Anticlea
Mother of Odysseus, whose shade he meets in the Underworld.
Overview
Anticlea is the mother of Odysseus. She was alive when he left Ithaca, but he discovers only in the Underworld that she has died. After drinking the sacrificial blood, she recognises her son and reports that Penelope still waits, Telemachus manages the estate, and Laertes has withdrawn to the countryside. She says that neither disease nor divine arrow killed her; longing for her son wore away her life. Odysseus attempts three times to embrace her and three times passes through an insubstantial shade. The encounter delivers news of home and irreversible loss at the same moment.
Key facts
News of home from the dead
Odyssey Book 11Anticlea describes the conditions of Penelope, Telemachus and Laertes, making the Underworld part of the information route home.
Three impossible embraces
Odysseus reaches repeatedly but cannot hold his mother's shade; recognition cannot restore bodily contact.
Relationships
- Odysseusmother of
Anticlea is the mother of Odysseus.
- Descent to the Underworldappears in
Anticlea's shade tells her son what has happened at home.
- Odysseusexplains why a shade cannot be held
Anticlea explains that death consumes the body and the spirit flies away, so her son cannot hold her.
Story appearances
- The Odyssey HomecomingMother encountered below
Anticlea's shade tells her son of the grief within his Ithacan household.
- Gates of the UnderworldMother making family grief and the untouchable shade concrete
Mother making family grief and the untouchable shade concrete, part of the Underworld story's crossings, losses, judgments or guarded spaces.
Ancient sources
MythWeave distinguishes ancient-source evidence from later adaptations and modern interpretation.