Pp: Penelope

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).

Because of her efforts in putting off remarriage, she is often seen as a symbol of connubial fidelity. Though the hearer is reminded several times of her fidelity, Penelope is getting restless (due, in part, to Athena's meddling) and she longs to "display herself to her suitors, fan their hearts, inflame them more" (xviii.183-84)^[6] She is ambivalent, variously calling out for Artemis to kill her and (apparently) considering marrying one of the suitors. When the disguised Odysseus returns to his home, in her long interview with the disguised hero, she announces that whoever can string a particularly rigid bow, and shoot an arrow through twelve axe handles can have her hand. "For the plot of the Odyssey, of course, her decision is the turning point, the move that makes possible the long-predicted triumph of the returning hero".^[7] There is debate over to what extent she is aware that Odysseus is behind the disguise. By Penelope and the suitors' knowledge, Odysseus, were he in fact present, would clearly surpass any of the suitors in any test of masculine skill that could be contrived. Since Odysseus seems to be the only person (perhaps with Telemachus) who can actually use the bow, it may have been another delaying tactic of Penelope's.

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.