The Hidden History of the Word “Mentor”

The names of several gods, monsters, creatures, and other characters from the myths of the ancient world have ended up as words in our everyday language, as their stories have been passed down through the centuries. The beautiful youth Narcissus, for instance, who famously fell for his own reflection, gave his name not only to the flower he eventually morphed into, but to the narcissism of being obsessed with your own appearance. The tragic mountain nymph that hopelessly fell in love with him, meanwhile, famously pined away until only her voice remained; her name gave us the word echo.

Perhaps among the less well-known words to have mythological origins, though, is the word mentor, meaning an astute advisor or counsellor. But as anyone who has read the Odyssey will doubtless know, even this word has its roots in the stories of ancient Greece.

The Real Mentor of Ithaca

A 19th-century engraving of John Flaxman’s classical illustration depicting Telemachus and his advisor, Mentor, landing at Pylos to search for news of Odysseus. | ZU_09/Getty Images

The son of Alcimus in Greek legend, Mentor is an Achaean first introduced in Homer’s Iliad as a close friend and attendant to the legendary warrior Achilles. By the time of the events of the Odyssey—Homer’s subsequent epic poetic retelling of the return journey of Odysseus, the king of Ithaca, home from the Trojan War—Mentor is now an aged old man, and one of the king’s closest and loyal friends. When Odysseus sets off on his ten-year journey to war, Mentor is ultimately entrusted both with looking after the running of his royal household while he is away, and with educating and essentially taking care of his son, Telemachus, the young prince of Ithaca.

Scholars and classicists have ultimately extrapolated from Homer’s writing that Mentor therefore effectively acted as a stand-in father for Telemachus during Odysseus’ absence, and so it’s clear where the name Mentor’s association with guidance and supervision (and especially, of a young person) has come from. But that’s not the only form his personal “mentoring” takes in Homer’s story. This being a tale rooted in the traditions of ancient Greek myth, the gods have a part to play here too.

A Goddess in Disguise

Giuseppe Bottani’s 1775 painting captures Athena’s divine presence guiding mortals in the Odyssey — Giuseppe Bottani’s 1775 painting captures Athena’s divine presence guiding mortals in the ‘Odyssey.’ | DeAgostini/Getty Images

Mentor appears only a handful of times in the entire story of the Odyssey, but in most of those appearances he is actually the goddess Athena in disguise. As a goddess of war, reason, and intelligence, Athena is drawn to Odysseus’ honor and bravery, and that (along with her antipathy toward the sea god Poseidon, Odysseus’ enemy) leads her to want to help the king on his quest and his subsequent journey home.

As a result, it is Athena in the guise of Mentor who, for instance, appears to encourage Telemachus to find proof of his father’s imminent arrival home—and it is Athena as Mentor again who comes to aid Odysseus himself, toward the end of the poem, during his climactic battle with the unwanted suitors of his queen, Penelope.

No matter whether he’s addressing the king or his young son, though—and regardless of whether it’s truly Mentor himself, or the goddess Athena assuming his form—it is Mentor’s appearance as a learned guide and thoughtful advisor in the Odyssey that helped establish his name in our language. The notion of a thoughtful mentor, or of youthful mentorship, ultimately, has almost 3,000 years of history behind it.

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