In ancient Athens, if you said something awful, you might get treated to “the silence of Telephus.”
It was a profound silence. Telephus himself was so disturbed he didn’t speak for years.
Telephus was the unwanted grandson of King Aleus of Tegea, a city unfortunately close to Sparta. Aleus was informed by the Oracle at Delphi that his beloved wife’s two brothers would die at the hands of her daughter’s son.
So Aleus had his daughter, Auge, appointed priestess of Athene, a position that required chastity. Aleus threated to kill Auge if she failed to keep her vows.
Heracles, drunk, raped her in the temple.
Aleus, blaming the victim when he noticed she was pregnant, asked a friend to drown Auge since he couldn’t muster the nerve to kill her himself. The friend agreed but planned to sell her, the market for slaves being what it was.
Before Auge could be sold, she had the child who became Telephus and hid him on a mountainside.
In Greek myths, kindly shepherds find all the children who are exposed on mountainsides and take them to childless kings. Telephus was raised well, but when he got older he wanted to find his parents. He asked the oracle, which sent him to Asia to consult a king. The oracle did not mention that Auge had fallen into the hands of this kindly king, who had married her.
On the way, Telephus got into a scrape with a couple of louts and killed them.
The day when Telephus found his mother was a day of great joy and a day of great sorrow. Auge was mourning the death of her brothers. That was the day Telephus retreated into silence.
• Source: • Source: Robert Graves, The Greek Myths: 2; Penguin Books, 1968, pp. 186-90. The myth has many variations.
