t always the best with disguises. Then, in Gods and Monsters, you’ll learn why you should never ride strange bulls. That’s all for now. Thanks for listening.