Penelope facts for kids
Penelope ( pə-NEL-ə-pee; Ancient Greek: Πηνελόπεια, Pēnelópeia, or Greek: Πηνελόπη, Pēnelópē) is a character in Homer's Odyssey. She was the queen of Ithaca and the daughter of Spartan king Icarius and Asterodia. Penelope is known as a faithful wife to her husband Odysseus, despite the attention of more than a hundred suitors during his absence. In one source, Penelope's original name was Arnacia or Arnaea.
Role in the Odyssey
Penelope is married to the main character, the king of Ithaca, Odysseus (Ulysses in Roman mythology). 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.
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 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.
Penelope's efforts to delay remarriage is often seen as a symbol of marital fidelity to her husband, Odysseus.
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".
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.
When the contest of the bow begins, none of the suitors are able to string the bow, except Odysseus who wins the contest. Odysseus has now revealed himself in all his glory; yet Penelope cannot believe that her husband has really returned – she fears that it is perhaps some god in disguise – and tests him by ordering her slave 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 (ὁμοφροσύνη, "like-mindedness"). 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.
Iconography
Penelope is recognizable in Greek and Roman works, from Attic vase-paintings—the Penelope Painter is recognized by his representations of her—to Roman sculptures copying or improvising upon classical Greek models, by her seated pose, by her reflective gesture of leaning her cheek on her hand, and by her protectively crossed knees, reflecting her long chastity in Odysseus' absence, an unusual pose in any other figure.
Images for kids
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Drawing of a depiction on an Ancient Greek pottery vessel. Penelope sits before a tapestry on a warp-weighted loom
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Penelope. Drawing after Attic pottery figure.
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Penelope encounters the returned Odysseus posing as a beggar. From a mural in the Macellum of Pompeii
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Penelope, bronze by Emile-Antoine Bourdelle
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Gold intaglio ring, Syria, last quarter of the 5th century BC (Louvre Museum)
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See also
In Spanish: Penélope para niños
