Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths(79)

Penelope is obviously no longer young, even if we assume she was a teenager when she married Odysseus, which is plausible. He has now been away for twenty years: she is the mother of a young man who is twenty or twenty-one (though Telemachus often seems younger than this. The story requires him to be not fully adult, or he would not be in such need of his father. Equally, were he to seem more adult, more in charge of himself and his emotions, Odysseus might not have a role to take on when he returns). Penelope must therefore be at least thirty-five and perhaps a little older. As we have seen from the many images of girls – korai – on Greek vases and sculptures, compared with the comparatively few images of older women (none, or almost none, of Jocasta), this was not considered an especially desirable age for a woman to be, relative to being of just-marriageable age. And yet, Penelope is like a goddess. A cynical reader might think the suitors have all pitched up in the palace of Ithaca with the goal of becoming its king, and that the route to achieving such status is to marry its queen: who she is, what she looks like doesn’t matter to them. But Penelope is presented to us – this first time we meet her – as almost divine.

She is, however, entirely human in her first words. She begs the bard to stop singing sad songs about the Greeks being cursed by the gods on their journey home. He knows plenty of happy songs, she says. Sing one of those instead of this heartbreaker. She already misses her husband, who is famous across Greece.

Again we might wonder if Penelope is actually impressed or excited by her husband’s fame, or whether this is another literary convention; Odysseus is the poem’s hero, so we want to be reminded that he’s a big deal. Or does it reveal something more intrinsic to her character: she loves Odysseus, at least in part, because he is so renowned? Is that recompense for his long absence? Either way, she doesn’t want to hear any more about persecuted Greeks trying to make their voyages home.

But Telemachus responds by criticizing his mother.7 It isn’t the fault of the poets that bad things have happened, he says. This one is just singing about how things are. Toughen up and listen: it’s his newest song and it garners him the most praise. And, anyway, Odysseus isn’t the only one who didn’t make it home. If we are wincing at the unsympathetic tone adopted by this young man towards his distressed mother, we’re about to wince again. Go back to your loom, he tells her, and tell your slaves to do the same. Talking is men’s business, and mine especially; I am the master of this house. Penelope looks at him with astonishment8 and retreats inside.

What might we make of this exchange? Even allowing for the fact that Bronze Age gender relations are very different from ours, Telemachus seems to be unusually brusque with his mother. Do they not get on? Does he not care that she is so clearly upset about her missing husband? There is something psychologically plausible about his response. The man she misses is unknown to Telemachus. He misses the idea of his father, and perhaps the name, the fame, the security of having a powerful parent. But he doesn’t miss his actual father, because he can have no memory of a man who left when he was a baby. Why would he not have some resentment towards this absent father? As mentioned above, Telemachus often seems younger than his years and this is surely the response a teenage boy might have to his father: missing him and resenting him at the same time. And, equally, his response to Penelope implies a conflict. He wants to take care of her, perhaps, and see himself as the man of the house. But this house is full of slightly older men who threaten him – literally and metaphorically – with their plans to marry his mother and displace him in Ithaca’s line of succession. The suitors plot to kill him during this poem: he is afraid, and with good reason. Fear often makes us lash out at the person whose fault it isn’t. Telemachus can’t take on more than a hundred suitors without coming across as rather foolish and naive. So he criticizes his mother – in front of the suitors who court her – instead. Feeling that his own status, as prince of Ithaca, is in jeopardy, he takes his anxiety out on his mother.

Telemachus’ emotions seem to reveal an interesting social point, too. During his earlier conversation with the disguised Athene, the goddess had revealed her own irritation with Penelope: let her marry one of the suitors, she said, but she can go back to her father’s house to do it. In other words, Athene (in whom we might sense a hint of sexual jealousy: she is devoted to Odysseus, but her enthusiasm doesn’t always extend to his wife) doesn’t care what Penelope does, so long as Odysseus’ palace and property remain his, and Telemachus remains next in line to succeed him. But the fear implicit in Telemachus’ angry words suggest that Athene’s view of Penelope’s potential remarriage isn’t reflected by reality. The suitors certainly think – and so, it seems, does Telemachus – that if Penelope remarries, the power and property of the king of Ithaca will be acquired by her new husband. She will not retreat to her father’s house in disgrace, this woman of middle years. She is queen of Ithaca and whoever marries her will become king.

In other words, Penelope’s power is as contested as her behaviour. A goddess suggests that she might be bundled back to her father, but the mortal men of Ithaca view her differently. And as for Telemachus, his harsh words also seem to be contradicted a few hundred lines later. In the second book of the poem, he follows Athene’s advice to set sail and try to find news of Odysseus. But he instructs Eurycleia – the nurse of Telemachus and Odysseus before him – to keep his voyage secret from Penelope. Don’t say anything to my dear mother, he tells Eurycleia,9 until she notices I’m missing. Keep quiet for twelve days so she doesn’t start crying and ruin her pretty face.