Odyssey: Polycaste Bathes Telemachus

In the Odyssey, Telemachus, fed up with the suitors circling his mother and with the long absence of his father, takes off to meet Nestor in Pylos. He asks him if he knows something about his father’s fate, and while he is sad that he does not, he accepts the king’s hospitality and the care of his beautiful daughter Polycaste.

While the actual Homeric line is quite innocent, mentioning Polycaste bathing and dressing Telemachus with clean clothes, it sets up the reveal later on that Telemachus has a daughter with her, Persepolis.

So, the bath might not have been so innocent after all.