Homer writes "...prince Telemachus/now saw Athena - for he too,/was sitting there unhappy among the suitors,/a boy, daydreaming " (5). But the desire to avenge his family's honor, however nascent, is essential to Telemachus' growth. Telemachus is tactful and pragmatic. Seeing Mentor, he does not hesitate to welcome an old friend and place his spear in a place of honor “against a pillar where stood in order hard spear upon spear/of the old soldier, his father” (5). Furthermore, Telemachus is dissatisfied with the revelry of the suitors, who endlessly pester him to feast on them. His observation of how pleasure corrupts men is prescient for a seventeen-year-old boy. Although Telemachus doubts his heritage, “My mother says that I am [Odysseus's] son; I don't know” (8), which never ceases to fascinate him