Dr H Linscott, London
Homer’s Odyssey is a poem that deals with epic themes, but looks at them through the contrasting lenses of both male and female characters whose locations, roles and language are contrasted and brought together throughout the poem. The place of women in the domestic sphere is especially demonstrated through characters like Nausicaa (Book 6) emphasising the place of marriage in society and even the witch Circe being depicted weaving and singing (Book 10). However, the woman at the centre of the epic problematises the role of the feminine in Odysseus’ household and this is exploited by Homer to increase the drama of the situation she finds herself in and present challenges to his characters. One of the techniques that Homer employs to achieve this is to directly contrast her gender with those around her: from the eager suitors to the great heroes that populate her family history, she lives in a world of men. Homer’s use of grammatical gender therefore makes her stand out from this crowd, throwing her into conflict with the suitors and showing her to be a proud and defiant leader of Odysseus’ house in his absence.
One of Penelope’s acts of defiance is to use her womanly skills and the expectations around her to delay her inevitable wedding by spending three years weaving a shroud for her father in law Laertes:
κοῦροι ἐμοὶ μνηστῆρες, ἐπεὶ θάνε δῖος Ὀδυσσεύς,
μίμνετ' ἐπειγόμενοι τὸν ἐμὸν γάμον, εἰς ὅ κε φᾶρος
ἐκτελέσω, μή μοι μεταμώνια νήματ' ὄληται,
Λαέρτῃ ἥρωι ταφήιον, εἰς ὅτε κέν μιν
μοῖρ' ὀλοὴ καθέλῃσι τανηλεγέος θανάτοιο,
μή τίς μοι κατὰ δῆμον Ἀχαιϊάδων νεμεσήσῃ.
αἴ κεν ἄτερ σπείρου κεῖται πολλὰ κτεατίσσας .
Young men, my suitors, since godlike Odysseus has died,
wait, though you are eager for my wedding, until I can complete
this cloth, lest my weaving be ruined and in vain,
a burial cloth for hero Laertes, for the time when
grievous fate of death that brings long woe, takes him down,
lest any Achaean woman throughout the kingdom resent me,
should he who won many things lie without a shroud.'
Od.2.96-102
The tale of Penelope’s deception is repeated twice, using many of the same formulas by Penelope herself at 19.141-161 to Odysseus in his guise as a beggar and by the spirits of the suitors at 24.125-46 as they explain to the heroes who have died the reason for their own journey to the underworld. In her quoted speech, Penelope labours the expectations upon her to complete this work, citing the great works of Laertes that merit the honour of a shroud for his burial (102), but also the repercussions (νεμεσήσῃ) that will come from the ‘daughters of the Achaeans’ Ἀχαιϊάδων (101)1.
Here, grammatical gender is used to show the contrast between the hero Laertes who is from the same masculine world that the suitors inhabit and whom we would expect
them to respect, but also the feminine world that Penelope offers a link to. Among the women of Ithaca, there is a separate set of expectations and failure to meet these will be damaging to her reputation, a rare glimpse of the social pressure that she faces not just from the suitors and her husband’s heroic ancestry, but also from the community of women that she is also a part of. However, in this moment, these pressures are turned by Penelope to her advantage, as she insists that these competing forces align for her and compel her to keep weaving, even as she unpicks the work each night.
Expectations are also at the heart of the reasons Telemachus gives for why he cannot just send her away to live with her father as the suitors demand (2.113-14):
τὸν δ' αὖ Τηλέμαχος πεπνυμένος ἀντίον ηὔδα:
Ἀντίνο', οὔ πως ἔστι δόμων ἀέκουσαν ἀπῶσαι
ἥ μ' ἔτεχ', ἥ μ' ἔθρεψε: πατὴρ δ' ἐμὸς ἄλλοθι γαίης,
ζώει ὅ γ' ἦ τέθνηκε: κακὸν δέ με πόλλ' ἀποτίνειν
Ἰκαρίῳ, αἴ κ' αὐτὸς ἑκὼν ἀπὸ μητέρα πέμψω.
ἐκ γὰρ τοῦ πατρὸς κακὰ πείσομαι, ἄλλα δὲ δαίμων
δώσει, ἐπεὶ μήτηρ στυγερὰς ἀρήσετ' ἐρινῦς
οἴκου ἀπερχομένη: νέμεσις δέ μοι ἐξ ἀνθρώπων
ἔσσεται: ὣς οὐ τοῦτον ἐγώ ποτε μῦθον ἐνίψω.
Astute Telemachus said back to him in turn:
"Antinous, it's not possible to drive away unwilling from our home
she who bore me, she who raised me. My father, is elsewhere on earth alive or dead. It would be bad, for me to pay much back
to Icarius, if I myself of my free will sent my mother back.
For I'll suffer evils from her father, and a divinity will give me others,
after my mother has prayed to the loathsome Furies
when she leaves our house. There'll be righteous anger
for me from men. So, I'll never speak this command to her.
