The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus

by Margaret Atwood

  Others have noted the fact that I did not dismiss or punish the twelve impudent maids, or shut them up in an outbuilding to grind corn, so I must have been indulging in the same kind of sluttery myself.

  But I have explained all that.

  A more serious charge is that Odysseus didn’t reveal himself to me when he first returned. He distrusted me, it is said, and wanted to make sure

  I wasn’t having orgies in the palace. But the real reason was that he was afraid I would cry tears of joy and thus give him away. Similarly, he had me locked in the women’s quarters with the rest of the women when he was slaughtering the Suitors, and he relied on Eurycleia’s help, not on mine. But he knew me well my tender heart, my habit of dissolving in tears and falling down on thresholds. He simply didn’t want to expose me to dangers and disagreeable sights. Surely that is the obvious explanation for his behaviour.

  If my husband had learned of the slanders during our lifetimes, he certainly would have ripped out a few tongues. But there’s no sense in brooding over lost opportunities.

  XXI. The Chorus Line: The Perils of Penelope, A Drama

  Presented by: The Maids

  Prologue: Spoken by Melantho of the Pretty Cheeks:

  As we approach the climax, grim and gory

  Let us just say: There is another story.

  Or several, as befits the goddess Rumour,

  Who’s sometimes in a good, or else bad, humour.

  Word has it that Penelope the Prissy

  Was—when it came to sex—no shrinking sissy!

  Some said with Amphinomus she was sleeping.

  Masking her lust with gales of moans and weeping;

  Others, that each and every brisk contender

  By turns did have the fortune to upend her,

  By which promiscuous acts the goat-god Pan

  Was then conceived, or so the fable ran.

  The truth, dear auditors, is seldom certain

  But let us take a peek behind the curtain!

  Eurycleia: Played by a Maid:

  Dear child! I fear you are undone! Alas!

  The Master has returned! That’s right he’s back!

  Penelope: Played by a Maid:

  I knew him as he walked here from afar

  By his short legs

  Eurycleia:

  And I by his long scar!

  Penelope:

  And now, dear Nurse, the fat is in the fire

  He’ll chop me up for tending my desire!

  While he was pleasuring every nymph and beauty,

  Did he think I’d do nothing but my duty?

  While every girl and goddess he was praising,

  Did he assume I’d dry up like a raisin?

  Eurycleia:

  While you your famous loom claimed to be threading,

  In fact you were at work within the bedding!

  And now there’s ample matter for beheading!

  Penelope:

  Amphinomus—quick! Down the hidden stairs!

  And I’ll sit here, and feign great woes and cares.

  Do up my robe! Bind fast my wanton hair:

  Which of the maids is in on my affairs?

  Eurycleia:

  Only the twelve, my lady, who assisted,

  Know that the Suitors you have not resisted.

  They smuggled lovers in and out all night;

  They drew the drapes, and then they held the light.

  They’re privy to your every lawless thrill

  They must be silenced, or the beans they’ll spill!

  Penelope:

  Oh then, dear Nurse, it’s really up to you

  To save me, and Odysseus’ honour too!

  Because he sucked at your now-ancient bust,

  You are the only one of us he’ll trust.

  Point out those maids as feckless and disloyal,

  Snatched by the Suitors as unlawful spoil,

  Polluted, shameless, and not fit to be

  The doting slaves of such a Lord as he!

  Eurycleia:

  We’ll stop their mouths by sending them to Hades

  He’ll string them up as grubby wicked ladies!

  Penelope:

  And I in fame a model wife shall rest

  All husbands will look on, and think him blessed!

  But haste—the Suitors come to do their wooing,

  And I, for my part, must begin boo-hooing!

  The Chorus Line, in tap-dance shoes:

  Blame it on the maids!

  Those naughty little jades!

  Hang them high and don’t ask why

  Blame it on the maids!

  Blame it on the slaves!

  The toys of rogues and knaves!

  Let them dangle, let them strai

  Blame it on the slaves!

