Fathers and Sons in Epic and Lyric

What is the role played by fathers and sons in ancient Greek epic and lyric? Are fathers good role
models? Do they show or teach their children how to behave or function? What kind of relationships do
we witness in the texts?  Are immortal and mortal fathers portrayed in similar ways?

A strong link seems to bond fathers and sons.

Of course, the relationship between gods and their sons is very peculiar.

As shown in Hesiod’s Theogony, among the gods fathers and sons were violent with each other. Kronos
castrated his own father, Ouranos, and after that, since he was himself afraid of all his children—boys
and girls—he did not allow them to live in the outside world, so ate them. Zeus, the youngest son, was
able to change the situation and his brothers and sisters were born again, and he took control over his
father.

Quickly then throve the spirit and beauteous limbs of the king, and, as years came round, having been
beguiled by the wise counsels of Earth 495 huge Kronos, wily counselor, let loose again his offspring,
having been conquered by the arts and strength of his son.

Theogony 492–496, Sourcebook[1]

So these gods do not provide the best role model for a healthy bond between father and son.

One of the epithets of Zeus is “father Zeus”. He fathered a number of other gods, and very many
mortals.

He was moved by the death of his mortal son Sarpedon, and helped protect his body:

The son of scheming Kronos looked down upon them in pity and said to Hera who was his wife and
sister, “Alas, that it should be the lot of Sarpedon whom I love so dearly to perish by the hand of
Patroklos. [435] I am in two minds whether to catch him up out of the fight and set him down safe and
sound in the fertile district [dēmos] of Lycia, or to let him now fall by the hand of the son of Menoitios.”
…
[665] Then Zeus lord of the storm-cloud said to Apollo, “Dear Phoebus, go, I pray you, and take
Sarpedon out of range of the weapons; cleanse the black blood from off him, and then bear him a long
way off where you may wash him in the river, anoint him with ambrosia, [670] and clothe him in
immortal raiment; this done, commit him to the arms of the two fleet messengers, Death, and Sleep,
who will carry him straightway to the fertile district [dēmos] of Lycia, 674 and there his relatives and
comrades will ritually prepare [tarkhuein] him, [675] with a tomb and a stele—for that is the privilege of
the dead.”

However, he violently scolded Arēs, one of his immortal sons.

Zeus looked angrily at him [= Arēs] and said, “Do not come whining here, you who face both ways. [890]
I hate you worst of all the gods in Olympus, for you are ever fighting and making mischief. You have the
intolerable and stubborn spirit of your mother Hera: it is all I can do to manage her, and it is her doing
that you are now in this plight: [895] still, I cannot let you remain longer in such great pain; you are my
own off-spring, and it was by me that your mother conceived you; if, however, you had been the son of
any other god, you are so destructive that by this time you should have been lying lower than the
Titans.”
He then bade Paieon heal him.

Iliad 5.889–900, Sourcebook

As for mortal fathers in Homeric poetry, we have examples where they give advice to their sons.

We see the same line in in Iliad 6.207–208 and in Iliad 11.784, a statement of heroic code. Here is
Glaukos’ account of what his father told him:

Ἱππόλοχος δέ μ᾽ ἔτικτε, καὶ ἐκ τοῦ φημι γενέσθαι:
πέμπε δέ μ᾽ ἐς Τροίην, καί μοι μάλα πόλλ᾽ ἐπέτελλεν
αἰὲν ἀριστεύειν καὶ ὑπείροχον ἔμμεναι ἄλλων,
μηδὲ γένος πατέρων αἰσχυνέμεν, οἳ μέγ᾽ ἄριστοι
210 ἔν τ᾽ Ἐφύρῃ ἐγένοντο καὶ ἐν Λυκίῃ εὐρείῃ.
ταύτης τοι γενεῆς τε καὶ αἵματος εὔχομαι εἶναι.

Hippolokhos was father to myself, and when he sent me to Troy he urged me again and again to fight
ever among the foremost and outcompete my peers, so as not to shame the blood of my fathers [210]
who were the noblest in Ephyra and in all Lycia. This, then, is the descent I claim.

