Ancient Epic by Katherine Callen King

Author:Katherine Callen King
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3, pdf
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2011-12-05T21:00:00+00:00

Penelope

Penelope is the archetypal faithful wife. The ghost of Agamemnon exclaims, “How good were the thoughts of blameless Penelope, daughter of Ikarios! How well she remembered Odysseus, her lawful husband! The kléos of her virtue will never die, but for earth-bound men the gods will fashion a song to grace the prudence of Penelope.” How different is the “song of hate” that will arise from Klytemnestra’s murder of her lawful husband to give a bad reputation to all “female women,” even those who are good (24.191–202). Apparently, Penelope’s kléos will grace only her, while Klytemnestra’s will taint all women. All women are under suspicion, that is, unless and until they accomplish something truly heroic.

For her action to achieve heroic status, Penelope needs a heroic husband. If Odysseus did not return, and return in precisely the way he does, Penelope’s endurance and wiles would be to no avail. On the other hand, if Penelope were not both faithful and clever enough to stall the suitors, Odysseus would not have a home and son to return to. This husband and wife, who are matched as closely as their different genders allow, exemplify the perfect marriage that Odysseus describes to Nausikaä in Book 6: “There is nothing stronger or better than this, when a like-minded man and woman maintain a household, a source of pain to their enemies but joy to well-wishers” (6.182–185).

Helen and Menelaos’ marriage is not like this. Far cleverer than her husband, the daughter of Zeus interprets instantly things that Menelaos has to ponder (4.116–119, 140–144; 15.169–177); she also has mood-changing drugs that make her akin to the dangerous Circe. The stories she and Menelaos tell Telemakhos about Odysseus further demonstrate strains in their marriage. At the end of her story about helping Odysseus when he came to spy in Troy, she claims that by that time she wanted to return home, regretting the ruinous madness of Aphrodite “who led me away from my homeland, my daughter, my chamber and a husband who lacked nothing in brains and good looks” (4.249–264). Menelaos, though unfailingly polite, counters with a story about how only Odysseus’ cleverness and endurance saved the men inside the Trojan horse from responding to her when she called to them in the voice of their wives; he includes the detail that she was accompanied by Deiphobos, her second Trojan husband (4.269–289). So much for wanting to return to her perfect husband! Adulterous Helen can never be trusted, and her flawed marriage, like her sister Klytemnestra’s murderous one, is a foil to the perfect match awaiting Odysseus.

Penelope’s endless weeping expresses both her faithfulness and her genuine membership in Odysseus’ family. Odysseus weeps frequently; Telemakhos, Eurykleia, Eumaios, Philoitios, Laertes, and the faithful servants weep copiously when they think of Odysseus and when they are reunited with him. As in the Iliad, weeping is connected with full humanity, that is, with the grief and longing that stem from human caring and suffering. In the fabulous world of Odysseus’ adventures, the Phaiakians do not weep, Circe does not weep, Kalypso does not weep.

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