 Telemachus's name in Greek means "far from battle", or perhaps "fighting from afar", as a bowman does.In Homer's "Odyssey", Telemachus, under the instructions of Athena (who accompanies him during the quest), spends the first four books trying to gain knowledge of his father, Odysseus, who left for Troy when Telemachus was still an infant.At the outset of Telemachus' journey, Odysseus had been absent from his home at Ithaca for twenty years due to the Trojan War and the intervention of Poseidon.