If the real Odysseus, unprincipled, unchivalrous, and cruel, is
anything but a hero who "adorns his age and race," must it not be
conceded, at any rate, that "the unwearied fidelity of Penelope,
awaiting through the long revolving years the return of her
storm-tossed husband," presents, as Lecky declares (II., 279), and as
is commonly supposed, a picture of perennial beauty "which Rome and
Christendom, chivalry and modern civilization, have neither eclipsed
nor transcended?"
We have seen that the fine words of Achilles regarding his "love" of
Briseis are, when confronted with his actions, reduced to empty
verbiage. The same result is reached in the case of Penelope, if we
subject her actions and motives to a searching critical analysis.
Ostensibly, indeed, she is set up as a model of that feminine
constancy which men at all times have insisted on while they
themselves preferred to be models of inconstancy. As usual in such
cases, the feminine model is painted with touches of almost grotesque
exaggeration. After the return of Odysseus Penelope informed her nurse
(XXIII., 18) that she has not slept soundly all this time--twenty
years! Such phrases, too, are used as "longing for Odysseus, I waste
my heart away," or "May I go to my dread grave seeing Odysseus still,
and never gladden heart of meaner husband." But they are mere phrases.
The truth about her attitude and her-feelings is told frankly in
several places by three different persons--the goddess of wisdom,
Telemachus, and Penelope herself. Athene urges Telemachus to make
haste that he may find his blameless mother still at home instead of
the bride of one of the suitors.
"But let her not against your will take treasure from your
home. You know a woman's way; she strives to enrich his
house who marries her, while of her former children and the
husband of her youth, when he is dead she thinks not, and
she talks of him no more" (XV., 15-23).
In the next book (73-77) Telemachus says to the swineherd:
"Moreover my mother's feeling wavers, whether to bide beside
me here and keep the house, and thus revere her husband's
bed and _heed the public voice_, or finally to follow some
chief of the Achaians who woos her in the hall with largest
gifts."
And a little later (126) he exclaims, "She neither declines the hated
suit nor has she power to end it, while they with feasting impoverish
my home."
These words of Telcinachus are endorsed in full by Penelope herself,
whose remarks (XIX., 524-35) to the disguised Odysseus give us the key
to the whole situation and explain why she lies abed so much weeping
and not knowing what to do.
" ... so does my doubtful heart toss to and fro whether
to bide beside my son and keep all here in safety--my
goods, my maids, and my great high-roofed house--and
thus revere my husband and _heed the public voice_, or
finally to follow some chief of the Achaiians who woos
me in my hall with countless gifts. My son, while but a
child and slack of understanding, _did not permit my
marrying_ and departing from my husband's home; but now
that he is grown and come to man's estate, he prays me
to go home again and leave the hall, so troubled is he
for that substance which the Achaiians waste."
If these words mean anything, they mean that what kept Penelope from
marrying again was not affection for her husband but the desire to
live up to the demands of "the public voice" and the fact that her
son--who, according to Greek usage, was her master--would not permit
her to do so. This, then, was the cause of that proverbial constancy!
But a darker shadow still is cast on her much-vaunted affection by her
cold and suspicious reception of her husband on his return. While the
dog recognized him at once and the swineherd was overjoyed, she, the
wife, held him aloof, fearing that he might be some man who had come
to cheat her! At first Odysseus thought she scorned him because he
"was foul and dressed in sorry clothes;" but even after he had bathed
and put on his princely attire she refused to embrace him, because she
wished to "prove her husband!" No wonder that her son declared that
her "heart is always harder than a stone," and that Odysseus himself
thus accosts her:
"Lady, a heart impenetrable beyond the sex of women the
dwellers on Olympus gave you. There is no other woman
of such stubborn spirit to stand off from the husband
who, after many grievous toils, came in the twentieth
year home to his native land. Come then, good nurse,
and make my bed, that I may lie alone. For certainly of
iron is the heart within her breast."