  Blame it on the sluts!

  Those poxy little scuts!

  We’ve got the dirt on every ski

  Blame it on the sluts!

  They all curtsy.

  XXII. Helen Takes a Bath

  I was wandering through the asphodel, musing on times past, when I saw Helen sauntering my way. She was followed by her customary horde of male spirits, all of them twittering with anticipation. She gave them not even a glance, though she was evidently conscious of their presence. She’s always had a pair of invisible antennae that twitch at the merest whiff of a man.

  ‘Hello there, little cousin duck,’ she said to me with her usual affable condescension. ‘I’m on my way to take my bath. Care to join me?’

  ‘We’re spirits now, Helen,’ I said with what I

  hoped was a smile. ‘Spirits don’t have bodies. They don’t get dirty. They have no need of baths.’

  ‘Oh, but my reason for taking a bath was always spiritual,’ said Helen, opening her lovely eyes very wide. ‘I found it so soothing, in the midst of the turmoil. You wouldn’t have any idea of how exhausting it is, having such vast numbers of men quarrelling over you, year after year. Divine beauty is such a burden. At least you’ve been spared that!’

  I ignored the sneer. ‘Are you going to take off your spirit robes?’ I asked.

  ‘We’re all aware of your legendary modesty, Penelope,’ she replied. ‘I’m sure if you ever were to bathe you’d keep your own robes on, as I suppose you did in life. Unfortunately’ here she smiled ‘modesty was not among the gifts given to me by laughter-loving Aphrodite. I do prefer to bathe without my robes, even in the spirit.’

  ‘That would explain the unusually large crowd of spectators you’ve attracted,’ I said, somewhat tersely.

  ‘But is it unusually large?’ she asked, with an innocent lift of her eyebrows. ‘There are always such throngs of these men. I never count them. I do feel that because so many of them died for me—well, because of me surely I owe them something in return.’

  ‘If only a peek at what they missed on earth,’ I said.

  ‘Desire does not die with the body,’ said Helen. ‘Only the ability to satisfy it. But a glimpse or two does perk them up, the poor lambs.’

  ‘It gives them a reason to live,’ I said.

  ‘You’re being witty,’ said Helen. ‘Better late than never, I suppose.’

  ‘My wittiness, or your bare-naked tits-and-ass bath treat for the dead?’ I said.

  ‘You’re such a cynic,’ said Helen. ‘Just because we’re not, you know, any more, there’s no need to be so negative. And so so vulgar! Some of us have a giving nature. Some of us like to contribute what we can to the less fortunate.’

  ‘So you’re washing their blood off your hands,’ I said. ‘Figuratively speaking, of course. Making up for all those mangled corpses. I hadn’t realised you were capable of guilt.’

  This bothered her. She gave a tiny frown. ‘Tell me, little duck how many men did Odysseus butcher because of you?’

  ‘Quite a lot,’ I said. She knew the exact number:

  she’d long since satisfied herself that the total was puny compared with the pyramids of corpses laid at her door.


  ‘It depends on what you call a lot,’ said Helen.

  ‘But that’s nice. I’m sure you felt more important because of it. Maybe you even felt prettier.’ She smiled with her mouth only. ‘Well, I’m off now, little duck. I’m sure I’ll see you around. Enjoy the asphodel.’ And she wafted away, followed by her excited entourage.

  XXIII. Odysseus and Telemachus Snuff the Maids

  I slept through the mayhem. How could I have done such a thing? I suspect Eurycleia put something in the comforting drink she gave me, to keep me out of the action and stop me from interfering. Not that I would have been in the action anyway: Odysseus made sure all the women were locked securely into the women’s quarter.

