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PENELOPE

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Originally appearing in Volume V21, Page 88 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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PENELOPE , in See also:

Greek See also:legend, wife of See also:Odysseus, daughter of Icarius and the nymph Periboea. During the See also:long See also:absence of her See also:husband after the fall of See also:Troy many chieftains of See also:Ithaca and the islands See also:round about became her suitors; and, to rid herself of the importunities of the wcoers, she bade them wait till she had See also:woven a winding-See also:sheet for old Laertes, the See also:father of Odysseus. But every See also:night she undid the piece which she had woven by See also:day. This she did for three years, till her maids revealed the See also:secret. She was relieved by the arrival of Odysseus, who returned after an absence of twenty years, and slew the wooers. The See also:character of Penelope is less favourable in See also:late writers than in the Homeric See also:story. During her husband's absence she is said to have become the See also:mother of See also:Pan by See also:Hermes, and Odysseus, on his return, repudiated her as unfaithful (See also:Herodotus H. 145 and schol.). She thereupon withdrew to See also:Sparta and thence to See also:Mantineia, where she died and where her See also:tomb was shown. According to another See also:account she married Telegonus the son of Odysseus and See also:Circe, after he had killed his father, and dwelt with him in the See also:island of Aeala or in the Islands of the Blest (See also:Hyginus, Feb. 127).

End of Article: PENELOPE

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