There's something else about her trickery with that loom: you know how Odysseus is constantly described as "crafty"? (No? Check out his "Character Analysis" for all the dirt on tricky Odysseus.) Well, he and Penelope must have been the original power couple, because this lady has some tricks of her own. No wonder Penelope is so obsessed with textiles. Start to finish, it could easily take a year to produce a good-sized length of cloth, and women would have been involved every step of the way. (No running to Bed, Bath & Beyond? with a 20% off coupon when some unexpected visitors show up.) Presumably, she and her maids also spun, wove, and dyed every inch of these shining blankets-by hand. When Odysseus shows up in disguise, she tells her maids to "give him a wash and spread a couch for him here, with bedding and coverlets and with shining blankets" (19.317-18). Penelope is also associated with linen and cloth through her role as hostess. So for three years she was secret in her design. Thereafter in the daytime she would weave at her great loom, but in the night she would have torches set by, and undo it. This is a shroud for the hero Laertes, for when the destructive doom of death which lays men low shall take him, lest any Achaian woman in this neighborhood hold it against me that a man of many conquests lies with no sheet to wind him." So she spoke, and the proud heart in us was persuaded.
Then she said to us: "Young men, my suitors now that the great Odysseus has perished, wait, though you are eager to marry me, until I finish this web, so that my weaving will not be useless and wasted. She set up a great loom in her palace, and set to weaving a web of threads long and fine. Here's Antinoös describing Penelope's "stratagem": But we get the feeling that, to a woman who really did have to spend most of her life ensuring that her household was clothed, even regular weaving would have felt endless. And what does Penelope spend all her time doing? Weaving. Woman, Lovely WomanĮver heard of the distaff? Used for spinning thread, the distaff has been a symbol of femininity since, well, the ancient Greeks. They spent a lot of their time inside (although how much is debatable) they didn't have much in the way of a social life and their primary function was to produce cloth. Greek women, as far as we know, were effectively powerless. Her husband "with the heart of a lion" (4.724) has been gone for 20 years and missing for 10 of those, and she's completely helpless against the suitors who have overrun her house. When you put it like that, she has a lot to cry about. She even wishes for death: "How I wish chaste Artemis would give me a death so soft, and now, so I would not go on in my heart grieving all my life, and longing for love of a husband excellent in every virtue" (18.202-204). Swineherd Eumaios tells us that "always with her the wretched nights and days also waste her away with her weeping" (16.38-9) she "grieve" and "tremble" when Telemachos leaves on his vision quest (4.819) she's suffered "sorrows beyond all other who were born" (4.722).
It's surprising that she manages to get any of that done, though, since she seems to spend most of her time crying. (And she always bring the best cupcakes at the bake sale.) Weeping Willow She's like an ancient Greek Martha Stewart, without the pesky insider trading scandal: the perfect hostess, a faithful wife, a loving mother, and really good with the loom. The other Greek wives must have hated Penelope. (Click the character infographic to download.)
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