The Greek Myth of Penelope and a poem by Carol Ann Duffy - "Penelope"

Angela Kauffman, Penelope awakened by Euryclea with the news of Ulysses' Return, 1741-1807, oil on linen

The Myth of Penelope

Penelope was the wife of the hero Odysseus in Greek Mythology. She was daughter of Icarus and Periboea.

When Helen was kidnapped by Paris of Troy, the Oath of Tyndareus was invoked and everyone was summoned to fight against the Trojans; Penelope had just given birth to Odysseus' son, Telemachus, but Odysseus was forced to leave in order to honour his pledge. The Trojan War lasted ten years, and it took Odysseus another ten to reach his homeland, Ithaca. When he arrived, he disguised himself as a beggar, to test whether his wife had remained faithful to him.

Indeed, Penelope had managed to keep all of her suitors at bay. She had told them she would choose a suitor once she finished weaving a burial shroud for her father-in-law, Laertes; however, every night, she would undo part of the shroud. Her plan was revealed by one of her servants, Melantho.

Penelope eventually appeared in front of the suitors and said that she would marry the suitor that would be able to string Odysseus' bow and shoot an arrow through twelve axe heads. She already knew that this was a task that only her husband would have been able to achieve. None of the suitors was able to complete the task, and a disguised Odysseus asked to try; after being successful, he revealed himself and killed the suitors with the help of his son, the goddess Athena, and two of his herdsmen. Penelope, still not believing that this was her husband, told him to command the servant to move their bed. Odysseus protested saying that it was impossible as one of the legs of the bed was part of a living olive tree. Penelope finally accepted that this man was who he claimed to be, and the couple were reunited.

Source: https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Mortals/Penelope/penelope.html

“PENELOPE” by Carol Ann Duffy, 1999

At first, I looked along the road

hoping to see him saunter home

among the olive trees,

a whistle for the dog

who mourned him with his warm head on my knees.

Six months of this

and then i noticed that whole days had passed

without my noticing.

I sorted cloth and scissors, needle, thread,

thinking to amuse myself,

but found a lifetime’s industry instead.

I sewed a girl

under a single star—cross-stitch, silver silk—

running after childhood’s bouncing ball.

I chose between three greens for the grass;

a smoky pink, a shadow’s grey

to show a snapdragon gargling a bee

I threaded walnut brown for a tree,

my thimble like an acornpushing up through umber soil.

Beneath the shadeI wrapped a maiden in a deep embracewith heroism’s boy

and lost myself completely

in a wild embroidery of love, lust, lessons learnt;

then watched him sail awayinto the loose gold stitching of the sun.

And when the others came to take his place,

disturb my peace,

I played for time.

I wore a widow’s face,

kept my head down,

did my work by day, at night unpicked it.

I knew which hour of the dark the moon

would start to fray,

I stitched it.

Grey threads and brown

pursued my needle’s leaping fish

to form a river that would never reach the sea.

I tried it. I was picking out

the smile of a woman at the centre

of this world, self-contained, absorbed, content,

most certainly not waiting,

when I heard a far-too-late familiar tread outside the door.

I licked my scarlet thread

and aimed it surely at the middle of the needle’s eye once more.

Carol Ann Duffy, “Penelope”, The World’s Wife, (London: Picador, 1999), 70-71.

Carol Ann Duffy is Professor of Contemporary Poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University and was Poet Laureate from 2009-2019.