Penelope Of Ithaca Quotes

Kenamon takes his time to consider this. Penelope does not mind. The silence of men is a novel experience, and she is prepared to thoroughly enjoy it.

Any woman who gives merely all she has to give, and then has no more left in her, we condemn to Tartarus's burning fields, and simply say: it is for the children.

Beware that child who would spill his mother's blood. Though the gods themselves may turn away, the Furies will not.

...for it is the poet’s art to make every ear that hears the ancient songs think they have been sung for them alone, the old made new.

Three daughters of Sparta became three queens in Greece, and I love them, power in their voices and fire in their eyes, even Penelope, even the one who smiles and says she does it for her husband, I love her, I love her. But no one ever said the gods did not have favourites, and it is Clytemnestra I love best, my queen above all, the one who would be free.

However the gods move in our lives, good sister, let us not imagine they move for any whims save their own.

Penthesilea, for example, fought against Achilles himself…” “And died!” “Against Achilles – everyone died against Achilles, it was his predominant characteristic.

Athena watches from the shore. Artemis prowls in the forest. And in the belly of the earth, the Furies are stirring.

There was such hatred in Clytemnestra's eyes, which never left his face - it was an intoxicant unlike any the tyrant had seen before. "I'll have that.' He thought. ''I'll break that.

This is the world we live in. We are not heroes. We do not choose to be great; we have no power over our destinies. The scraps of freedom that we have are to pick between two poisons, to make the least bad decision we can, knowing that there is no outcome that will not leave us bruised, bloody on the floor.

Cassandra did not resist. After the first year of being pulled by the hair into Agamemnon's bed, hand at her throat, tongue wet, she had learned that screaming changed nothing. By the time Clytemnestra killed her, seven years later, Cassandra had given up on speech altogether, knowing no one would believe her, and no one would care. Thus died the prophetess of Troy, plaything of gods and men.

The storm may bend your back, but only you can straighten it again.

Gifts from a trickster? That doesn’t sound like a sound basis for an economy.

For many, the performance of thinking oftentimes exceeds the actual energy being expended on the thought itself.

I’ll say this for Athena – she is not afraid to simply stand and think.

There are those who are beginning to realise that honour has nothing over a still-beating heart.

But you are a queen.” “Hera be praised, am I? I hadn’t noticed.

I know.” Voice soft as the butterfly wing, loose as cobweb, Penelope stares into a future, and is so tired of looking.

No songs are sung of a life lived quietly, of a man and a woman growing old in contentment.

Beauty is a whim, it changes as easily as the tide. I was once considered the most beautiful, until familiarity bred tedium.

Take it from a queen – the greatest power we women can own is that we take in secret.

Telemachus has all sorts of funny ideas about parental wisdom. My old man ate me as soon as I was born; our fathers aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

Oh – did you forget the women were there too, at this learned assemblage? So too will the poets, when this song is sung.

Every little twerp is descended from Heracles these days, it’s practically a requirement for entry to polite society

They do not burn any lanterns on their decks, but skim across the ocean like tears down a mirror.

The boy hadn’t earned such a clean death, but neither, I suppose, had he lived long enough to deserve the one that came for him.

Let us speak briefly of Ithaca. It is a thoroughly backwards, wretched place.

Dawn should be bloody after a battle, yet it so rarely is. Too many wars are fought beneath her shimmering gaze for her to turn crimson for any but the most spectacular of affairs.

Are you conspiring, little duck?" "When one has neither gold, soldiers, name nor honour, what else is a woman to do?

Scared is how you see the spear coming for your eye. Scared is how you choose where and when to strike.

To be patient is to feel burning rage, impotent fury, to rage and rock against the injustice of the world and yet – and yet – to hold one’s tongue.

I know very little about killing,” she replies with a shrug. “That is the men’s business. But it is the women who come to dress and wail at the corpses when the killing is done, no?

Ah,” mutters Penelope. “I see. Medon, forgive me. I find myself overcome with womanly weakness and must retire.” “I have always admired the exquisite timing of your weaknesses, my lady.

Friendship will not stop the battle. Friendship does not unite the kingdom. Friendship is as much subject to the great sweep of politics, to the richness of the harvest and the motion of the skies, as any fluttering butterfly. Mortals create friendship to give themselves the illusion of safety and a sense of self-worth. We are gods. We should be above such trivialities.

