The Courtship of Penelope

In an effort to capitalize off the recent Odyssey release, I’m un-paywalling this piece from 2024 about the suitors of Penelope. Enjoy yourselves!

Minerva said, “But tell me, and tell me true, what is the meaning of all this feasting, and who are these people? What is it all about? Have you some banquet, or is there a wedding in the family? For no one seems to be bringing any provisions of his own.”

“Sir,” said Telemachus, “Heaven has laid sorrows upon me of yet another kind; for the chiefs from all our islands, Dulichium, Same, and the woodland island of Zacynthus, as also all the principal men of Ithaca itself, are eating up my house under the pretext of paying their court to my mother, who will neither point blank say that she will not marry, nor yet bring matters to an end; so they are making havoc of my estate, and before long will do so also with myself.”

“Is that so?” exclaimed Minerva, “then you do indeed want Ulysses home again. Give him his helmet, shield, and a couple of lances, and if he is the man he was when I first knew him in our house, drinking and making merry, he would soon lay his hands about these rascally suitors, were he to stand once more upon his own threshold.”

-The Odyssey

ANTINOUS: Have you ever spoken to her? 

DEMOPTOLEMUS: Ever spoken to who? 

ANTINOUS: Penelope. 

DEMOPTOLEMUS: Afraid I don’t know anyone by that name. 

ANTINOUS: Penelope. 

DEMOPTOLEMUS: I don’t follow. 

ANTINOUS: Let me put it another way: What’s brought you to Ithaca, friend? 

DEMOPTOLEMUS: Ah. There you have me. This isn’t Krocylea? 

AGELAUS: No, it’s Ithaca. 

DEMOPTOLEMUS: Could have sworn this was Krocylea. You’re sure it’s not Krocylea? 

ANTINOUS: Quite sure. 

DEMOPTOLEMUS: Then I haven’t the faintest idea what’s brought me here. Thought we were in Krocylea. Looks just like Krocylea, this. 

ANTINOUS: Well, what brought you to Krocylea? 

DEMOPTOLEMUS: Oh, nothing in particular. Nice time of year to travel – Islands are always nice. I’ve got a cousin there. Been meaning to look him up, but haven’t got round to it. 

AGELAUS: Amphinomus, what’s brought you to Ithaca? 

AMPHINOMUS: Trying to marry Penelope. 

ANTINOUS: What’s brought everybody to Ithaca, as far as you know? 

AMPHINOMUS: Everybody’s trying to marry Penelope. 

DEMOPTOLEMUS: Not really! Everyone?

ANTINOUS: Really, everyone. 

DEMOPTOLEMUS: You mean that’s why everyone’s always gathering flowers and practicing gymnastics and so on? 

ANTINOUS: Yes. What did you think we were doing it for, if not for her?

DEMOPTOLEMUS: I thought it was the Olympics! 

AGELAUS: You thought it had been the Olympics six years in a row? 

DEMOPTOLEMUS: I don’t know how long the Olympics take. 

AGELAUS: Five days, every four years. It always takes five days every four years. And it’s always held in Olympia. 

DEMOPTOLEMUS: I thought maybe it was a leap year. 

ANTINOUS: Why did you think she was the only one getting all those flowers and jewels and gifts?

DEMOPTOLEMUS [Stiffly]: I thought maybe she was the coat check girl. 

EURYADES: Do you know – I am sorry to interrupt, I couldn’t help but overhear – 

ANTINOUS: Not at all. 

AGELAUS: Not at all. 

EURYADES: Thanks very much, I’m sure. 

ANTINOUS: Elatus, isn’t it? 

EURYADES: Euryades.

ANTINOUS: Oh, pardon me. 

EURYADES: Not at all. 

ANTINOUS: Not at all! 

EURYADES: Only I thought – surely we were all here courting Helen? 

ANTINOUS: Helen…? 

EURYADES: Of Troy. 

AGELAUS: Troy…

EURYADES: Isn’t she the one everybody courts? With the, ah, still eyes, in the white face, the lustre as of olives where she stands…Born in the big egg, she was. Very pretty, I’ve heard. Surprised you boys haven’t heard of her. Everyone’s been trying to marry her for oh, ages now. Remarkable she’s still so pretty, isn’t it? Considering how long it’s been. But here we are. 

ANTINOUS: Yes – it has been quite some little time since anybody courted Helen. She married Menelaus about twenty years ago.  

EURYADES: No. 

AGELAUS: I’m afraid so. 

EURYADES: Not Menelaus of Sparta. The little one with the red hair?

AMPHINOMUS: I wouldn’t call him little, exactly. Not a big man, by any means, but certainly he isn’t little, either.  

ANTINOUS: You couldn’t call him tall, though. 

AMPHINOMUS: No, I wouldn’t call him tall. 

EURYADES: I should think not! I wouldn’t call anybody tall under six feet. Without shoes. 

ANTINOUS: Oh, I don’t know about that. 

