_Penelope, the wife of Ulysses._
LI. As the beforenamed queen was so unhappy as to have imputed to her
some gross amours, which she never was guilty of; Penelope, the wife of
Ulysses, has been so fortunate as to have nobody at this time dispute her
honesty, because of late days it has been much the fashion to celebrate
it; but this was not the case formerly. Franciscus Floridus Sabinus
says, “that Homer’s representing Penelope chaste was no less a fiction,
than Virgil’s representing Dido lewd.” In opposition to the pretended
virtue of Penelope, he quotes the poet Lycrophon, and the historian
Duris of Samos: which second describes Penelope to have been a most vile
prostitute; and Thomas Dempster adds, to corroborate this, the authority
of an ancient historian, called Lysander, who says the same with Duris of
Samos.