We come now to the Odyssey, the second Homeric epic; and to its heroine, wise Penelope.

Nominally, we have left the Iliad behind by a space of several years. Troy had fallen, and the Greeks were homeward bound, fewer in number and sadder at heart than when the fleet had sailed ten years before. Some few of them reached home in safety. But for the most part, the return voyages were only accomplished with tremendous hardship and peril; and many who had escaped death at Troy found it at the hands of Poseidon, earth-shaking sea-god. Of proud Agamemnon, and the fate that awaited him in his palace at Mycenæ, we shall hear presently. We are concerned now with the wanderings of Odysseus, and how he won home at last to the faithful love of Penelope.

But after all, the connexion between the Iliad and the Odyssey is only nominal. The links between them, although they seem strong and real at first, do not in any sense unite the two poems. It is true that there is the imaginary relation of time; that the Odyssey relates the subsequent adventures of one of the heroes who actually fought at the siege of Troy; and, more important still, that it shows him to possess upon the whole the same qualities which he possessed in the Iliad. But when that is said, there remains the fact of a contrast between the poems which almost persuades us that in the Odyssey we are in a different world. This contrast is best seen in the antithesis between the two heroes of the poems; and indeed between the two great heroines too. In the Iliad, Achilles stands for physical beauty and strength, young enthusiasm and ardent courage. When Odysseus appears there, as he sometimes does, he is overshone by the splendour of Achilles. Although he is the brain of the enterprise, he is in quite a secondary place to the physical magnificence of the younger hero. When we come to the later poem, however, we find that intelligence has risen to the higher plane. Odysseus is now the hero—not, like Achilles, an ideal of bodily strength and beauty: not a man of wrath, flaming over the battlefield in vengeance for his friend: not merely a warrior, product of a warlike age. Odysseus is by no means lacking in courage; and he has not outgrown the need for war. But he has many other qualities besides, and his fighting is usually prompted by necessity.

It is significant that the character of Achilles is developed in conflict with the war-god, Ares; while Odysseus is whelmed in a ‘sea of troubles,’ literally heaped upon him by Poseidon. Struggling constantly against the rage of the elements, Odysseus becomes alert and cautious, patient and painstaking and resourceful: a great constructive energy, as contrasted with the destroying fury of Achilles. The poet’s epithet for Odysseus is ‘subtle’ as that for Achilles had been ‘swift’; and the emphasis is always laid upon his qualities of brain and nerve. He is not a very imposing figure, and has little physical beauty. When his friends would praise him, it is gifts of mind rather than of body to which they refer. He is ‘the just one’ who does no injury ‘as is the way of princes’; the kindly ruler, who is ‘like a father’ to help his people; the faithful husband who can flatter and cajole his goddess-gaoler, in desperate anxiety to be home with his dear wife; the loyal comrade who will risk the enchantments of Circe rather than forsake his men without an effort; the gracious master whose servants ‘mourn and pine’ because of his long absence. And all the way through the poem, in passages which are too numerous to quote, there is a running tribute to his wisdom. Zeus himself, with other gods and goddesses; kings and queens; nymphs, naiads and enchantresses; swineherds and domestic servants; soldiers and sailors; strangers and homefolk; friends and enemies, all add their word to the eulogium of his wit.

Now Penelope, who is the perfect mate for such a man as this, is for that very reason contrasted with Helen as strongly as her husband is contrasted with the hero of the Iliad. It is not merely that her personality is totally unlike Helen’s, although that is true. The contrast is rooted in something deeper—in the whole conception of the poet, the manner of life out of which the poem came, the theme of which it treats. In the Iliad we are quite literally moving amongst demi-gods. Helen, reputed daughter of Tyndareus, is really the child of Zeus; and Achilles has the nereid Thetis for his mother. Something of their divine origin clings to them, making them awful and magnificent. In all that they do and are they are greater than mere human folk. They move majestically, and they are not to be approached too nearly, or judged by the common standard, or compared with the ordinary race of men. Troy itself, to which their names cling, was a city built by gods.

But Odysseus and Penelope are frankly mortal; and in that one fact they approach nearer to us by many degrees. They are no longer colossal figures hovering, as it were, about the base of Mt. Olympus, and driven this way and that in the surge of Olympian quarrels. They are a man and woman, with their feet firmly planted upon the earth, and their affections rooted there too. They claim no kinship with the gods: they take no part in Olympian warfare: they have no care for the issues which are called great. Their story, reduced to its elements, is of the simplest kind: the call of dear home ties upon the man, the fidelity and prudence of the woman. And in this ‘touch of common things,’ Penelope becomes a much more real figure than Helen.