But one thing is certain: those daughters of Leda are a plague on their menfolk. Did Odysseus worry that he would receive a similar welcome here on Ithaca? That I, the devout Penelope, would treat him as Clytemnestra had treated her husband? The idea is preposterous. My name is a byword for patience and loyalty, no matter which bard sings it. But that is my Odysseus. And your Odysseus. Always finding things out the hard way.

If you dare tell me he’s Odysseus’s son as if that’s some sacred charm, I will scream,” she answers, clear as the ringing of the hollow drum. “I will wail and rend my hair, the whole thing. So help me, Hera, I will do it.” Sweetheart, I whisper, I’m here for it. Many is the time my husband has returned from his frolics and I’ve turned on the waterworks, rent my garments, flung myself upon the ground and sworn that I shall die, scratched at my eyes, drawn blood from my celestial skin and beaten my fists against his chest. It doesn’t change his behaviour long-term, but at least I get to embarrass him some tiny, tiny fraction of the way he humiliates, demeans, dishonours and diswomans me. So you do the wailing; I’ll bring the olives.

Athena loves it when a hunky warrior clad in bronze kneels before her inner sanctum, and when a man violated a woman upon her altar, it was the woman whose hair she turned to snakes in retribution for this sacrilege. So much for the wisdom of Athena.

If you dare tell me he’s Odysseus’s son as if that’s some sacred charm, I will scream,” she answers, clear as the ringing of the hollow drum. “I will wail and rend my hair, the whole thing. So help me, Hera, I will do it.” Sweetheart, I whisper, I’m here for it.

It also occurs to Telemachus that Elektra is, in a strange way, the most sexual woman he has ever seen, and yet oddly, and at the same time, about as attractive as a nosebleed. He is a young man who finds this dichotomy very confusing, though perhaps in time he will learn.

She understands, of course, that this is society and how society works. She is smart; she has learnt these lessons. What she doesn’t understand is why, being the way it is, society is so insufferably stupid, run by flaming idiots. On that point again, we are inclined to agree.

Penelope’s face is luminous. “My father used to tease me and say that I would marry some forgotten king on a forgotten island.” Clytemnestra nudges her. “Well, you are.” Penelope laughs. “Who knows about Ithaca? Who will remember Odysseus?” “Probably no one. The clever ones are always forgotten.

But Eos held her hand and Ourania her feet when Penelope screamed and Telemachus was born, and when a woman has spent that much time staring into another woman’s dilated vagina, you can either shut that other woman out for ever and pretend it never happened, or you can get over yourself and admit to a bond that runs deeper than blood.

I catch her as she tumbles, lest her fall be ungraceful, a messy rending of gut and bone. I ease her to the ground lightly, put her head in my lap, stroke her brow, whisper sweet sounds without form to her. My queen, greatest of all queens in Greece, stares up at the sky and does not see her brothers in it...All eyes of gods and men depart, save I.

For… myself?” Penelope’s voice is a slap across the face, a rise of stifled fury. “You think I let a hundred slobbering men dribble over my body and my land every single night for myself? You think I tolerate their endless slander, their relentless talk and insult, demeaning myself every day, for myself? I do it for my people, and I do it for my son!

The assembly dissolves at this point into furious squabbling, accusation and insult. I glance quickly into the nearby shadows, into the hot places of the earth beneath their feet, for Eris, lady of discord, wondering if she has stolen into this little assembly – but no, this is entirely, absolutely the stupidity of man without the interference of gods. It is fascinating in its detail and pettiness.

I have sometimes wondered what upon what it is truly to be wise. Naturally I am the wisest of all the gods, my intellect vastly superior to yours; yet the world turns despite my counsel. Every immortal and mortal may say 'yes, let us be wise' and yet turn their faces away when the best course is set before them. It is...troubling. How is that we can know the most intelligent way to act, yet choose not to do it?

...I give you again the bowing of Agamemnon's men as they fell before your might and your wisdom , begged your indulgence, grovelled for their sins. You did not punish them for the joy of punishment; you were not a tyrant, you were not cruel. You took away the illusions that they had wrapped themselves in, showed them that their strength was arrogance, their intellect was foolery. You were the queen of honest revelation and level-headed merit, and the great men of Mycenae loathed for you it, loathed you for striking down their pretensions, and I loved you, I love you, I love you...

