The wife of Odysseus and mother of Telemachus. Penelope was made immortal by Circe.
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The wife of Odysseus and mother of Telemachus. Penelope was made immortal by Circe.
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.
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 (
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.
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.
In Homer's Odyssey, Penélopê (Πηνελόπη) is the
faithful wife of Odysseus, who keeps her suitors at bay in his long absence and is rejoined
with him at last. Her name[1] is usually understood to
combine the Greek word for web or woof (πηνη) and the word for eye or face (ωψ), very appropriate for
a weaver of cunning whose motivation is hard to decipher.[2] Until recent readings, her name has been associated with faithfulness,[3] but the most recent readings offer a more ambiguous reading.[4]
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 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;[5] meanwhile she has hard times in refusing marriage proposals from several princes (such as Agelaus, Amphinomus, Ctessippus, Demoptolemus, Elatus, Euryades, Eurymachus, Irus and Peisandros, led by Antinous) for four years since the fall of Troy. On his return, Odysseus, disguised as an old beggar, sees that Penelope has remained faithful to him. She devises tricks to delay her suitors, one of which is pretending to weave a burial shroud for Odysseus' elderly father Laertes and claiming she will choose one suitor when she has finished. Every night for three years she has undone part of the shroud, until her maidens discover her trickery and reveal it to the suitors.
Because of her efforts in putting off remarriage, she is often seen as a symbol of connubial fidelity. Though the hearer is reminded several times of her fidelity, Penelope is getting restless (due, in part, to Athena's meddling) and she longs to "display herself to her suitors, fan their hearts, inflame them more" (xviii.183-84)[6] She is ambivalent, variously calling out for Artemis to kill her and (apparently) considering marrying one of the suitors. When the disguised Odysseus returns to his home, in her long interview with the disguised hero, she announces that whoever can string a particularly rigid bow, and shoot an arrow through twelve axe handles can 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".[7] There is debate over to what extent she is aware that Odysseus is behind the disguise. By Penelope and the suitors' knowledge, Odysseus, were he in fact present, would clearly surpass any of the suitors in any test of masculine skill that could be contrived. Since Odysseus seems to be the only person (perhaps with Telemachus) who can actually use the bow, it may have been another delaying tactic of Penelope's.
When the contest of the bow begins, none of the suitors are able to string the bow, except of course Odysseus, who wins the
contest. He then proceeds to kill all the suitors with help from Telemachus, Athena and two
servants, Eumaeus the swineherd and Philoetios the cowherd.
Odysseus has now shown himself in all his glory, and it is standard (in terms of a recognition scene) for all to recognize him
and be happy. Penelope, however, cannot believe her husband has really returned (she fears that perhaps it is some god in
disguise as Odysseus, as 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 can not be done
since he had made the bed himself and knows that one of its legs was a living
In one story of the Epic Cycle, after Odysseus' death, she marries his son by Circe, Telegonus, with whom she was the mother of Italus. Telemachus also marries Circe when Penelope and Telemachus bring Odysseus' body to Circe's island.
Some of Penelope's suitors were:
The 108 suitors' homelands and strength are:
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