Of course that is not to say that Penelope is ‘real’ in the technical sense of the word. She is in fact almost as much a creature of romance as Helen is. But she appears before us as a living woman with human hopes and joys and sorrows; with human virtues too, and certain very human weaknesses. We can never regard the heroine of the Iliad just in this way. If we could, and if we dared to lift the veil which the poet always interposes between us and the character of Helen, it would stand revealed slight and trembling in its amiability: fatally soft, with no vein of essential strength. Now it is that essential strength which characterizes Penelope. The wooers realized it; and Antinous made it the chief point of his defence:

There is a significant silence about Penelope’s beauty; and she has not eternal youth as Helen has. But when we have seen her eyes light upon her boy Telemachus, and the radiance of her face as the strange old beggarman told her about her husband, we shall waive the question of æsthetics. We shall be prepared to maintain Penelope’s beauty against all-comers; and we shall not be much concerned that the poet rather avoids the subject. For he would not dream of a soul which did not know that sweetness and dignity and a gentle heart, grief endured patiently and love unswerving, would make for themselves a worthy habitation. Beside Helen’s exquisite fairness, Penelope would seem a little faded; and her sweet gravity would be almost a reproach. She cannot compare for one moment with Calypso, as Odysseus had to confess when the goddess blamed him for his homesickness:

The keynote of the Odyssey is struck here; and here too we may find a hint of all that Penelope means. The thought of home is to dominate the poem, as something so dear and sacred that innumerable toils are suffered and infinite perils undergone to win back to it. And this shining ideal of home is to be incarnate in Penelope. She is to represent in her own person all that sweetens and comforts life: all the domestic virtues which establish and perpetuate it. Thus, beside Helen as the ideal of beauty—of physical perfection—Penelope stands as the ideal of mental and moral worth.

Telemachus, whom Odysseus had left at home as a baby twenty years before, had been sent by Athena to seek his father. The goddess had appeared to him as he sat in his father’s hall in Ithaca, lowering upon those unbidden guests who were his mother’s suitors. She had asked what the unseemly revel might mean; and he had told of the long absence of his father.

The goddess counselled immediate action—to go and seek Odysseus; and while the minstrel sang to the carousing suitors, Telemachus inwardly resolved that he would set sail as soon as might be for Pylos and Sparta, whither Athena directed him for tidings of his father. But he knew that he must act quietly; and above all, that his purpose must be kept a secret from his mother. She would certainly prevent his going, did she know, fearing to lose son as well as husband.

Meantime, as he pondered the matter, Penelope was listening from her lofty bower to the minstrel’s song in the hall below. He sang of the return of the heroes from Troy; and the words reawakened in her the old pain of longing for her husband. At last she could not bear to hear it any longer:

She is a touching figure, as she ventures out among the revellers and begs the old man to change the theme of his lay. But Telemachus was not in the mood to see the pathos of the scene. The charge that Athena had laid on him had suddenly given him his manhood; and in the new sense of responsibility, he spoke a little harshly to his mother, bidding her go back to her loom and housewifery.

While his mother slept, Telemachus lay awake in his own inner room revolving plans whereby to carry out the command of Athena. He determined first to confront the suitors publicly, before a formal assembly of the Ithacans, and charge them with their insolence and riotous greed. So, with the first light of morning, he summoned the people to a meeting in the market-place, and called upon the wooers to cease their persecution of his mother and quit his house. Antinous, answering haughtily for them all, invented a coward’s excuses for their conduct. Penelope was to blame, he said, for she would not decide between them; but constantly put them off with various cunning devices. With one pretext alone—that of weaving a shroud for Icarius—she had kept them in suspense for many months.

