The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus

XV. The Shroud

Month by month the pressure on me increased. I spent whole days in my room—not the room I used to share with Odysseus, no, I couldn’t bear that, but in a room of my own in the women’s quarters. I would lie on my bed and weep, and wonder what on earth I should do. I certainly didn’t want to marry any of those mannerless young whelps. But my son, Telemachus, was growing up he was almost the same age as the Suitors, more or less and he was starting to look at me in an odd way, holding me responsible for the fact that his inheritance was being literally gobbled up.

How much easier for him it would be if I would just pack up and go back to my father, King Icarius, in Sparta. The chances of my doing that of my own free will were zero: I had no intention of being hurled into the sea a second time. Telemachus initially thought my return to the home palace would be a fine outcome from his point of view, but on second thought after he’d done the math he realised that a good part of the gold and silver in the palace would go back with me, as it had been my dowry. And if I stayed in Ithaca and married one of the noble puppies, that puppy would become the king, and his stepfather, and would have authority over him. Being ordered around by a lad no older than himself did not appeal.

Really, the best solution for him would have been a graceful death on my part, one for which he was in no way to blame. For if he did as Orestes had done but with no cause, unlike Orestes and murdered his mother, he would attract the Erinyes the dreaded Furies, snake-haired, dog-headed, bat winged and they would pursue him with their barking and hissing and their whips and scourges until they had driven him insane. And since he would have killed me in cold blood, and for the basest of motives the acquisition of wealth it would be impossible for him to obtain purification at any shrine, and he would be polluted with my blood until he died a horrible death in a state of raving madness.

A mother’s life is sacred. Even a badly behaved mother’s life is sacred witness my foul cousin Clytemnestra, adulteress, butcher of her husband, tormenter of her children and nobody said I was a badly behaved mother. But I did not appreciate the barrage of surly monosyllables and resentful glances I was getting from my own son.

When the Suitors had started their campaign, I’d reminded them that the eventual return of Odysseus had been foretold by an oracle; but as he failed to turn up, year after year, faith in the oracle began to wear thin. Perhaps it had been misinterpreted, the Suitors declared: oracles were notoriously ambiguous. Even I began to doubt, and at last I had to agree at least in public that Odysseus was probably dead. Yet his ghost had never appeared to me in a dream, as would have been proper. I could not quite believe that he would fail to send me word of any kind from Hades, should he happen to have reached that shady realm.

I kept trying to think of a way to postpone the day of decision, without reproach to myself. Finally a scheme occurred to me. When telling the story later I used to Say that it was Pallas Athene, goddess of weaving, who’d given me this idea, and perhaps this was true, for all I know; but crediting some god for one’s inspirations was always a good way to avoid accusations of pride should the scheme succeed, as well as the blame if it did not.

Here is what I did. I set up a large piece of weaving on my loom, and said it was a shroud for my father-in-law, Laertes, since it would be impious of me not to provide a costly winding sheet for him in the event that he should die. Not until this sacred work was finished could I even think of choosing a new husband, but once it was completed I would speedily select the lucky man.

(Laertes was not very pleased by this kind thought of mine: after he heard of it he kept away from the palace more than ever. What if some impatient suitor should hasten his end, forcing me to bury Laertes in the shroud, ready or not, and thus precipitating my own wedding?)

No one could oppose my task, it was so extremely pious. All day I would work away at my loom, weaving diligently, and saying melancholy things like, ‘This shroud would be a fitter garment for me than for Laertes, wretched that I am, and doomed by the gods to a life that is a living death.’ But at night I would undo what I had accomplished, so the shroud never got any bigger.

To help me in this laborious task I chose twelve of my maidservants the youngest ones, because these had been with me all their lives. I had bought them or acquired them when they were small children, brought them up as playmates for Telemachus, and trained them carefully in everything they would need to know around the palace.

They were pleasant girls, full of energy; they were a little loud and giggly sometimes, as all maids are in youth, but it cheered me up to hear them chattering away, and to listen to their singing. They had lovely voices, all of them, and they had been taught well how to use them.

They were my most trusted eyes and ears in the palace, and it was they who helped me to pick away at my weaving, behind locked doors, at dead of night, and by torchlight, for more than three years.