Iliad 6.206–211, Sourcebook

Peleus gives the same advice to his son Achilles:

…τὼ δ᾽ ἄμφω πόλλ᾽ ἐπέτελλον

Πηλεὺς μὲν ᾧ παιδὶ γέρων ἐπέτελλ᾽ Ἀχιλῆϊ
αἰὲν ἀριστεύειν καὶ ὑπείροχον ἔμμεναι ἄλλων[2]

I said my say and urged both of you to join us. You were ready enough to do so, and the two old
men charged you much and strongly. Old Peleus bade his son Achilles fight ever among the foremost
and outcompete his peers

Iliad 11.781–784, Sourcebook

On the other hand the advice given to Patroklos by his father is perhaps more suited to his role as
the therapōn: of Achilles

…while Menoitios, the son of Aktor, spoke thus to you: [785] ‘My son,’ said he, ‘Achilles is of nobler birth
than you are. 787 You are older; but he is much better in force [bíē]. Counsel him wisely, guide him in
the right way, and he will follow you to his own profit.’

Iliad 11.785–789, Sourcebook

Perhaps the best known example of advice from a father to a son from HeroesX is when Nestor speaks
to his son before the chariot race:

Fourth in order Antilokhos, son to noble Nestor, son of high-hearted Neleus, made ready his horses.
These were bred in Pylos, and his father came up to him [305] to give him good advice of which,
however, he stood in but little need. “Antilokhos,” said Nestor, “you are young, but Zeus and Poseidon
have loved you well, and have made you an excellent charioteer. I need not therefore say much by way
of instruction. You are skillful at wheeling your horses round the post, [310] but the horses themselves
are very slow, and it is this that will, I fear, mar your chances. The other drivers know less than you do,
but their horses are fleeter; 313 Come, my philos, put in your thūmos every sort of skill [mētis], 314 so
that prizes may not elude you. [315] It is with mētis rather than force [biē] that a woodcutter is
better. 316 It is with mētis that a helmsman over the wine-dark sea [pontos] 317 steers his swift ship
buffeted by winds. 318 It is with mētis that charioteer is better than charioteer. [320] If a man go wide in
rounding this way and that, whereas a man of craft [kerdos] may have worse horses, but he will keep
them well in hand when he sees the turning-post [terma]; he knows the precise moment [325] at which
to pull the rein, and keeps his eye well on the man in front of him. 326 I [= Nestor] will tell you [=
Antilokhos] a sign [sēma], a very clear one, which will not get lost in your thinking. 327 Standing over
there is a stump of deadwood, a good reach above ground level. 328 It had been either an oak or a pine.
And it hasn’t rotted away from the rains. 329 There are two white rocks propped against either side of
it. [330] There it is, standing at a point where two roadways meet, and it has a smooth track on both
sides of it for driving a chariot. 331 It is either the tomb [sēma] of some mortal who died a long time
ago 332 or was a turning point [nussa] in the times of earlier men. 333 Now swift-footed radiant Achilles
has set it up as a turning point [terma plural]. 334 Get as close to it as you can when you drive your
chariot horses toward it, [335] and keep leaning toward one side as you stand on the platform of your
well-built chariot, 336 leaning to the left as you drive your horses. Your right-side horse 337 you must
goad, calling out to it, and give that horse some slack as you hold its reins, 338 while you make your left-
side horse get as close as possible [to the turning point], 339 so that the hub will seem to be almost
grazing the post [340]—the hub of your well-made chariot wheel. But be careful not to touch the stone
[of the turning point], 341 or else you will get your horses hurt badly and break your chariot in
pieces. 342 That would make other people happy, but for you it would be a shame, 343 yes it would. So,
near and dear [philos] as you are to me, you must be sound in your thinking and be careful, for if you
can be first to round the post [345] there is no chance of any one giving you the go-by later, not even
though he had Arion, the horse of Adrastos, a horse which is of divine race, or the horses of Laomedon,
which are the noblest in this land.”

Iliad 23.301–349, Sourcebook

This loving speech provides good guidance not only for the race in hand but for life overall.