  Eurycleia described the whole thing to me, and to anyone else who would listen. First, she said, Odysseus still in the guise of a beggar watched while Telemachus set up the twelve axes, and then while the Suitors failed to string his famous bow. Then he got hold of the bow himself, and after stringing it and shooting an arrow through the twelve axes thus winning me as his bride for a second time—he shot Antinous in the throat, threw off his disguise, and made mincemeat of every last one of the Suitors, first with arrows, then with spears and swords. Telemachus and two faithful herdsmen helped him; nevertheless it was a considerable feat. The Suitors had a few spears and swords, supplied to them by Melanthius, a treacherous goatherd, but none of this hardware was of any help to them in the end.

  Eurycleia told me how she and the other women had cowered near the locked door, listening to the shouts and the sounds of breaking furniture, and the groans of the dying. She then described the horror that happened next.

  Odysseus summoned her, and ordered her to point out the maids who had been, as he called it, ‘disloyal’. He forced the girls to haul the dead bodies of the Suitors out into the courtyard including the bodies of their erstwhile lovers and to wash the brains and gore off the floor, and to clean whatever chairs and tables remained intact.

  Then Eurycleia continued he told Telemachus to chop the maids into pieces with his sword. But my son, wanting to assert himself to his father, and to show that he knew better—he was at that age - hanged them all in a row from a ship’s hawser.

  Right after that, said Eurycleia—who could not disguise her gloating pleasure—Odysseus and Telemachus hacked off the ears and nose and hands and feet and genitals of Melanthius the evil goatherd and threw them to the dogs, paying no attention to the poor man’s agonised screams. ‘They had to make an example of him,’ said Eurycleia, ‘to discourage any further defections.’

  ‘But which maids?’ I cried, beginning to shed tears. ‘Dear gods—which maids did they hang?’

  ‘Mistress, dear child,’ said Eurycleia, anticipating my displeasure, ‘he wanted to kill them all! I had to choose some—otherwise all would have perished!’

  ‘Which ones?’ I said, trying to control my emotions.

  ‘Only twelve,’ she faltered. ‘The impertinent ones. The ones who’d been rude. The ones who used to thumb their noses at me. Melantho of the Pretty Cheeks and her cronies—that lot. They were notorious whores.’

  ‘The ones who’d been raped,’ I said. ‘The youngest. The most beautiful.’ My eyes and ears among the Suitors, I did not add. My helpers during the long nights of, the shroud. My snow-white geese. My thrushes, my doves.

  It was my fault! I hadn’t told her of my scheme.

  ‘They let it go to their heads,’ said Eurycleia defensively. ‘It wouldn’t have done for King

  Odysseus to allow such impertinent girls to continue to serve in the palace. He could never have trusted them. Now come downstairs, dear child.

  Your husband is waiting to see you.’

  What could I do? Lamentation wouldn’t bring my lovely girls back to life. I bit my tongue. It’s a wonder I had any tongue left, so frequently had I

  bitten it over the years.

  Dead is dead, I told myself. I’ll say prayers and perform sacrifices for their souls. But I’ll have to do it in secret, or Odysseus will suspect me, as well.

  There could be a more sinister explanation. What if Eurycleia was aware of my agreement with the maids of their spying on the Suitors for me, of my orders to them to behave rebelliously? What if she singled them out and had them killed out of resentment at being excluded and the desire to retain her inside position with Odysseus?

  I haven’t been able to confront her about it, down here. She’s got hold of a dozen dead babies, and is always busy tending them. Happily for her they will never grow up. Whenever I approach and try to engage her in conversation she says, ‘Later, my child. Gracious me, I’ve got my hands full! Look at the itty pretty a wuggle wuggle woo!’

  So I’ll never know.

  XXIV. The Chorus Line: An Anthropology Lecture

  Presented by: The Maids

  What is it that our number, the number of the maids the number twelve suggests to the educated mind? There are twelve apostles, there are twelve days of Christmas, yes, but there are twelve months, and what does the word month suggest to the educated mind? Yes? You, Sir, in the back? Correct! Month comes from moon, as everyone knows. Oh, it is no coincidence, no coincidence at all, that there were twelve of us, not eleven and not thirteen, and not the proverbial eight maids a-milking!