AGELAUS: Six feet is tall, certainly, but I wouldn’t make it the cutoff. I wouldn’t call a man who stood 5’11” short. 

EURYADES: I would!

AGELAUS: You would? 

EURYADES: I would. 

AGELAUS: Even nowadays? 

ANTINOUS: What’s that supposed to mean? 

AGELAUS: You know. Now. Our era. 

EURYADES: The Bronze Age? 

AGELAUS: I think so. With the possibility of earlier oral traditions. Isn’t the average height for a Bronze Age man about 5’7, 5’8? Which would make someone 5’11 rather tall, more than merely not short. 

EURYADES: I don’t know about averages. But there are many different kinds of little man, and Menelaus of Sparta is all of them. 

ANTINOUS: Well, tall or short, he married Helen. 

AGELAUS: More or less. 

ANTINOUS: I don’t think we ought to go over any of that again. The point is that no one’s courted Helen in ten years, nearly. 

AMPHINOMUS: Yes, and now everyone is courting Penelope. 

EURYADES: Is she as pretty as Helen? 

ANTINOUS: I don’t think it’s sporting, comparing women’s looks like that. 

EURYADES: Well, was she born in an egg or anything?

ANTINOUS: I think in the ordinary way. 

EURYADES: Oh. 

DEMOPTOLEMUS: What’s she famous for, then? Why’s everyone here trying to marry her, if she’s nothing special to look at and wasn’t born in an egg?

AGELAUS: I think she’s very pretty. 

CTESSIPPUS: May I say something? 

ANTINOUS: Certainly. 

CTESSIPPUS: I thought we – I’m a little embarrassed to say so, now, but I thought we had to try to marry Penelope. Because of the Trojan War. 

ANTINOUS: How do you mean? 

CTESSIPPUS: Well, that’s just it. I’m not really sure. There was always so much to do, you know, during the Trojan War, and it was very noisy most of the time, because of all the weapons and so forth – chariots – so I couldn’t always hear my own commander very well. Usually I got by just from watching whatever the fellow next to me was doing and copying that. Anyhow, I did that for ten years. Then all of a sudden, everything was over, and I didn’t know what to do with myself. At some point during the packing-up I must have heard something about going home to Penelope, and I thought that sounded all right, so here I am. She’s always been very polite to me. 

AGELAUS: Oh, she’s a very nice person, Penelope is. And she’s always sewing. She must have sewn an ocean’s worth of blankets by now. 

EURYADES: You don’t sew a blanket.

AGELAUS: What do you mean? 

EURYADES: You don’t sew a blanket. You knit a blanket. I mean, you can sew pieces of fabric together into a blanket. But the fabric’s been created some other way. If you’re making a blanket from scratch, you’re knitting it. Or crocheting. 

ANTINOUS: What is the difference between knitting and crocheting? I’ve always wondered. 

EURYADES: Well, there you have me. 

DEMOPTOLEMUS: I think it’s – If it’s one hand, you’re knitting, and if it uses both hands, you’re crocheting. I think. 

EURYADES: That sounds right. 

AMPHINOMUS: And if there’s a loom, it’s weaving. 

ANTINOUS: Oh, I wouldn’t say that. She’s very graceful. 

EURYADES: Which part is that? The loom? 

DEMOPTOLEMUS: It’s like a box or a frame for holding thread. It holds all the threads in a row for you so you can sew it together in one big go, all at once. 

EURYADES: So weaving is just sewing, but faster? And neither of them is knitting? 

DEMOPTOLEMUS: I think so. I think so. 

AGELAUS: Don’t look at me. 

AMPHINOMUS: Perhaps we ought to ask her?

CTESSIPPUS: Oh, I couldn’t. I’ve never spoken to her. 

AMPHINOMUS: Not really? 

CTESSIPPUS: No. She always seems so busy with her weaving. I didn’t want to worry her.  

AGELAUS: Well – so long as we’re being honest – I’ve never spoken to her either. Well, I’ve tried, but she’s never spoken to me. 

DEMOPTOLEMUS: I thought I was the only one! 

ANTINOUS: You mean you’ve never spoken to her either? 

DEMOPTOLEMUS: Not once, Antinous! Not once! Not even “Nice day,” or “How d’you do!”

ANTINOUS: But I always see you giving her flowers…? 

DEMOPTOLEMUS: It’s the thing to do in Ithaca! Anybody who’s anybody in Ithaca tries to marry Penelope, everybody knows that – but I only knew she was Penelope because everybody was trying to give her flowers. For all I know, she could be Iphimedeia of Thessaly. 

EURYADES: Which is funny, because we used to talk to Helen all the time, back when everybody was trying to marry her. She was a lot of fun, Helen. She had this wonderful joke about the mansions of Elysium – about a young married couple dwelling in the mansions of Elysium – how did it go…?

