n Homer's Odyssey, Penélopê (Πηνελόπη) is the faithful wife of Odysseus, who keeps her suitors at bay in his long absence and is rejoined with him at last. Her name[1] is usually understood to combine the Greek word for web or woof (πηνη) and the word for eye or face (ωψ), very appropriate for a weaver of cunning whose motivation is hard to decipher.[2] Until recent readings, her name has been associated with faithfulness,[3] but the most recent readings offer a more ambiguous reading.[4]
Role in the Odyssey
Penelope is the wife of the main character, the king of Ithaca, Odysseus (Ulysses in Roman mythology), and daughter of Icarius and his wife Periboea. She has one son by Odysseus, Telemachus, who was born just before Odysseus was called to fight in the Trojan War. She waits twenty years for the final return of her husband;[5] meanwhile she has hard times in refusing marriage proposals from several princes (such as Agelaus, Amphinomus, Ctessippus, Demoptolemus, Elatus, Euryades, Eurymachus, Irus and Peisandros, led by Antinous) for four years since the fall of Troy. On his return, Odysseus, disguised as an old beggar, sees that Penelope has remained faithful to him. She devises tricks to delay her suitors, one of which is pretending to weave a burial shroud for Odysseus' elderly father Laertes and claiming she will choose one suitor when she has finished. Every night for three years she has undone part of the shroud, until her maidens discover her trickery and reveal it to the suitors.)
Odysseus and Penelope by Francesco Primaticcio (1563).
When the contest of the bow begins, none of the suitors are able to string the bow, except of course Odysseus, who wins the contest. He then proceeds to kill all the suitors with help from Telemachus, Athena and two servants, Eumaeus the swineherd and Philoetios the cowherd. Odysseus has now shown himself in all his glory, and it is standard (in terms of a recognition scene) for all to recognize him and be happy. Penelope, however, cannot believe her husband has really returned (she fears that perhaps it is some god in disguise as Odysseus, as in the story of Alcmene), and tests him by ordering her servant Euryclea to move the bed in their wedding-chamber. Odysseus protests that this can not be done since he had made the bed himself and knows that one of its legs was a living olive tree, and Penelope finally accepts that he is truly her husband. That moment highlights their homophrosyne (like-mindedness).
In one story of the Epic Cycle, after Odysseus' death, she marries his son by Circe, Telegonus, with whom she was the mother of Italus. Telemachus also marries Circe when Penelope and Telemachus bring Odysseus' body to Circe's island.
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