We see in epic an example of a father doing the most extreme action on behalf of his son when Priam
risks everything to face Achilles, who has killed and degraded the body of his son Hector. in Iliad 24 and
“Tall King Priam entered …, and going right up to Achilles he clasped his knees and kissed the dread
man-slaughtering hands that had slain so many of his sons.”

When Odysseus reveals himself to Laertes, part of the proof involves how his father had given guidance
about the orchard:

I will point out to you the trees in the vineyard which you gave me, and I asked you all about them as I
followed you round the garden. We went over them all, and you told me their names and what they all
[340] were. You gave me thirteen pear trees, ten apple trees, and forty fig trees; you also said you would
give me fifty rows of vines; there was wheat planted between each row, and they yield grapes of every
kind when the seasons [hōrai] of Zeus have been laid heavy upon them

Odyssey 24.336–344, Sourcebook

Lineage is important as we see when heroes boast about their fathers or earlier ancestors.

Going back generations shows the strength of the family

Then said Diomedes, [110] “Such an one is at hand; he is not far to seek, if you will listen to me and not
resent my speaking though I am younger than any of you. I am by lineage son to a noble sire, Tydeus,
who lies buried at Thebes. [115] For Portheus had three noble sons, two of whom, Agrios and Melas,
abode in Pleuron and rocky Calydon. The third was the horseman Oeneus, my father’s father, and he
was the most valorous of them all. Oeneus remained in his own country, but my father (as Zeus and the
other gods ordained it) [120] migrated to Argos. He married into the family of Adrastos, and his house
was one of great abundance, for he had large estates of fertile grain-growing land, with much orchard
ground as well, and he had many sheep; moreover he excelled all the Argives in the use of the spear. ”

Iliad 14.109–125, Sourcebook

In this Ode by Pindar, a dead father, Amphiaraus, is communicating with his living son, the hero
Alcmaeon. Amphiarus is one of the warriors in the War of the Seven Against Thebes and his son
Alcmaeon is one of the Epigonoi. The Seven against Thebes failed but their sons the Epigonoi were
successful. So, Pindar says, sons materialize what their fathers dreamed of achieving.

By inherited nature, the noble purpose [lēma] shines forth from fathers [pateres] to sons.

Pindar’s Pythian 8
Translation and Notes by Gregory Nagy, as of 2018.02.07

What passages from the epics or lyric about fathers and sons—mortal or immortal—demonstrate
positive or negative role models or relationships? How do they fathers and sons speak to or about each
other?

Please join us in the forum to share and discuss further passages.

References

[1] Sourcebook: The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours Sourcebook of Original Greek Texts Translated into
English, Gregory Nagy, General Editor.
[2] Iliad Greek text from: Homer. Homeri Opera in five volumes. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
1920. Online at Perseus
Texts accessed June 2018.

Image credits

Medousa (photo) Statue of Kronos Hesperidengarten, Nürnberg (artist not stated), Creative

Commons CC BY-SA 3.0

Sailko (photo) Henri Lévy Sarpedon, 1874, Musée d’Orsay. Creative Commons CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia
Commons

Marie-Lan Nguyen (photo) Manner of Princeton Painter: Warrior’s Departure Attic black-figure

amphora, circa 550–540BCE. Louvre Museum. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Lady Erin (photo) Ulysses embracing Laertes, Sarcophagus fragment, mid 2nd century CE, Museo
Barracco, Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 2.0, via flickriver

Jastrow (photo) Dead man leaving his son, funeral stele, Pentelic marble circa 410–400 BCE, Louvre.
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
1. Odysseus and Telemachus in The Odyssey

Where else to start but with the Daddy of all missing father stories? Homer's Iliad is full
of manly stuff, but as a boy I was drawn to The Odyssey and its tale of a son waiting for a
father who went out one day with his mates and didn't come back for 20 years. Most
people focus on the romantic idea of faithful Penelope waiting for Odysseus to return.
Telemachus is far more interesting, though. He's the one who holds it together at home
for his mum, seeks out his father, then bonds with dad by helping him to slaughter the
suitors. If I were Telemachus I'd be asking why mum hadn't seen them off in the first
place, and how come dad had dallied so long with all those comely, bewitching girls on
the way home? Telemachus, of course, is far too well-behaved to do any such thing.

