Years after Odysseus left, the suitors came crowding in. They were men pressing Penelope to marry again. She did not refuse outright but set one condition.
“First I must weave a shroud for my father in law Laertes. When he dies this cloth will bury him. When it is finished I will decide about marrying.”
The Suitors Press Her
The reason she gave was duty to a father in law. The suitors could not openly block that duty, and so the days at the loom began.
By day she wove where everyone could see. They all watched the cloth grow a little at a time and wondered when it would be done.
The Lamp Lit at Night
But at night Penelope secretly lit a lamp. She unpicked back into thread as much as she had woven that day, and the next day it looked again as though she were starting over.
Only a few maids knew this secret. The day and the night were telling different stories, and so one year passed, and two, and three.
The Night She Was Caught
One maid was intimate with one of the suitors. She let the secret slip, and the suitors kept watch through the night and caught her at it.
The cloth she was unpicking lay open under the lamp. Penelope could hide it no longer, and in the end she wove the rest and finished the shroud.
Today, the Same Kind of Wisdom
Even after the cloth was done she was in no hurry to marry. She found new reasons and went on buying time, and even Antinous had to grant her this much cunning.
The cunning of Odysseus shines as quickness in the moment. The giant undone by a made up name, the moly carried into a witch’s house. The cunning of Penelope shines differently.
It was the patience of fingertips repeating the same work every night for three years. There is wisdom that does not show, alongside wisdom that does.
There was a person who held out at sea and a person who held out in a palace. Without knowing it of each other, the two were using the same kind of wisdom.