“The Odyssey” by Homer (post 4): Either Athena impersonates Telemachus to arrange for a ship or Telemachus has a multiple personality memory gap.

In Book 2, it is alleged that Athena, in the guise of Mentor (an old friend of Odysseus), urges Telemachus to take a ship in search of news of Odysseus, his father, who has been missing for twenty years (the ten years of the Trojan War and ten years thereafter). Then, in the guise of Telemachus, himself, Athena goes around and actually arranges for the ship.

Why does Telemachus accept Mentor’s claim to have arranged for the ship? Evidently because Telemachus has no memory of doing it himself. But Mentor is an old man and would not have been able to do it. So the most likely explanation is that Telemachus, himself, arranged for the ship, but has a memory gap for doing it, implying that Telemachus has multiple personality. (Search “memory gaps” to see many past posts that discuss this cardinal symptom of multiple personality.)

Did Homer and his original audience accept the story of Athena’s intervention at face value or did they have some concept of multiple personality? I don’t know.