  For we were not simply maids. We were not mere slaves and drudges. Oh no! Surely we had a higher function than that! Could it be that we were not the twelve maids, but the twelve maidens? The twelve moon-maidens, companions of Artemis, virginal but deadly goddess of the moon? Could it be that we were ritual sacrifices, devoted priestesses doing our part, first by indulging in orgiastic fertility-rite behaviour with the Suitors, then purifying ourselves by washing ourselves in the blood of the slain male victims such heaps of them, what an honour to the Goddess!—and renewing our virginity, as Artemis renewed hers by bathing in a spring dyed with the blood of Actaeon? We would then have willingly sacrificed ourselves, as was necessary, re-enacting the dark-of-the-moon phase, in order that the whole cycle might renew itself and the silvery new-moon-goddess rise once more. Why should Iphigenia be credited with selflessness and devotion, more than we?

  This reading of the events in question ties in excuse the play on words with the ship’s hawser from which we dangled, for the new moon is a boat.

  And then there’s the bow that figures so prominently in the story—the curved old-moon bow of Artemis, used to shoot an arrow through twelve axe-heads—twelve! The arrow passed through the loops of their handles, the round, moon-shaped loops! And the hanging itself—think, dear educated minds, of the significance of the hanging! Above the earth, up in the air, connected to the moon-governed sea by an umbilical boat-linked rope oh, there are too many clues for you to miss it!

  What’s that, Sir? You in the back? Yes, correct, the number of lunar months is indeed thirteen, so there ought to have been thirteen of us. Therefore, you say smugly, we might add that our theory about ourselves is incorrect, since we were only twelve. But wait—there were in fact thirteen! The thirteenth was our High Priestess, the incarnation of Artemis herself. She was none other than yes! Queen Penelope!

  Thus possibly our rape and subsequent hanging represent the overthrow of a matrilineal moon-cult by an incoming group of usurping patriarchal father-god-worshipping barbarians. The chief of them, notably Odysseus, would then claim kingship by marrying the High Priestess of our cult, namely Penelope.

  No, Sir, we deny that this theory is merely unfounded feminist claptrap. We can understand your reluctance to have such things brought out into the open rapes and murders are not pleasant subjects—but such overthrows most certainly took place all around the Mediterranean Sea, as excavations at prehistoric sites have demonstrated over and over.

  Surely those axes, so significantly not used as weapons in the ensuing slaughter, so significantly never explained in any satisfactory way by three thousand years of commentary—surely they must have been the double-bladed ritual labrys axes associated with the Gr
eat Mother cult among the

  Minoans, the axes used to lop off the head of the

  Year King at the end of his term of thirteen lunar months! For the rebelling Year King to use Her own bow to shoot an arrow through Her own ritual life-and-death axes, in order to demonstrate his power over Her what a desecration! Just as the patriarchal penis takes it upon itself to unilaterally shoot through the.But we’re getting carried away here.

  In the pre-patriarchal scheme of things, there may well have been a bow-shooting contest, but it would have been properly conducted. He who won it would be declared ritual king for a year, and would then be hanged remember the Hanged Man motif, which survives now only as a lowly Tarot card. He would also have had his genitals torn off, as befits a male drone married to the Queen Bee. Both acts, the hanging and the genital-tearing-off, would have ensured the fertility of the crops. But usurping strongman Odysseus refused to die at the end of his rightful term. Greedy for prolonged life and power, he found substitutes. Genitals were indeed torn off, but they were not his—they belonged to the goatherd Melanthius. Hanging did indeed take place, but it was we, the twelve moon-maidens, who did the swinging in his place.

  We could go on. Would you like to see some vase paintings, some carved Goddess cult objects? No? Never mind. Point being that you don’t have to get too worked up about us, dear educated minds. You don’t have to think of us as real girls, real flesh and blood, real pain, real injustice. That might be too upsetting. Just discard the sordid part. Consider us pure symbol. We’re no more real than money.