2. The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff

The Eagle of the Ninth was published in 1954, the year I was born, but I must have read
it for the first time when I was 12 or 13, just after my Tolkien phase. Like many other
Sutcliff fans, I was gripped by this story of a young man travelling from the soft south of
Roman Britain to the wilds beyond Hadrian's Wall where the Scots were still very
independent indeed. Marcus Flavius Aquila is on a mission to find out what happened to
his father's legion, the 9th Hispana, which marched north into the Caledonian mists and
was never seen again. Of course Marcus is really trying to find out what happened to his
father, and whether his dad died nobly or not. Essential reading for all boys worried that
their absent dad might not always have been a paragon of virtue.

3. The Mouse and his Child by Russell Hoban

A strange one this, but then strangeness is a defining quality of all Hoban's work. The
Mouse and his Child is probably his second best-known book after Riddley Walker
(which also features a boy and his dad, albeit a dead one). The eponymous heroes make
up a single clockwork toy, a father mouse and his son, who are exiled from the safety of
the toy shop when they are bought, and find themselves on a quest for the beautiful
doll's house they once knew. It's a magical-realist tale, full of memorable characters and
philosophy, but what stayed with me after I'd read it was the tender love of a father for
his son.

4. The William Stories by Richmal Crompton

Naturally as a young reader I always identified with Richmal Crompton's William, John
Lennon's favourite fictional character. Who wouldn't? William has no equal for
unbridled anarchy, and the way in which he blasts through the adult world's attempts to
control him is a joy. Unless you happen to be an adult, of course. It was disconcerting (to
say the least) to re-read William's adventures when I had become a parent and to find
myself in deepest empathy with Brown père. I too had given lectures about behaviour,
rolled my eyes and sought for strength in the face of childish mayhem. But what is most
appealing about Brown senior is his tacit admission that he was once like William too.
5. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Scrooge is the headline act in our most famous Christmas story, and quite rightly so.
Those of us interested in father-son relationships will however linger over the scenes
featuring Scrooge's oppressed office slave Bob Cratchit, and Bob's son, Tiny Tim. Yes,
Tiny Tim is deeply irritating, and I'm surprised there hasn't been a Hollywood remake in
which Bob goes postal and takes Scrooge out with a few well-placed rounds before the
ghosts can do their work. But as Pink Floyd once said, "hanging on in quiet desperation
is the English way" and, in my view, Bob's willingness to put up with almost anything in
his working life to ensure he can take care of his family makes him a real hero. Probably
in his creator's too, as the young Charles ended up a slave in a blacking factory because
he was unlucky enough to be the son of a dodgy, deadbeat dad.

6. The Road by Cormac McCarthy

My son thinks I'm a total wimp as I can only watch things like The Walking Dead and 28
Days Later from between my fingers, especially if any children are in danger. So you can
imagine just how difficult I found The Road, Cormac McCarthy's vision of a devastated,
post-apocalyptic future in which a father is utterly determined to save his nine-year-old
son from a fate much worse than anything Tiny Tim might encounter, the options being
starvation or ending up as kebabs for some particularly nasty cannibals. The writing is
extraordinary, and although it's clearly a fable, the characters are so clearly drawn they
stay with you long after you finish the book. I've got the DVD of the film version, and
one of these days I'll get around to watching it. But not just yet.

7. Goodnight Mr Tom by Michelle Magorian

This could be construed as cheating, I suppose – the two main characters have no blood
relationship. But I've decided to accord Tom Oakley honorary status as an adoptive dad,
and like many men in that position he performs much better than some who are
genetically linked to their offspring. Tom has an evacuee foisted on him in September
1939, young Willie, a boy who comes from the kind of poor London background in
which plain old-fashioned neglect on its own would have been better than the treatment
he actually received. Tom's heart was broken by the death of his wife, but gradually he
and the boy draw each other out. Add a great plot and you have a guaranteed tear-
jerking classic.

