The chore girls, the bright-cheeked girls, the juicy gigglers, the cheeky young wigglers, the young bloodscrubbers.
Twelve of us. Twelve moon-shaped bums, twelve yummy mouths, twenty-four feather-pillow tits, and best of all, twenty-four twitching feet.
Remember us? Of course you do! We brought the water for you to wash your hands, we bathed your feet, we rinsed your laundry, we oiled your shoulders, we laughed at your jokes, we ground your corn, we turned down your cosy bed.
You roped us in, you strung us up, you left us dangling like clothes on a line. What hijinks! What kicks! How virtuous you felt, how righteous, how purified, now that you’d got rid of the plump young dirty dirt-girls inside your head!
You should have buried us properly. You should have poured wine over us. You should have prayed for our forgiveness.
Now you can’t get rid of us, wherever you go: in your life or your afterlife or any of your other lives.
We can see through all your disguises: the paths of day, the paths of darkness, whichever paths you take – we’re right behind you, following you like a trail of smoke, like a long tail, a tail made of girls, heavy as memory, light as air: twelve accusations, toes skimming the ground, hands tied behind our backs, tongues sticking out, eyes bulging, songs choked in our throats.
Why did you murder us? What had we done to you that required our deaths? You never answered that.
It was an act of grudging, it was an act of spite, it was an honour killing.
Yoo hoo, Mr Thoughtfulness, Mr Goodness, Mr Godlike, Mr Judge! Look over your shoulder! Here we are, walking behind you, close, close by, close as a kiss, close as your own skin.
We’re the serving girls, we’re here to serve you. We’re here to serve you right. We’ll never leave you, we’ll stick to you like your shadow, soft and relentless as glue. Pretty maids, all in a row.
xxix
Envoi
we had no voice
we had no name
we had no choice
we had one face
one face the same
we took the blame
it was not fair
but now we’re here
we’re all here too
the same as you
and now we follow
you, we find you
now, we call
to you to you
too wit too woo
too wit too woo
too woo
The Maids sprout feathers, and fly away as owls.
Notes
The main source for The Penelopiad was Homer’s Odyssey, in the Penguin Classics edition, translated by E.V. Rieu and revised by D.C.H. Rieu (1991).
Robert Graves’s The Greek Myths (Penguin) was crucial. The information about Penelope’s ancestry, her family relations – Helen of Troy was her cousin – and much else, including the stories about her possible infidelity, are to be found there. (See Sections 160 and 171 in particular.) It is to Graves that I owe the theory of Penelope as a possible female-goddess cult leader, though oddly he does not note the significance of the numbers twelve and thirteen in relation to the unfortunate maids. Graves lists numerous sources for the stories and their variants. These sources include Herodotus, Pausanias, Apollodorus, and Hyginus, among many.
The Homeric Hymns were also helpful – especially in relation to the god Hermes – and Lewis Hyde’s Trickster Makes This World threw some light on the character of Odysseus.
The Chorus of Maids is a tribute to the use of such choruses in Greek drama. The convention of burlesquing the main action was present in the satyr plays performed before serious dramas.
Acknowledgements
Very many thanks to early readers Graeme Gibson, Jess Gibson, Ramsay and Eleanor Cook, Phyllida Lloyd, Jennifer Osti-Fonseca, Surya Bhattacharya, and John Cullen; to my British agents, Vivienne Schuster and Diana McKay, and to my North American agent, Phoebe Larmore; to Louise Dennys of Knopf Canada, who edited with esprit; to Heather Sangster, queen of the semi-colons, and to Arnulf Conradi, who sent thought-rays from a distance; to Sarah Cooper and Michael Bradley, for general support and having lunch; to Coleen Quinn, who keeps me in shape; to Gene Goldberg, fastest mouth on the phone; to Eileen Allen and to Melinda Dabaay; and to Arthur Gelgoot Associates. And to Jamie Byng of Canongate, who leapt out from behind a gorse bush in Scotland and talked me into it.
The Myths
“Canongate launches its series with small beautiful books by three wise women. Karen Armstrong provides a critical rationale for the project … In The Penelopiad Margaret Atwood plays Armstrong’s game with vigour and ingenuity … Jeanette Winterson, retelling in Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles the story about holding up the world, beautifully sympathises with the natal globe.”
Observer
“One of the most ambitious acts of mass story-telling in recent years, and one transcending racial and historical borders.”
Metro
“A feat of mythic proportions … far-reaching and ambitious.”
Los Angeles Times
“A feat even the gods would marvel at … a glittering pantheon of the most esteemed contemporary writers breathe bright golden light into the world’s classic tales.”
Vanity Fair
“With her succinct, thoughtfully elucidated A Short History of Myth, religious historian Karen Armstrong supplies the brilliant anchor work for a vast new series in which dozens of writers are refashioning myths … The first two novels in the series, Margaret Atwood’s Penelopiad and Jeanette Winterson’s Weight, offer provocative mythical recastings … this unprecedented undertaking is one for the ages.”