AMPHINOMUS: Feels sort of funny, doesn’t it, all of us living here so long, ripping up all the gardens in town to bring Penelope flowers, and none of us have so much as asked her if she wants to get married? 

AGELAUS: I felt it was implied, in the flowers, and sleeping outdoors. 

EURYMACHUS: I didn’t want to rush her. 

DEMOPTOLEMUS: I thought we were supposed to wait to say anything until after she was finished with her sewing. 

AMPHINOMUS: Knitting. She’s been knitting. 

DEMOPTOLEMUS: I’m sorry, finished with her knitting.

AMPHINOMUS: Not at all.  

DEMOPTOLEMUS: And I think her husband might still be alive, possibly. 

ANTINOUS: You’re thinking of Helen again. 

DEMOPTOLEMUS: No, I’m not. Not at all. Thinking of Penelope. She is married. 

EURYADES: Oh – Do you mean she’s – married to her work? To her knitting, you mean? 

DEMOPTOLEMUS: No, to a husband. Euno-something. 

EURYADES: No, I don’t know. 

DEMOPTOLEMUS: Not like that. Euno…phete. Euno…delion. Something like that. Tall fellow. 

EURYADES: Tall like Menelaus? Or properly tall? 

DEMOPTOLEMUS: No, properly tall. Big man, with a…I think he always carries around a bow and arrow. 

AMPHINOMUS: So this is his house? 

DEMOPTOLEMUS: I suppose so.

AMPHINOMUS: Makes one feel a bit uncomfortable, sleeping in the man’s house all these years, picking up his flowers, badgering his wife…

ANTINOUS: I haven’t been badgering her. I haven’t even spoken to her. But I do see what you mean. As if we ought to have offered to pay for sleeping on the couch, or something. 

AGELAUS: I just thought I must live here. Came home after the war, found a comfortable spot in the corner, nobody objected…I thought this must have been my home and I’d just forgotten, after so much time away in Troy. 

AMPHINOMUS: Do you suppose we ought to clear out? 

ANTINOUS: You mean leave?

AMPHINOMUS: Well – yes. 

ANTINOUS: And go where? 

AMPHINOMUS: Demoptolemus has got a cousin on Krocylea.

ANTINOUS: Have you really?

DEMOPTOLEMUS: I think so. I did before the war, anyhow. 

EURYADES: Is she married? 

AGELAUS: Is she pretty? 

CTESSIPPUS: Would she let us have an Olympics? Or, I mean, an Olympics? I don’t know when the next regular ones are. 

DEMOPTOLEMUS: I’m not sure. I think so. At least she was, last time I saw her. And she might. [Getting excited] It’s not far from here at all, I’m sure. A day’s voyage. Three at the most, if the wind’s against us. And if she is married – well, there are always other cousins, on other islands.  

ANTINOUS: I just feel better trying to court somebody in a group. It’s too much pressure otherwise.

DEMOPTOLEMUS: Oh, I know just what you mean. It’s nicer this way, I think. 

AGELAUS: Should we leave a note or something? 

AMPHINOMUS: What for? 

AMPHINOMUS: You don’t think it’s rude, just wandering off without saying anything?

AGELAUS: Not at all. She has her textiles. 

ANTINOUS: Well, should we tell the others? 

AMPHINOMUS: And let them get the drop on us? I’ve spent the last eight years courting Penelope, and before that I wasted another fifteen years on Helen trying to get her attention by dyeing eggs. I don’t have a lot of time left. I suggest we start fashioning a raft at once, gentlemen. Let the others visit someone else’s cousin. 

AGELAUS: Bags on bow lookout!

AMPHINOMUS: Damn. All right, I’ll take helmsman. 

DEMOPTOLEMUS: She’s my cousin. I’ll take helmsman. You can be quartermaster, if you like. 

AMPHINOMUS: Have it your way, then. But I’m going to talk to this one, no matter what the rest of you say. What’s her name?

DEMOPTOLEMUS: Hm? 

AMPHINOMUS: Your cousin. The next Penelope. What’s she called? 

DEMOPTOLEMUS: Electra, I think. Nice girl. Tall. 

AGELAUS: Does she weave or anything? Have any hobbies? 

DEMOPTOLEMUS: She has a brother, I think. 

AGELAUS: Not really a hobby, a brother, is it? 

DEMOPTOLEMUS: No, I guess not. She’s just a regular girl. 

AMPHINOMUS [Loyally]: Well, I think that’s more than enough to start with. I like her already. Let’s push off. 

ANTINOUS: Shouldn’t we offer something propitiatory first? A…a votive, or a sacrifice, or something? 

DEMOPTOLEMUS: I don’t think so. 

AMPHINOMUS: The gods of the sea have so much already. I’m sure they don’t worry about little puddle-jumping island-hopping voyages like this one. Besides, we’ll make our own luck on the way. 

[In the distance, clouds gather on the horizon. The suitors jump on their homemade raft and begin to sing “La Mer.”]

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