8. And When Did You Last See Your Father? by Blake Morrison

Cheating again, I suppose, as this is not fiction but a classic memoir, an examination of a
father by his son. However, I read it practically in one sitting, gripped by the unfolding
of an account that uses all the arts of storytelling to keep you turning those pages. Blake
Morrison re-creates his difficult, fascinating father Arthur and explores their
relationship, and few men could read it without recognising themselves or their own
dads. It's particularly fine on the embarrassment engendered by dads, an emotion that
morphs into hostility and eventually some kind of understanding. That's what I'm
hoping for, anyway.

9. Henry IV Parts I and II

Fathers and sons is not a theme which immediately leaps to mind when thinking about
Shakespeare, which is slightly odd as like Dickens, Will was also the son of a dodgy,
bankrupt dad. Hamlet's story is really all about the boy, and King Lear is about fathers
and daughters, another theme entirely. It's definitely there in the two parts of Henry IV,
though. Prince Hal is William Brown writ large, and his father's disapproval of Hal's
dedication to sowing his wild oats casts a long shadow over both plays. Falstaff of course
is a substitute father and Hal's rejection of him comes in time for a death-bed
reconciliation with his proper dad, which Hal almost spoils by pinching the crown
before dad is dead. But it works out OK, so Hal doesn't need any family therapy or
counselling.

10. Homer and Bart Simpson

Last but not least, we return to Homer, but not the one who wrote The Odyssey.
Generally Tom and I get on very well when we're working on a book, but there have been
times when he's been grumpy after I've changed the plot we'd agreed on without
consulting him. I don't see what the problem is, but our conversations tend to fall into a
Simpsons-like pattern – "Eat my shorts, old man!" "Why, you little..." I haven't tried to
strangle him for a while – the last time I did he pinned me painfully to the floor – but I
think our relationship has parallels with that of Homer and Bart. Deep down, whatever
happens, Homer and Bart are pretty close. Just so long as they don't start working
together.

What Greek epics taught me about the special

relationship between fathers and sons
Father’s Day inspires mixed emotions for many of us. Looking at advertisements of happy families could recall difficult
memories and broken relationships for some. But for others, the day could invite unbidden nostalgic thoughts of parents
who have long since died.

As a scholar of ancient Greek poetry, I find myself reflecting on two of the most powerful paternal moments in Greek
literature. At the end of Homer’s classic poem, “The Iliad,” Priam, the king of Troy, begs his son’s killer, Achilles, to return
the body of Hektor, the city’s greatest warrior, for burial. Once Achilles puts aside his famous rage and agrees, the two weep
together before sharing a meal, Priam lamenting the loss of his son while Achilles contemplates that he will never see his
own father again.

The final book of another Greek classic, “The Odyssey,” brings together a father and son as well. After 10 years of war and as
many traveling at sea, Odysseus returns home and goes through a series of reunions, ending with his father, Laertes. When
Odysseus meets his father, however, he doesn’t greet him right away. Instead, he pretends to be someone who met Odysseus
and lies about his location.

When Laertes weeps over his son’s continued absence, Odysseus loses control of his emotions too, shouting his name to his
father only to be disbelieved. He reveals a scar he received as a child and Laertes still doubts him. But then Odysseus points
to the trees in their orchards and begins to recount their numbers and names, the stories Laertes told him when he was
young.
Since the time of Aristotle, interpreters have questioned “The Odyssey"’s final book. Some have wondered why Odysseus is
cruel to his father, while others have asked why reuniting with him even matters. Why spend precious narrative time talking
about trees when the audience is waiting to hear if Odysseus will suffer at the hands of the families whose sons he has killed?

I lingered in such confusion myself until I lost my own father, John, too young at 61. Reading and teaching "The Odyssey” in
the same two-year period that I lost him and welcomed two children to the world changed the way I understood the father-
son relationship in these poems. I realized then in the final scene, what Odysseus needed from his father was something
more important: the comfort of being a son.

Fathers and sons

Fathers occupy an outsized place in Greek myth. They are kings and models, and too often challenges to be overcome. In
Greek epic, fathers are markers of absence and dislocation. When Achilles learns his lover and friend, Patroklos, has died in
“The Iliad,” he weeps and says that he always imagined his best friend returning home and introducing Achilles’ son,
Neoptolemus, to Achilles’s father, Peleus.

