The wife of Odysseus and mother of Telemachus. Penelope was made immortal by Circe.
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Pe·nel·o·pe (pə-nĕl'ə-pē) ![]() |
The wife of Odysseus and mother of Telemachus. Penelope was made immortal by Circe.
| Computer Desktop Encyclopedia: Penelope |
An open source e-mail program from the Mozilla Foundation for Windows, Mac and Linux. Based on the Thunderbird e-mail client, Penelope incorporates additional features and the feel of QUALCOMM's popular Eudora program that was discontinued as a commercial product in 2007. For more information, visit www.mozilla.org. See Eudora and Thunderbird.
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| Music Encyclopedia: Pénélope |
Opera in three acts by Fauré to a libretto by René Fauchois (1913, Monte Carlo).
Composers to write operas on the Penelope legend include Monteverdi (
| Classical Literature Companion: Pēnelopē |
Pēnelopē (also Pēnelopeiā), in Homer's Odyssey, daughter of Icarius (brother of Tyndareus) of Sparta and wife of Odysseus. She faithfully awaits her husband's return during his twenty years' absence (ten years at the siege of Troy, ten years in his wanderings afterwards), although wooed by numerous suitors among the local nobles. She pretends she cannot remarry until she has woven a shroud for Odysseus' father, Laērtēs. This she unravels every night, so that the work is never completed, but her deception is revealed by one of the maids and she is compelled to finish it. She then promises to marry the suitor who can bend the bow of her absent husband. Odysseus returns in disguise at this juncture, wields the bow against the suitors and, when he reveals to her his knowledge of the construction of their bed, is finally accepted by Penelope as her husband.
An entirely different tradition makes Penelope the mother of Pan by the god Hermēs.
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Penelope |
| Mythology Dictionary: Penelope |
The wife of Odysseus in classical mythology. Penelope remained true to her husband for the ten years he spent fighting in the Trojan War and for the ten years it took him to return from Troy, even though she was harassed by men who wanted to marry her. She promised to choose a suitor after she had finished weaving a shroud for her father-in-law, but every night she unraveled what she had woven during the day. After three years, her trick was discovered, but she still managed to put her suitors off until Odysseus returned and killed them.
| Obscure Words: penelopize |
| Wikipedia: Penelope |
In Homer's Odyssey, Penelópē (Πηνελόπεια/Πηνελόπη) is the faithful wife of Odysseus, who keeps her suitors at bay in his long absence and is eventually rejoined with him. Her name has been traditionally been associated with faithfulness,[1] but some recent feminist readings offer a more ambiguous interpretation.[2]
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The origin of her name is Pre-Greek and is more likely related to the Hesychius' gloss πηνέλοψ/*πηνέλωψ "some kind of bird" [3] (arbitrarily identified today with Eurasian Wigeon), where -έλωψ is a common Pre-Greek suffix for predatory animals [4], however the semantic relation between the proper name and the gloss is not clear. In folk etymology, Πηνελόπη is usually understood to combine the Greek word for "web" or "woof" (πήνη / pene), and the word for "eye" or "face" (ὤψ / ōps), which is considered the most appropriate for a weaver of cunning whose motivation is hard to decipher[5], or alternatively πήνη and λέπω "peel, skive" (akin to leper) due to the shroud-unbraiding part of her myth.
Penelope is the wife of the main character, the king of Ithaca, Odysseus (Ulysses in Roman mythology), and daughter of Icarius and his wife Periboea. She only has one son by Odysseus, Telemachus, who was born just before Odysseus was called to fight in the Trojan War. She waits twenty years for the final return of her husband,[6] during which she has a hard time snubbing marriage proposals from 108[7] odious suitors (including Agelaus, Amphinomus, Ctessippus, Demoptolemus, Elatus, Euryades, Eurymachus and Peisandros, led by Antinous).
On Odysseus's return, disguised as an old beggar, he finds that Penelope has remained faithful. She has devised tricks to delay her 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 some unfaithful maidens discover her chicanery and reveal it to the suitors.
Because of her efforts to put off remarriage, Penelope is often seen as a symbol of connubial fidelity. Although we are reminded several times of her fidelity, Penelope does begin to become restless (due in part to Athena's meddling):
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 Suitor's desire for her and (thereby) make her more esteemed by her husband and son; Penelpoe 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 indded do).[8]
She is ambivalent, variously calling out for Artemis to kill her and, apparently, considering marrying one of the suitors. When the disguised Odysseus returns, she announces in her long interview with the disguised hero that whoever can string Odysseus's rigid bow and shoot an arrow through twelve axe shafts 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".[9]
There is debate as to whether she is aware that Odysseus is behind the disguise. To Penelope and the suitors' knowledge, Odysseus (were he in fact present) would easily surpass all in any test of masculine skill. Since Odysseus seems to be the only person (perhaps excepting Telemachus) who can actually use the bow, it could merely have been another delaying tactic of Penelope's.
When the contest of the bow begins, none of the suitors is able to string the bow, but Odysseus does, and wins the contest. Having done so, he proceeds to slaughter the suitors- Antinous first who he finds drinking from Odysseus' cup - with help from Telemachus, Athena and two servants, Eumaeus the swineherd and Philoetius the cowherd. Odysseus has now revealed himself in all his glory, (with a little makeover by Athena) and it is standard (in terms of a recognition scene) for all to recognize him and be happy. Penelope, however, cannot believe that her husband has really returned—she fears that it is perhaps some god in disguise as Odysseus, as was the case in the story of Alcmene—and tests him by ordering her servant Euryclea to move the bed in their wedding-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 her husband, a moment that highlights their homophrosyne (like-mindedness).
In one story of the Epic Cycle, subsequent to Odysseus' death, Penelope marries his son by Circe, Telegonus, with whom she becomes the mother of Italus. Telemachus also marries Circe when Penelope and Telemachus bring Odysseus's body to Aeaea.
Penelope's suitors were called Μνηστῆρες (Proci in Latin) by Homer.
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| Telemachus (son of Odysseus and Penelope) | |
| Ericlea (character) | |
| Guinevere (character) |
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