Od.2.129-37
Not only does he talk of the wrath of Icarius and the need to return his mother’s dowry, which would pass to him at her death if she remains in his home, but there are also mentions of the hold that a mother holds over her son. The repetitive use of the feminine relative pronoun at line 131 ἥ μ' ἔτεχ', ἥ μ' ἔθρεψε (she who bore me, she who raised me) really emphasises her importance to him and the shame he would feel at sending her away. This takes on especial significance when we remember that he has grown up in a fatherless household, reminding us that it was his mother alone who, after the pains of childbirth, raised him. Homer’s use of feminine singular pronouns therefore underlines not only the tight bond he has with his mother, but also the way that she was the only parent he has ever known.
Moreover, we also get an indication of the power that women can wield2 by praying to those female avenging spirits: the Erinyes (Furies). Male and female power both command respect here and can both be dangerous for Telemachus, affecting his wealth,
reputation, safety and sanity. However the νέμεσις (nemesis) that will come from the world of men is just that: from men (ἐξ ἀνθρώπων - ex anthropon), but the power that Penelope has is to summon the righteous anger of a divinity (δαίμων) and thus all the more to be feared. The worlds of male and female are brought together again here, but contrasted using the genders of the powers that Telemachus fears: the male power of humankind, but the divine retribution of Penelope’s righteous curse and the avenging Erinyes.
The ultimate coming together of male and female comes in Book 23 when Penelope having deceived her husband into revealing the secret of how their marriage bed is built into the tree at the centre of their house, finally gives into her recognition of him. Odysseus and Penelope come together in a shared outpouring of emotion and Homer especially plays on the interaction of male and female in this simile:
ὣς φάτο, τῷ δ'ἔτι μᾶλλον ὑφ' ἵμερον ὦρσε γόοιο:
κλαῖε δ' ἔχων ἄλοχον θυμαρέα, κέδν' εἰδυῖαν.
ὡς δ' ὅτ' ἂν ἀσπάσιος γῆ νηχομένοισι φανήῃ,
ὧν τε Ποσειδάων εὐεργέα νῆ' ἐνὶ πόντῳ
ῥαίσῃ, ἐπειγομένην ἀνέμῳ καὶ κύματι πηγῷ:
παῦροι δ' ἐξέφυγον πολιῆς ἁλὸς ἤπειρόνδε
νηχόμενοι, πολλὴ δὲ περὶ χροῒ τέτροφεν ἅλμη,
ἀσπάσιοι δ' ἐπέβαν γαίης, κακότητα φυγόντες:
So said she, and she incited even more in him the desire for weeping.
He held his wife, his delightful, true-hearted wife, and wept.
As when land appears, welcome, to swimmers
whose well-made ship Poseidon wrecks upon the sea,
pressed hard by wind and mighty wave,
and a few escape from the grey sea to the mainland,
by swimming, and much sea scum thickens around their flesh,
and they gladly step upon the land, escaped from misfortune,
Od.23.231-38
While Penelope’s outpouring of emotion is the focus of this scene, the masculine participle ἔχων shows that it is Odysseus that is the subject in line 232 ‘holding his wife, he wept’ (κλαῖε δ' ἔχων ἄλοχον). This makes the subsequent simile seem rather odd: why compare Odysseus to a shipwrecked sailor? He is a shipwrecked sailor! All however becomes clear in the following two lines:
ὣς ἄρα τῇ ἀσπαστὸς ἔην πόσις εἰσοροώσῃ,
δειρῆς δ' οὔ πω πάμπαν ἀφίετο πήχεε λευκώ.
that welcome was her husband to her as she beheld him,
and she'd wouldn't at all free her white arms from his neck.
Od.23.239-240
The feminine article τῇ ‘to her’ is the first indication that we get that it is Penelope who is being compared to a mariner cast adrift, bringing her yet closer to Odysseus. Her situation is analogous to his and, as they’re united, he is her safe homeland as she is his. In this place
near the end of the poem, we are reminded of how similar her trials at home have been to the ones Odysseus faced at sea, longing for his return and fending off the mighty forces of social expectation and the gluttonous excess of the suitors. This time it is Homer himself who has deceived us, leading us to believe that it is a simile about Odysseus, but manipulating grammatical gender to bring him and Penelope together and to intertwine their contrasting trials in our imaginations.
Homer’s manipulation of grammatical gender is an important tool in this poem and serves both to heighten the contrast between Penelope and her feminine world with its different pressures, powers and expectations, with that of men like Telemachus, Odysseus and the suitors. The conflict that Homer throws her into and heightens by these subtle inflections of language really emphasises her heroism and cunning in her defiance of the suitors and manipulation of social expectations. The end of the poem wonderfully brings them together and reminds us not only of the contrasts between male and female, domesticity and adventure, but also of how human spirit and endurance is a constant theme of the poem, no matter which of the main characters Homer is putting the focus on and regardless of gender.
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1. This is in contrast to the formulaic ‘sons of the Achaeans’ (υἱες Ἀχαιων) used to refer to the leaders of the army that is attacking Troy
2. The power to use magic for both good (Helen in Od.4.219-34) and ill (Circe in Od.10.233-240) is also particularly associated with women in the Odyssey, with their powers to manipulate the mind and with cunning at least equal to that of the hero Odysseus.
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