Odyssey 1.216 · Book 1, lines 216–220
No one knows his own father
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Telemachus — οὐκ οἶδʼ· οὐ γάρ πώ τις ἑὸν γόνον αὐτὸς ἀνέγνω. ὡς δὴ ἐγώ γʼ ὄφελον μάκαρός νύ τευ ἔμμεναι υἱὸς ἀνέρος, ὃν κτεάτεσσιν ἑοῖς ἔπι γῆρας ἔτετμε. νῦν δʼ ὃς ἀποτμότατος γένετο θνητῶν ἀνθρώπων, τοῦ μʼ ἔκ φασι γενέσθαι, ἐπεὶ σύ με τοῦτʼ ἐρεείνεις.
I do not know; for no one yet has himself known his own begetting. Oh, would that I were the son of some blessed man, whom old age overtook among his own possessions. But now — of him who became the most ill-fated of mortal men, of him they say I am sprung, since you ask me this.
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The setting
Athena, disguised as the Taphian lord Mentes, has just asked whether this is truly Odysseus's son. Telemachus answers — and his answer begins in doubt.
A note on this passage
Athena, disguised as Mentes, has asked whether this is truly Odysseus's son. Telemachus's answer is bleak and honest: no man ever really knows his own father. He would rather have been born to some ordinary man who lived to grow old among his own goods — anyone but the father fate gave him, whom they merely say is his.
The undercurrent is a son's grief wearing the mask of doubt. In this world a man's very self runs through his father's name; to have a father who is neither dead nor home is to be suspended, unfathered in fact if not in blood. Telemachus does not want a greater father than Odysseus — he wants a present one, and would trade the famous name for a house where old age came in quietly. The wish measures exactly what the suitors have taken.
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