This week I'd like to
take a figure of a great queen, the Queen of Ithaca – Penelope. She
is the wife of Homer's hero Odysseus. She is perhaps the role model
of women in ancient Greek – beautiful, skilful, wise, and most
importantly, loyal.
Penelope was left at
home with the baby Telemachus when her husband went to war. Ten years
passed, and Odysseus still had not come home. Many people had,
though, such as Nestor and Menelaus, safe and sound, to their own
realm. Then another 10 years passed. Now Telemachus has become a
good-looking youth, just like his father. But he still needs
experience and also guidance to become a hero and a great king. That
is one problem.
Another thing, many
suitors plague the palace of Odysseus. They want Penelope to marry
one of them. These shameful suitors say nothing when reproved. What
should Penelope do?
“So by day she’d weave at her great and growing web—by night, by the light of torches set beside her,she would unravel all she’d done.”
She promised the
suitors that she would marry one of them once she has finished the
garment for Laertes. But it was actually a trick. She weaves by day
and unravels all by night. Thus she tricks the suitors for three
years long. Then they find out.
She at last consents to
marry one of them if he could bend a bow which is Odysseus'. No one,
of course, can do it but Odysseus himself. It's like saying, “I
would marry one of you if he could equal my late husband, which is
incomparable among men.”
When her husband
finally comes home, though, in all splendour and majesty that is his,
she refuses to instantly believe that it is so. She is convinced that
her husband is dead, and therefore, fearing that it might be a god
who tries to trick her, she puts her husband to a test.
“Come, Eurycleia,move the sturdy bedstead out of our bridal chamber—that room the master built with his own hands.Take it out now, sturdy bed that it is,and spread it deep with fleece,blankets and lustrous throws to keep him warm.”
The fact is, nobody can
move that thing. It's a secret between them, that the bedstead is
unmovable. Thus she proves that both of them are still loyal to each
other. It's actually a grand love story inside a fierce and nasty
epic.
Another thing. Homer
makes a great distinction between Penelope and Helen. Penelope says
herself that she puts her husband to the test because she knows what
happened to Helen of Troy.
“Remember Helen of Argos, Zeus’s daughter—would she have sported so in a stranger’s bedif she had dreamed that Achaea’s sons were doomedto fight and die to bring her home again?”
It is also
heart-touching to read how day by day she weeps for her husband,
thinking that he might be dead. Penelope, Penelope, you are indeed a
great queen and a good wife.
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Character Thursday
Adalah book blog hop di mana setiap blog memposting tokoh pilihan dalam buku yang sedang atau telah dibaca selama seminggu terakhir (judul atau genre buku bebas).
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Yep, one of the many great characters in The Odyssey. I admire how she kept her faith in her husband. Ten years in waiting, not knowing what had happened to him, whether he was still alive or dead. And all those time she kept her faith. Great woman!
ReplyDeleteVery true. She's adorable. And I love how she takes precaution and tests her husband before really accepting his homecoming.
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