Penelope's Trickery

You all know our Queen, Penelope, wife of our great king, Odysseus. Our queen’s husband had been gone for 20 years, off to fight in the Trojan War. Many of our other leaders returned home 10 years ago, but King Odysseus just recently returned to Ithaca. All the while, a group of young men has been trying to court Penelope. They have stalked her home since the day Odysseus left for Troy, devouring Odysseus’s wealth and trying to win over his wife. We have heard from the prince, Telemachus, that the suitors were unwanted in the royal home. Penelope and Telemachus just wished to be alone and never stopped praying for Odysseus to come home. The suitors refused to leave, however, Penelope may be cleverer than we know. Years ago, she came up with a plan to try to rid the suitors from her home, which she told The Voyager in an interview last week: “‘A god from the blue it was inspired me first to set up a great loom in our royal halls and I began to weave, and the weaving finespun, the yarns endless, and I would lead them on: “Young men, my suitors, now that King Odysseus is no more, go slowly, keen as you are to marry me, until I can finish off this web…” ‘So by day I’d weave at my great and growing web—by night, by the light of torches set beside me, I would unravel all I’d done. Three whole years I deceived them blind, seduced them with this scheme… Then, thanks to my maids—the shameless, reckless creatures—the suitors caught me in the act, denounced me harshly’” (395). Penelope was running out of time and the suitors were angry about her trick: “‘So I finished it off. Against my will. They forced me. And now I cannot escape a marriage, nor can I contrive a deft way out’” (395). Lucky for Penelope, her husband returned home and she no longer needs to worry about being pressured to marry one of the suitors and can live out the rest of her life happily with Odysseus.

#OpEd #Penelope