The Trojan Prince Hektor’s most humanizing moment is when he laughs at his son’s startled cry at seeing his
father’s bloodied armor. Priam’s grief for Hektor’s loss stands in for the grief of all parents bereft of children taken too soon.
When he hears of the death of his son, he lies prostrate on the earth, covering his head with ash and weeping. The sweetness
of Hektor’s laugh foreshadows the bitter agony of his father’s pain.

I don’t think I had a grasp of either before I became a father and lost one.

How stories bring us home

Odysseus’ reunion with his father is crucial to the completion of his story, of his return home. In Greek the word “nostos,” or
homecoming, is more than about a mere return to a place: It is a restoration of the self, a kind of reentry to the world of the
living. For Odysseus, as I explore in my recent book “The Many-Minded Man: The Odyssey, Modern Psychology, and the
Therapy of Epic,” this means returning to who he was before the war, trying to reconcile his identities as a king, a suffering
veteran, a man with a wife and a father, as well as a son himself.

Odysseus achieves his “nostos” by telling and listening to stories. As psychologists who specialize in narrative
therapy explain, our identity comprises the stories we tell and believe about ourselves.

The stories we tell about ourselves condition how we act in the world. Psychological studies have shown how losing a sense of
agency, the belief that we can shape what happens to us, can keep us trapped in cycles of inaction and make us more prone to
depression and addiction.

And the pain of losing a loved one can make anyone feel helpless. In recent years, researchers have investigated
how unresolved or complicated grief – an ongoing, heightened state of mourning – upends lives and changes the way
someone sees oneself in the world. And more pain comes from other people not knowing our stories, from not truly knowing
who we are. Psychologists have shown that when people do not acknowledge their mental or emotional states, they
experience “emotional invalidation” that can have negative mental and physical consequences from depression to chronic
pain.

Odysseus does not recognize the landscape of his home island of Ithaca when he first arrives; he needs to go through a
process of reunions and observation first. But when Odysseus tells his father the stories of the trees they tended together, he
reminds them both of their shared story, of the relationship and the place that brings them together.

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Family trees
“The Odyssey” teaches us that home is not just a physical place, it is where memories live – it is a reminder of the stories that
have shaped us.

When I was in third grade, my father bought several acres in the middle of the woods in southern Maine. He spent the rest of
his life clearing those acres, shaping gardens, planting trees. By the time I was in high school, it took several hours to mow
the lawn. He and I repaired old stone walls, dug beds for phlox, and planted rhododendron bushes and a maple tree.

My father was not an uncomplicated man. I probably remember the work we did on that property so well because our
relationship was otherwise distant. He was almost completely deaf from birth, and this shaped the way he engaged with the
world and the kinds of experiences he shared with his family. My mother tells me he was worried about having children
because he wouldn’t be able to hear them cry.

He died in the winter of 2011, and I returned home in the summer to honor his wishes and spread his ashes on a mountain in
central Maine with my brother. I had not lived in Maine for over a decade before his passing. The pine trees I used to climb
were unrecognizable; the trees and bushes I had planted with my father were in the same place, but they had changed: they
were larger, grown wilder, identifiable only because of where they were planted in relation to one another.
That was when I was no longer confused about the walk Odysseus took through the trees with his father, Laertes. I cannot
help but imagine what it would be like to walk that land with my father again, to joke about the absurdity of turning pine
forests into lawn.

“The Odyssey” ends with Laertes and Odysseus standing together with the third generation, the young Telemachus. In a way,
Odysseus gets the fantasy ending Achilles couldn’t even imagine for himself: He stands together in his home with his father
and his son.

In my father’s last year, I introduced him to his first grandchild, my daughter. Ten years later, as I try to ignore another
painful reminder of his absence, I can only imagine how the birth of my third, another daughter, would have lit up his face.

“The Odyssey,” I believe, teaches us that we are shaped by the people who recognize us and the stories we share together.
When we lose our loved ones, we can fear that there are no new stories to be told. But then we find the stories that we can tell
our children.

This year, as I celebrate a 10th Father’s Day as a father and without one, I keep this close to heart: Telling these stories to my
children creates a new home and makes that impossible return less painful.