Elle
THE PENELOPIAD
Nominated for the inaugural 2005 Man Booker International Prize, which recognises one writer for his or her outstanding achievement in fiction, Margaret Atwood is the author of more than thirty-five internationally acclaimed works of fiction, poetry and critical essays. Her numerous awards include the Governor General’s Award for The Handmaid’s Tale, and the Giller Prize and Italian Il Premio Litterario Internazionale Mondello for Alias Grace. The Handmaid’s Tale, Cat’s Eye, Alias Grace and Oryx and Crake were all shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, which she won with The Blind Assassin. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, has been awarded the Norwegian Order of Literary Merit and the French Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and is a Foreign Honorary Member for Literature of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She lives in Toronto.
Also by Margaret Atwood
Fiction
Oryx and Crake (2003)
The Blind Assassin (2000)
Alias Grace (1996)
The Robber Bride (1993)
Good Bones (1992)
Wilderness Tips (1991)
Cat’s Eye (1988)
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)
Bluebeard’s Egg (1983)
Murder in the Dark (1983)
Bodily Harm (1981)
Life Before Man (1979)
Dancing Girls (1977)
Lady Oracle (1976)
Surfacing (1972)
The Edible Woman (1969)
For Children
Bashful Bob and Doleful Dorinda (2004)
Rude Ramsay and the Roaring Radishes (2003)
Princess Prunella and the Purple Peanut (1995)
For the Birds (1990)
Anna’s Pet [with Joyce Barkhouse] (1980)
Up in the Tree (1978)
Non-Fiction
Curious Pursuits (UK) (2005)
Writing with Intent: Essays, Reviews, Personal Prose:
1983–2005 (US) (2005)
Moving Targets: Writing with Intent 1984–2002 (2004)
Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing (2002)
Two Solicitudes: Conversations
[with Victor-Lévy Beaulieu] (1998)
Strange Things: The Malevolent North in Canadian
Literature (1996)
Second Words (1982)
; Days of the Rebels 1815–1840 (1977)
Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature (1972)
Poetry
Morning in the Burned House (1995)
Selected Poems II: Poems Selected and New 1976–1986
(1986)
Interlunar (1984)
True Stories (1981)
Two-Headed Poems (1978)
Selected Poems (1976)
You Are Happy (1974)
Power Politics (1971)
Procedures for Underground (1970)
The Journals of Susanna Moodie (1970)
The Animals in That Country (1968)
The Circle Game (1966)
Double Persephone (1961)
Myths are universal and timeless stories that reflect and shape our lives – they explore our desires, our fears, our longings, and provide narratives that remind us what it means to be human. The Myths series brings together some of the world’s finest writers, each of whom has retold a myth in a contemporary and memorable way. Authors in the series include: Chinua Achebe, Margaret Atwood, Karen Armstrong, AS Byatt, David Grossman, Milton Hatoum, Natsuo Kirino, Alexander McCall Smith, Tomás Eloy Martínez, Victor Pelevin, Ali Smith, Donna Tartt, Su Tong, Dubravka Ugresic and Jeanette Winterson.
Copyright
First published in Great Britain in 2005
by Canongate Books Ltd,
14 High Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1TE
This digital edition first published in 2008
by Canongate Books Ltd
Copyright © O.W. Toad Ltd, 2005
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available on
request from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 84767 358 9
www.meetatthegate.com
Table of Contents
Introduction
i A Low Art
ii The Chorus Line: A Rope-Jumping Rhyme
iii My Childhood
iv The Chorus Line: Kiddie Mourn, A Lament by the Maids
v Asphodel
vi My Marriage
vii The Scar
viii The Chorus Line: If I Was a Princess, A Popular Tune
ix The Trusted Cackle-Hen
x The Chorus Line: The Birth of Telemachus, An Idyll
xi Helen Ruins My Life
xii Waiting
xiii The Chorus Line: The Wily Sea Captain, A Sea Shanty
xiv The Suitors Stuff Their Faces
xv The Shroud
xvi Bad Dreams
xvii The Chorus Line: Dreamboats, A Ballad
xviii News of Helen
xix Yelp of Joy
xx Slanderous Gossip
xxi The Chorus Line: The Perils of Penelope, A Drama
xxii Helen Takes a Bath
xxiii Odysseus and Telemachus Snuff the Maids
xxiv The Chorus Line: An Anthropology Lecture
xxv Heart of Flint
xxvi The Chorus Line: The Trial of Odysseus, as Videotaped by the Maids
xxvii Home Life in Hades
xxviii The Chorus Line: We’re Walking Behind You, A Love Song
xxix Envoi
Notes
Acknowledgements
The Penelopiad Page 10