Editing Penelope (section)

== Role in ''The Odyssey'' ==
[[File:Simmons - Penelope De Young Museum 1991.68 left side.JPG|left|alt=Penelope by Franklin Simmons, marble, 1896.|thumb|upright|''Penelope'' by [[Franklin Simmons]] (1896), marble. On display at the [[De Young Museum]] in San Francisco.]]
Penelope is married to the main character, the king of [[Homer's Ithaca|Ithaca]], [[Odysseus]] (Ulysses in Roman mythology), and daughter of [[Icarius (Spartan)|Icarius]] of [[Sparta]] and [[Periboea]] (or [[Polycaste]]). She only has one son with Odysseus, [[Telemachus]], who was born just before Odysseus was called to fight in the [[Trojan War]]. She waits twenty years for Odysseus' return, during which time she devises various cunning strategies to delay marrying any of the 108 [[Suitors of Penelope|suitors]] (led by [[Antinous son of Eupeithes|Antinous]] and including [[Agelaus]], [[Amphinomus]], Ctessippus, [[Demoptolemus]], [[Elatus]], Euryades, [[Eurymachus]] and [[Peisander (mythology)|Peisander]]).<ref>{{cite book |author=[[Homer]] |section=The Odyssey |volume=Book&nbsp;XVI |page=628 |title=The Iliad & The Odyssey |year=2008 |publisher=Penguin |translator=Butler, Samuel |isbn=978-1-4351-1043-4}}</ref>{{efn|Odysseus spends ten years in the Trojan War, and ten years [[Nostos|travelling home]].}}

[[File:Penelope and the Suitors - John William Waterhouse - ABDAG003035.jpg|thumb|''Penelope and the Suitors'' by [[John William Waterhouse]] (1911-1912)]]
On Odysseus's return, disguised as an old beggar, he finds that Penelope has remained faithful. She has devised cunning tricks to delay the suitors, one of which is to pretend to be weaving a burial shroud for Odysseus's elderly father [[Laertes (father of Odysseus)|Laertes]] and claiming that she will choose a suitor when she has finished. Every night for three years, she undoes part of the shroud, until [[Melantho]], a slave, discovers her chicanery and reveals it to the suitors.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Golden Thread: How fabric changed history |last=St. Clair |first=Kassia |publisher=John Murray |year=2018 |isbn=978-1-4736-5903-2 |location=London, UK |pages=11–12 |oclc=1057250632}}</ref>

[[File:Antoine Bourdelle - Pénélope 1912 - Montauban.jpg|thumb|left|upright|''Penelope'', bronze by [[Emile-Antoine Bourdelle]]]]
Penelope's efforts to delay remarriage is often seen as a symbol of marital fidelity to her husband, Odysseus.<ref name=Mackail-1916>{{cite book |first=J.W. |last=Mackail |year=1916 |title=Penelope in the Odyssey |publisher=Cambridge University Press}}</ref> But because [[Athena]] wants her "to show herself to the wooers, that she might set their hearts a-flutter and win greater honor from her husband and her son than heretofore", Penelope does eventually appear before the suitors <ref name=Mackail-1916/>{{rp|style=ama|at={{mvar|xviii}} 160−162}} Irene de Jong wrote

<blockquote> As so often, it is Athena who takes the initiative in giving the story a new direction ... Usually the motives of mortal and god coincide, here they do not: Athena wants Penelope to fan the Suitors’ desire for her and (thereby) make her more esteemed by her husband and son; Penelope has no real motive ... she simply feels an unprecedented impulse to meet the men she so loathes ... adding that she might take this opportunity to talk to [[Telemachus]] (which she will indeed do).<ref>{{cite book |first=Irene |last=de Jong |year=2001 |title=A Narratological Commentary on the Odyssey |page=445 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=0-521-46844-2}}</ref></blockquote>