Though we had to do it carefully, and talk in whispers, these nights had a touch of festivity about them, a touch—even of hilarity. Melantho of the Pretty Cheeks smuggled in treats for us to nibble on—figs in season, bread dipped in honeycomb, heated wine in winter. We told stories as we worked away at our task of destruction; we shared riddles; we made jokes. In the flickering light of the torches our daylight faces were softened and changed, and our daylight manners. We were almost like sisters. In the mornings, our eyes darkened by lack of sleep, we’d exchange smiles of complicity, and here and there a quick squeeze of the hand. Their

‘Yes ma’ams’ and ‘No ma’ams’ hovered on the edge of laughter, as if neither they nor I could take their servile behaviour seriously.

Unfortunately one of them betrayed the secret of my interminable weaving. I’m sure it was an accident: the young are careless, and she must have let slip a hint or a word. I still don’t know which one: down here among the shadows they all go about in a group, and when I approach them they run away. They shun me as if I had done them a terrible injury. But I never would have hurt them, not of my own accord.

The fact that my secret was betrayed was, strictly speaking, my own fault. I told my twelve young maids the loveliest, the most beguiling to hang around the Suitors and spy on them, using whatever enticing arts they could invent. No one knew of my instructions but myself and the maids in question; I chose not to share the secret with

Eurycleia in hindsight, a grave mistake.

This plan came to grief. Several of the girls were unfortunately raped, others were seduced, or were hard pressed and decided that it was better to give in than to resist.

It was not unusual for the guests in a large household or palace to sleep with the maids. To provide a lively night’s entertainment was considered part of a good host’s hospitality, and such a host would magnanimously offer his guests their pick of the girls but it was most irregular for the servants to be used in this way without the permission of the master of the house. Such an act amounted to thievery.

However, there was no master of the house. So the Suitors helped themselves to the maids in the same way they helped themselves to the sheep and pigs and goats and cows. They probably thought nothing of it.

I comforted the girls as best I could. They felt quite guilty, and the ones that had been raped needed to be tended and cared for. I put this task into the hands of old Eurycleia, who cursed the bad Suitors, and bathed the girls, and rubbed them with my very own perfumed olive oil for a special treat.

She grumbled a bit about doing it. Possibly she resented my affection for the girls. She told me I was spoiling them, and they would get ideas above themselves.

‘Never mind,’ I said to them. ‘You must pretend to be in love with these men. If they think you have taken their side, they’ll confide in you and we’ll know their plans. It’s one way of serving your master, and he’ll be very pleased with you when he comes home.’ That made them feel better.

I even instructed them to say rude and disrespectful things about me and Telemachus, and about Odysseus as well, in order to further the illusion.

They threw themselves into this project with a will: Melantho of the Pretty Cheeks was particularly adept at it, and had lots of fun thinking up snide remarks. There is indeed something delightful about being able to combine obedience and disobedience in the same act.

Not that the whole charade was entirely an illusion.

Several of them did fall in love with the men who had used them so badly. I suppose it was inevitable. They thought I couldn’t see what was going on, but I knew it perfectly well. I forgave them, however. They were young and inexperienced, and it wasn’t every slave-girl in Ithaca who could boast of being the mistress of a young nobleman.

But, love or no love, midnight excursions or none, they continued to report to me any useful information they’d found out.

So I foolishly thought myself quite wise. In retrospect I can see that my actions were ill-considered, and caused harm. But I was running out of time, and becoming desperate, and I had to use every ruse and stratagem at my command.

When they found out about the trick I’d played on them with the shroud, the Suitors broke into my quarters at night and caught me at my work. They were very angry, not least because they’d been fooled by a woman, and they made a terrible scene, and I was put on the defensive. I had to promise to finish the shroud as quickly as possible, after which I would without fail choose one of them as a husband.

The shroud itself became a story almost instantly. ‘Penelope’s web,’ it was called; people used to say that of any task that remained mysteriously unfinished. I did not appreciate the term web. If the shroud was a web, then I was the spider.

But I had not been attempting to catch men like flies: on the contrary, I’d merely been trying to avoid entanglement myself.