Telegony

The Telegony (Greek: Τηλεγόνεια, Tēlegoneia; Telegonia) is a lost ancient Greek epic poem about Telegonus, son of Odysseus by Circe. His name ("born far away") is indicative of his birth on Aeaea, far from Odysseus' home of Ithaca. It was part of the Epic Cycle of poems that recounted the myths of the Trojan War as well as the events that led up to and followed it. The story of the Telegony comes chronologically after that of the Odyssey and is the final episode in the Epic Cycle. The poem was sometimes attributed in antiquity to Cinaethon of Sparta (8th century BC), but in one source it is said to have been stolen from Musaeus by Eugamon or Eugammon of Cyrene (6th century BC) (see Cyclic poets). The poem comprised two books of verse in dactylic hexameter. In Antiquity the Telegony may have also been known as the Thesprotis (Greek: Θεσπρωτίς), which is referred to once by Pausanias in the 2nd century AD; alternatively, the Thesprotis may have been a name for the first book of the Telegony, which is set in Thesprotia. Such naming of isolated episodes within a larger epic was common practice for the ancient readers of the Homeric epics. A third possibility is that there was a wholly separate epic called the Thesprotis; and yet a fourth possibility is that the Telegony and Thesprotis were two separate poems that were at some stage compiled into a single Telegony. The date of composition of the Telegony is uncertain. Cyrene, the native city of purported author Eugammon, was founded in 631 BC; but the narrative details may have existed prior to Eugammon's version, perhaps even in the oral tradition. There is a distinct possibility that the author of the Odyssey knew at least some version of the Telegony story (the Thesprotian episode and Telegonus' unusual spear in the Telegony may have been based on Tiresias' prophecy in Odyssey book 11; but it is also possible that the Odyssey poet used the Telegonus story as a basis for Teiresias' prophecy). Certainly Eugammon's poem is most likely to have been composed in the 6th century BC.