It is important to consider the alternate perspective of Penelope entertaining, and even enjoying the attention of, her suitors. Italian philosophy historian [[Giula Sissa]] offers a unique perspective which supports this idea. The Odyssey allows room for Penelope’s identity free of being Ulysses’ wife. As she awaits his return, she makes a plan to deal with her suitors while also responding to her desires. Sissa discusses how Penelope gives her suitors the opportunity to demonstrate themselves as the best candidate for her attention. Sissa writes,

<blockquote>Penelope innovates. And she does so because she responds in the same register to the desires of the men who have been awaiting her verdict for three years. This is an erotic desire to which she reacts, first, with seductive wiles of messages and promises, and then by inviting them to demonstrate their excellence, not in terms of wealth and social prestige, but in terms of something extremely personal and physical. In order to please Penelope, they have to be on par with Ulysses in showing the might of their bodies.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sissa |first=Giulia |author-link=Giulia Sissa |title=Eros tiranno: sessualità e sensualità nel mondo antico |publisher=New Haven and London: Yale University Press |year=2008 |language=it |translator-last=Staunton |translator-first=George |trans-title=Sex and sensuality in the ancient world.}}</ref></blockquote>

She is ambivalent, variously asking [[Artemis]] to kill her and apparently considering marrying one of the suitors. When the disguised Odysseus returns, she announces in her long interview with him that whoever can string Odysseus's rigid bow and shoot an arrow through twelve axe heads may 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".<ref>{{cite book |first1=B. |last1=Knox |author-link=Bernard Knox |year=1996 |section=Introduction |title=The Odyssey |page=55 |quote=translation by [[Robert Fagles]]}}</ref>

There is debate as to whether Penelope knows that it is Odysseus. Penelope and the suitors know that Odysseus (were he in fact present) would easily surpass them all in any test of masculine skill, so she may have started the contest as an opportunity for him to reveal his identity. On the other hand, because Odysseus seems to be the only person (except, perhaps, Telemachus) who can actually use the bow, she could just be further delaying her marriage to one of the suitors.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Reece |first=Steve |title=Penelope's 'early recognition' of Odysseus from a neoanalytic and oral perspective |journal=College Literature |volume=38 |issue=2 |year=2011 |pages=101–117 |doi=10.1353/lit.2011.0017 |s2cid=170743678 |url=https://www.academia.edu/30640742 |access-date=2019-12-31 |archive-date=2024-05-25 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240525100043/https://www.academia.edu/30640742 |url-status=live }}</ref>

[[File:Ring Penelope CdM Luynes 515.jpg|thumb|upright|Gold [[Intaglio (jewellery)|intaglio]] ring, Syria, last quarter of the 5th century BC ([[Louvre Museum]])]]

When the contest of the bow begins, none of the suitors are able to string the bow, except Odysseus who wins the contest. Having done so, he proceeds to slaughter the suitors – beginning with Antinous whom he finds drinking from his cup – with help from Telemachus, Athena and the slaves [[Eumaeus]] the swineherd and [[Philoetius]] the cowherd. Odysseus has now revealed himself in all his glory (with a little makeover by Athena); yet Penelope cannot believe that her husband has really returned – she fears that it is perhaps some god in disguise, as in the story of [[Alcmene]] – and tests him by ordering her slave [[Euryclea|Eurycleia]] to move the bed in their bridal-chamber. Odysseus protests that this cannot be done, since he made the bed himself and knows that one of its legs is a living [[olive tree]]. Penelope finally accepts that he truly is Odysseus, a moment that highlights their ''homophrosýnē'' ({{math|ὁμοφροσύνη}}, "like-mindedness").<ref>{{cite book|last=Austin|first=Norman|title=Archery at the Dark of the Moon: Poetic problems in Homer's Odyssey|date=1975|publisher=University of California Press|location=Berkeley|pages=231}}</ref> Homer implies that from then on Odysseus would live a long and happy life together with Penelope and Telemachus, wisely ruling his kingdom, and enjoying wide respect and much success.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lawall |first1=Thalman |last2=Patterson |first2=James |last3=Spacks |series=The Norton Anthology of Western Literature |title=[[The Odyssey]] |place=New York, NY / London, UK |year=1984}}</ref>