Penelope never gave up hope that her husband would return safely However, most people assumed that he was dead and expected Penelope to remarry. In the months following the end of the Trojan War, more than 100 suitors from all over Greece traveled to Ithaca to seek Penelope’s hand in marriage, setting up camp at Penelope’s home. Try as she might, Penelope could not persuade them to leave. After six or seven years of being put off by Penelope, the suitors finally demanded that she select a husband. She announced that she must first complete a burial blanket for Odysseus’s father. For three years Penelope wove her blanket during the day and secretly unwove her progress at night so that the work would never be completed. Finally, however, one of her handmaidens betrayed her to the suitors.
At this point Odysseus arrived back in Ithaca. When the goddess Athena warned him of the situation at his palace, Odysseus disguised himself as a beggar and visited Penelope, who did not recognize her husband. However, his assertion that he had met Odysseus on his travels filled her with new hope. Penelope told the beggar of her next diversionary tactic. She would announce that the suitor who could stretch Odysseus’s bow and shoot an arrow through 12 ax handles set in a row would become her new husband. Penelope knew that no one but Odysseus himself could accomplish this feat.
All the suitors tried in vain. Odysseus, however, completed the task with ease. He then threw off his
Happy and Unhappy Endings
Our main source for the story of Odysseus and Penelope is the Odyssey, an epic poem written by Greek poet Homer. The work concludes with the joyous reunion of Penelope and Odysseus. However, other versions of Penelope's story end less happily. Apollodorus (fl. 140 BCE), a Greek prose writer, records several of these alternate endings. In one version of the story, Penelope was seduced by Antinous, the most unpleasant of the suitors, and returned by Odysseus to her father. In another version, Penelope surrendered to the sexual advances of Amphinomus, another suitor, and Odysseus killed her for being unfaithful. In other versions of the myth, the enchantress Circe, whom Odysseus met on his travels, bore him a son named Telegonus, who accidentally killed Odysseus in Ithaca. Penelope later married Telegonus, whereupon Circe granted the pair of them immortality. Some of these alternate endings paint Penelope in a morally questionable light. However, the most enduring image of Penelope is that of the steadfast wife and mother in Homer's Odyssey.
Above: This fresco by Italian artist Pinturicchio (1454—1531) depicts Penelope being harassed by suitors while weaving at her loom. In the background a ship returns Odysseus to his home island.
Disguise and, with the help of his son Telemachus and some faithful servants, slaughtered all of the suitors. Odysseus then sent for Penelope. Still not believing that her husband had really returned, Penelope demanded that their bed be moved out of their bedroom. Odysseus protested that the bed, built with a living tree as one of the bedposts, could not be moved. Thus Odysseus passed Penelope’s final test to prove his identity and the pair were happily reunited.
World History
