The Faithful Queen Who Wove and Unwove
Odysseus’s wife, who held the kingdom of Ithaca alone through the twenty years of his absence. A hundred and eight suitors squatted in the palace eating and pressing her to remarry; she stalled them all with a piece of weaving that was never finished. Her husband’s cunning was in his wandering, hers in her waiting — Homer scores this couple even.
She announced she would remarry once she finished weaving her father-in-law’s shroud. By day she wove in public; by night she unraveled it by lamplight, and the cloth took three years. When the trick was discovered she set a new test: whoever could string Odysseus’s stiff bow and shoot an arrow through twelve axe-heads would win her — and no one could, except the "beggar" who had just come home.
Even after Odysseus had slain the suitors, Penelope still would not acknowledge him, deliberately ordering "move our bed out here." Odysseus lost his composure at once: the bed was built with a living olive tree as its post and could not be moved — a secret only the two of them knew, and the true password that proved him.
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.
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