Steadfast Penelope

I’ve just finished reading The Odyssey for the first time. I don’t know why I haven’t read it before other than I’ve been intimidated. However, The Odyssey is the right book at the right time for me. I had heard many of Odysseus’s exploits before, and now I know how they connect with each other and how they help develop Odysseus’s character.

What I didn’t realize until now was the power of Odysseus’s wife Penelope who mourns and waits twenty years for Odysseus’s return to her. During that time she raises their son Telemachus from infancy to young manhood, she maintains Odysseus’s home and estate, she cares for his aging parents and buries her mother-in-law. And most importantly, she preserves Odyssey’s memory and honor as she fights off numerous deceitful suitors who want to get their hands on Odysseus’s inheritance and wealth.

Penelope uses her wits and intelligence to put them off for many years by insisting that she finish weaving a tapestry which she weaves all day but at night unravels. Her servants betray her, yet she continues to hold them off. She sets a powerful example of honor for their son Telemachus who has learned to love his absent father because of his mother’s love for Odysseus.

According to the dead Agamemnon, Odyssey’s successful homecoming is due in large part because of the faithfulness and goodness of Penelope. At the end, Agamemnon sings Penelope’s praises:

“Well done, Odysseus, Laertes’ wily son!
You won a wife of great character
In Icarius’ daughter. What a mind she has,
A woman beyond reproach! How well Penelope
Kept in her heart her husband, Odysseus.
And so her virtue’s fame will never perish,
And the gods will make among men on earth
A song of praise for steadfast Penelope.” (24.199-206)

A powerful virtue we often overlook is that of being steady or steadfast. Although Penelope may not seem the warrior hero glorified in Odysseus’s stories, she is the hero who stays home and protects virtue and honor—and she never waivers.

Penelope demonstrates for us the virtue of consistency, of being steadfast, not matter the pressure to sway. Often in The Odyssey, Odysseus is called glorious and god-favored, Penelope is also glorious and god-favored because she is steady.