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As you face the unfinished task, do you
feel your insignificance? The story of Telemachus challenges you? |
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"Have you heard the story of Telemachus?
He was an Asiatic monk in the fifth century who, on his first visit to Rome,
followed a holiday crowd into the Coliseum. Animals are to fight together.
Men are to fight animals. Men are to fight men. Telemachus makes his way to
the great amphitheater which seats eighty thousand people. He is on the
lowest tier, nearest the sandy floor. A group of men march into the arena,
and before they commence to fight one another, they halt before the royal
box and cry out to Caesar, 'We, who are about to die, salute thee.' The soul
of Telemachus is revolted, horrified at what is about to happen....The brain
of Telemachus works like lightening. He sees in a flash why God wanted him
to come to Rome. He rises, leaps on the low wall which alone separates him
from the arena, and, in the silence which followed the greeting to Caesar,
he shouts at the top of his voice, "In the name of Christ, forebear.'
"Laughter runs around the galleries. What can one man do
to stop the amusement of eighty thousand, however revolting it be? But see,
the saint has leaped down on the ground. As the gladiators close with one
another he rushes to the nearest group and thrusts himself between them.
Indulgently they thrush him aside and continue to fight. The crowd roars
with laughter. How ridiculous he looks! What a figure he is making! A
gladiator strikes him with the flat of his sword. The saint stumbles, is up
again, is between the combatants, is imploring them in the name of Christ to
cease. The crowd thinks it funny no longer. "Run him through!' is the cry.
There is the quick flash of a blade and Telemachus is lying in the sand.
Slowly the sand reddens around his body. A man rises and leaves the Coliseum.
Another follows. Another. The saint was a man of God. Christianity is
respected by an increasing number.... The great amphitheater begins to
empty. The mind of the multitude had changed. They cry for the games to
cease. It was the last time in the Roman Coliseum that gladiatorial fights
took place."--Lift High That Banner, W. M. Elliott, Jr., pg 65
What can one man do? Remember Telemachus? Remember
that "every great movement is but the lengthened shadow of a man."
--From September issue of Cues |
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More
information about Telemachus! |
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"My
mother certainly says I am
Odysseus' son; but
for myself I cannot tell. It's a wise child that
knows its own father." [Telemachus to
Athena as the Taphian stranger. Homer,
Odyssey 1.215] |
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Telemachus is the Ithacan prince who
longed for his father
Odysseus' return, hoping that it would put an
end to the outrages that were being committed by the
SUITORS OF PENELOPE during his absence.
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The time of his birth |
Telemachus was born short before the
outbreak of the
Trojan War; for he was still a babe when King
Agamemnon's agent
Palamedes came to Ithaca and destroyed his
parent's home by forcing
Odysseus to comply with The Oath of
Tyndareus, and join the alliance that sailed
against
Troy in order to demand, by force or by
persuasion, the restoration of
Helen and the Spartan property that the seducer
Paris had stolen. |
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Odysseus
joins the allies |
Odysseus,
who did not wish to become the victim of the oath he
himself had devised, feigned madness in an attempt
to stay at home. But clever
Palamedes rightly felt that he was pretending,
and threatening to kill little Telemachus, forced
Odysseus to give up his pretence, and join the
allies. For this reason and from that time,
Odysseus was hostile to
Palamedes, and when later they were fighting at
Troy,
Odysseus plotted against him, and had him stoned
to death by the army as a traitor. |
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