Therefore, declared Antinous, because Penelope had deceived them in this manner, they would not depart until she had chosen a husband from among them. Telemachus might spare his protests; indeed, he would be better advised to coerce his mother, since they were determined to remain in his house and devour his substance, until Penelope should yield. But Telemachus was a child no longer, and could not be threatened with impunity. And to their base suggestion that he should favour them against his mother, he gave a spirited reply. Nothing should induce him to give Penelope in marriage against her will:

The assembly broke up; and Telemachus hastily fitted out a ship and sailed to seek Odysseus, all unknown to Penelope. The suitors continued their carousals day after day, rioting and making merry, in feigned contempt of Telemachus and his quest. But when after a time he did not return, they grew uneasy. They had jeered at his threats of vengeance, deeming him an untried boy; but who knew what might happen now, since he had sailed with a crew of the stoutest fellows in the island? Might he not return with help and drive them out? Antinous took counsel with his friends, and determined on a murderous plan. They would man a ship, sail after Telemachus, and lie in wait for his return, between the islands of Ithaca and Samé; and that should be the last cruise that Telemachus should make.

Meanwhile Penelope, busy with her household duties, believed her son to be away with the flocks. She stayed within the women’s rooms; and except for the clamour of the wooers, or the occasional song of the minstrel, nothing came to her ears. But now Medon the herald heard of the plot which was afoot against his young master, and came to warn her of it. She greeted him with a bitter question. Had he come to order her maids to spread the banquet for the suitors? Would that they might never feast again! Had they not shame to deal so unjustly with her absent husband—he who had always dealt justly with them, who had never in word or deed done injury to any? But Medon had a harder thing yet to say; and as gently as might be, he told her of the going of Telemachus and of the suitors’ plot to slay him.

Penelope is overwhelmed with grief, and Medon’s explanation of her son’s errand does not soothe her. She believes that he is lost to her for ever, like his father; and when the herald has left her, she throws herself down upon the floor of her room, wailing:

She casts about in her mind as to how she may save her son; and it seems to her best to send a trusty messenger to the father of Odysseus, for help and counsel. But the old nurse Euryclea gives good advice. She confesses that she had known of the departure of Telemachus; but he had sworn her with a great oath not to reveal it. It is of no use to mourn about it; and since they can do nothing to bring him back, the better way is to go and supplicate their guardian goddess, Athena, the Maid of Zeus, for his safety. For her part, she believes that Telemachus will not be forsaken in his need. Penelope wisely takes the advice of the old nurse. She bathes, puts on clean raiment, and taking in her hand an offering of barley-flour, she ascends to her own chamber and makes supplication to Athena:

Even while Penelope prayed, Athena was busy on her behalf; and was bringing home to her both husband and son. Odysseus she had convoyed safely to Ithaca, and was now leading him in disguise to the swineherd’s cottage. And to Telemachus she had shown a way to escape the murderous suitors, and was bringing him swiftly to the father whom he had never seen. Of their meeting, and of their cunning plan for vengeance on the suitors, it would take too long to tell. But in the morning, Penelope was gladdened by the return of her son; and a little later, a poor old beggar (no other than Odysseus himself) came among the suitors as they sat in the hall. They glowered upon him angrily, and proud Antinous set the vagabond Irus to fight him, for their sport. But the old beggar had unexpected strength, and Irus was defeated. Whereon the suitors began to bait Odysseus with jeers and taunts; and one hurled a stool at him. At this impious deed, the guests were horrified; and Penelope, hearing of it where she sat among her women, longed to make amends to the old man for the cruel act. She descended into the great hall, and spoke reprovingly to Telemachus for allowing one who had sought the shelter of their home to be treated so basely.

But Telemachus hugged his secret knowledge of the beggar’s identity, and kept silence, while Penelope returned to her bower. The hall was cleared at last, and then he and his father laid their plans for the slaying of the suitors on the following day. The noisy crew had all gone to rest; and when Odysseus and his son had agreed upon a plan of action, Telemachus followed them, leaving his father alone in the great hall. It was a moment for which Penelope had been waiting; and she came down from her room again, to question the beggar of his wanderings. There was no light in the hall but that of the fire; and she ordered a cushioned chair to be brought near, so that the old man might sit while she talked with him.

Cunning Odysseus evaded her question. She might ask him anything but that, he said; for it gave him too much sorrow to think of his country and his race. Penelope was only too willing to be turned aside, burning as she was to ask for news of Odysseus. So she told the old man of her husband, and of his sailing for Troy, and of how she was pining for his return.

She told him about the wooers, and the device of the shroud, which gained her three years’ respite. But a treacherous servant had betrayed her, and she had been compelled to finish her task.