Oh queen of the gods.' She breathes. 'You were mighty once. Before the poems were rewritten at Zeus's command, before the past was all...made up human things...I remember. You rode with Tabiti and Inanna of the east and the world quivered beneath you. The mortals looked up from their caves with hands painted in ochre and blood and called 'Mother, Mother, Mother.' You tore down the sky upon your enemies, and bade the seas part for the ones you loved. But you trusted Zeus. You swore your brother would never betray you. And look at you now, skulking from the eye of heaven lest he see the footprints you leave upon the earth.

PART III THE TRIUMPH OF ODYSSEUS CHAPTER XXIX. Athena Advises Telemachos XXX. Telemachos Astonishes the Wooers XXXI. Penelope's Web XXXII. The Journey of Telemachos XXXIII. Telemachos in Pylos XXXIV. Telemachos in Sparta XXXV. Menelaos Relates His Adventures XXXVI. The Conspiracy of the Suitors XXXVII. Telemachos Returns to Ithaca XXXVIII. Telemachos and the Swineherd XXXIX. Telemachos Recognizes Odysseus XL. Telemachos Returns to the Palace XLI. Odysseus is Recognized by His Dog XLII. Odysseus Comes, a Beggar, to His Own House XLIII. Conversation of Odysseus and Penelope XLIV. Eurycleia Recognizes Odysseus XLV. Penelope's Dream XLVI. Athena Encourages Odysseus XLVII. The Last Banquet of the Suitors XLVIII. Odysseus Bends the Bow XLIX. Death of the Suitors L. Eurycleia Announces the Return of Odysseus to Penelope LI. Odysseus Visits His Father Vocabulary and Notes

Later, as he walks by the sea at midnight, he will think of all the witty things he should have said, the clever little remarks and charming epithets that did not in fact spring to mind when they would have been most needful.

Oh - did you forget the women were there too, as this learned assemblage ? So too will the poets, when this song is sung.

Once upon a time, there were three queens in Greece. One was chaste and pure, one a temptress whore, one a murderous hag.

Our living poets are far more dangerous, for they know how to make a monster from a man long after he is dead.

Lady of the secrets ; lady of intrigue, whispering in the shadows where men go.

Love is vengeance, of course. Even the poets understand that.

Teach my women to fight.

It's just not fashionable to have to work at being a hero.

The poets do not sing of women.

Take it from a queen - the greatest power we woman can own is that we take in secret.

To be patient is to feel burning rage, impotent fury, to rage and rock against the injustice of the world and yet - and yet- to hold one's tongue.

He wants to say : it was nothing like I imagined, and I am not a hero. Not a hero. Not a hero. Not a hero.

Be with me, I cry, be with me, be my light, my vengeance, my prayer, my queens!

For some silence is weakness; for a great queen it is a weapon. You are most great, most great, my love, my most great above them all.

The silence of men is a novel experience, and she is prepared to thoroughly enjoy it.

Gifts from a Trickster? That doesn't sound like a sound basis for an economy.

In the clouded night, I squint down from the heavens and I think I see… … yes, look again, and there she is. Athena sits and hoots like an absolute bloody idiot, an owl upon the blackened branch of an ancient withered tree. Hoot bloody hoot she goes, blinking reflective darkness, as if I wouldn’t see her, as if I can’t always see through her pitiful disguises.

Clytemnestra has mighty eyebrows, most suited for arching. “Maybe the little duck isn’t so stupid after all.

But for tonight, to avoid bloodshed I am giving you a chance – call your men off. You have nothing to gain here. Your plan will not work, and if you continue down this path, I will destroy you.

Even a man who knows how to look good thinking is sometimes caught looking stupid.

Penelope, when she first came to Ithaca, learnt a lot about what it was to be a queen from Anticlea. She learnt that when the south wind is dull and heavy, you do not sweat; nor when the north howls in the harshest of winters must you shiver. The storm may bend your back, but only you can straighten it again.

The gods are foolish and blind – they think the greatest poems are the ones of death in battle and the ravishing of queens. But the stories that will live for ever are of the lost ones, the fearful ones, who through bitter hardship and despair find hope, find strength – find their way home.

How strange it seems that to make men of these boys, Athena first makes them children, driving from their minds all thoughts of mortality, all notion of blood as they run, run, run for Laertes’ farm.

Donning his tatty, faded grey cloak, he nods once and, with the dignity of the centaur, proudly runs away.

But perhaps one day, he will remember that she was there, that she wept for him, that her love surpasses all others. Perhaps one day yet to come.

How do you hide an army?” “Medon,” Penelope tuts, “what a foolish question. You hide them in precisely the same way you hide your success as a merchant, your skill with agriculture, your wisdom at politics and your innate cutting wit. You hide them as women.

Artemis’s lips thin. I wait. If there is one thing the huntress dislikes more than not getting her share of a kill, it is weddings.

I don’t like talking. But I do like Athena looking stupid.

I am sorry to have kept you waiting. I was praying.” She was not praying.

Elektra gives a scream, an animal howl of fury and rage, a little too loud, a little too dramatic for my taste, but it gets the job done.

Nevertheless, that war and blood would likely have been mine, and that of my child.” “Ah yes, Telemachus. He’s a mess, isn’t he?

There is a woman still living inside Penelope full of hope and fear and dreams and despair. But she has been a queen far longer than she was ever anything else, and the queens of Greece are not given many choices that are their own.

Antinous did not learn many lessons from his father, save this: if you make enough people believe you are important, one day it may actually be true.

this is entirely, absolutely the stupidity of man without the interference of gods. It is fascinating in its detail and pettiness.

At the walls of Troy, the Achaeans followed Agamemnon, but the Myrmidons followed only Achilles. Didn’t that turn out well?

This is how Agamemnon, greatest of all the Greeks, mightiest king in east and west, conqueror of Troy, lord of Mycenae, died. “Fucking whore, fucking whore, come here, you little bitch, you slut, you… come here! When I catch you, I’ll…

Ithaca is nothing if not sufficient. It’s practically the island’s motto.

It would be kind now for Elektra to speak her mind, to lay it out fully. But she is not kind. She has sworn never to be kind ever again.

It occurs to Penelope that she does not know if she likes her son. She loves him, of course, and will stand before spears to save his life. But does she like him? She is not sure there is enough of the man who will be Telemachus for her to know.

Are you… conspiring, little duck?” “When one has neither gold, soldiers, name nor honour, what else is a woman to do?

Many is the time my husband has returned from his frolics and I’ve turned on the waterworks, rent my garments, flung myself upon the ground and sworn that I shall die, scratched at my eyes, drawn blood from my celestial skin and beaten my fists against his chest. It doesn’t change his behaviour long-term, but at least I get to embarrass him some tiny, tiny fraction of the way he humiliates, demeans, dishonours and diswomans me. So you do the wailing; I’ll bring the olives.

I sit in a corner, and find the whole affair fantastically boring. Where is Eris, goddess of discord, when I need her? Where are the fights, the schemes, the knives in the back? By my name, I miss Medea’s filthy jokes, and that thing Thalia can do with a bendy stick.

And where should I be, goddess of war? Up on Olympus wheedling with Zeus to send your Odysseus a favourable wind? Or are you done debasing yourself for a man?

You have a soft spot for needy young men, don’t you?

It seems that there is a great deal that has been left unsaid, and that unsaid things, in her experience, often grow upon a silent tongue into a deluge of words that should have been screamed.

Stepdaughter, one day you will learn how to give me thanks.

And so the moon rises and the moon sets, and though things are much the same, some things are most definitely different.

Penelope raises an eyebrow. She practised arching it most magnificently for hours in front of the dusty bronze mirror in an attempt to mimic her cousin Clytemnestra, wife of Agamemnon, who really nailed imperial hauteur in a way that evaded the Ithacan queen. It is one of very few of Clytemnestra’s magnificent qualities that Penelope successfully emulates.

Once upon a time, there were three queens in Greece. One was chaste and pure, one a temptress whore, one a murderous hag. That is the how the poets sing it.

That is how there came to be three queens in Greece, voices uttering prayers that no poet-prince, husband-king nor king-above will ever hear.

Now Isis – that’s a woman with a bit of pluck, that’s someone who gets things done, she and I once played tavli for the soul of a manticore and both cheated so much it was practically fair!