But having related so much of her own story, she asked again for the old man’s name and race; and above all, would not he say whether he had seen or heard aught of her husband? Odysseus needed all his subtlety now, as he invented a tale of Crete and the great city of Cnossos, and Minos the king who was his ancestor; and how on one occasion her husband had indeed taken shelter with him there.

There was one thing more which Odysseus must do before he could reveal himself; and meantime he could only comfort Penelope by assuring her that her husband still lived and was even now on his way home to her. She shook her head sadly: that was too good to believe: the kind old man was only trying to comfort her. But it was time for him to go to bed; and because he disliked the giddy young serving-maids, Penelope called up the old nurse Euryclea, and bade her wash the beggar’s feet with as much care as if he were her master returned at last. That he was indeed her master the nurse divined the instant that her fingers touched an old scar upon his foot. But Odysseus hastily whispered her to say nothing of what she had discovered; and soon the palace was asleep, with the old beggar stretched upon sheepskins in the forecourt.

At dawn next morning Odysseus awoke, and prayed to Zeus to help him in the great deed that he was to do that day. Soon the suitors were astir, and the usual preparations were begun for the banquet. Penelope herself came down from her room, to watch what would happen. For, as she had told the beggar the night before, she could not withhold her decision any longer. This day she must choose between the suitors. And because they were all alike hateful to her she would decide the question by a test: she would consent to take for her husband that man who could shoot with Odysseus’ bow.

She went up into the high Treasure-chamber, and sorrowfully took down the great bow that a friend in Sparta had given to Odysseus long ago. She carried it forth among the suitors; and Telemachus, who was eager for the contest which he knew would end for them in a shameful death, swiftly set up the twelve axes in a row, through which they were to shoot. Odysseus leaned silently against the door-post, still in his beggar’s disguise; whilst one after another of the suitors tried to bend the bow. But one after another miserably failed to bend it, although a great fire was lit and a cake of lard was brought to make the bow supple. At last, in rage and despair, they had to abandon the attempt; and then Odysseus humbly asked if he might be allowed to try. This was a pre-arranged signal between father and son; and in the instant outcry that arose at the old man’s presumption, Penelope and her maids were led away. Then Odysseus, with his son and two faithful serving-men who were in the secret, made a bold attack upon the suitors. They were greatly outnumbered, but their plans had been laid warily, and Athena was on their side. Through a grim struggle they prevailed at last, and did not cease until vengeance was complete and every evil suitor had been slain. But Penelope, although she heard the horrible din in the hall below, had no idea of its cause. It was probably, she thought, another of the frequent brawls between these tumultuous wooers. She was still completely ignorant of Odysseus’s return; and when the old nurse came running to her with the joyful news, she believed her to be mad. She had looked so long and so despairingly for this event that now it had come she was utterly incredulous. Even when she heard all the ghastly story of the slaying of the suitors, and came into the hall where her husband stood awaiting her, she could not realize that it was he.

Telemachus could not comprehend the reason for his mother’s silence, and broke into impulsive chiding. He could not see that the very steadfastness of her nature would not allow her to be lightly convinced.

Truly, it is Greek meeting Greek, in this encounter between the wit of Penelope and that of the man she dare not hope is really her husband. Odysseus grows angry at last, and that gives the victory to his wife. For when he orders that a bed shall be made for him apart, she says cunningly to the maid:

Now Odysseus had built the bed himself, literally round the trunk of a standing tree; and by this token she is trying him. In his answer she perceives that he truly is her husband, for none but he could know how wonderfully their bed was built.

Odysseus is indignant at the suggestion that his wonderful handiwork has been destroyed; but Penelope does not mind about his anger, for she is convinced at last that he is indeed her husband.

Odysseus’s anger quickly melts as he clasps his sweet wife in his arms; and so we may leave Penelope in her happiness. Homer has one word more to say about her, however. It occurs, with apparent naïveté, almost like a curious little afterthought, in the last book of the poem. But there is really exquisite art in it. The souls of the suitors have gone wailing on their way to the World of the Dead; and there they meet the great Greek heroes who died at Troy. There too, they meet the haughty spirit of King Agamemnon, murdered by his wife on his return to Mycenæ. To him the suitors tell their tale of the faithful wife of Odysseus, and their ignominious end. And then from Agamemnon’s lips, bitterly contrasting his wife with Penelope, falls what is perhaps the noblest and most impressive tribute to her: