The Penelopiad (7 page)

At this point I feel I must address the various items of slanderous gossip that have been going the rounds for the past two or three thousand years. These stories are completely untrue. Many have said that there’s no smoke without fire, but that is a fatuous argument. We’ve all heard rumours that later proved to be entirely groundless, and so it is with these rumours about me.

The charges concern my sexual conduct. It is alleged, for instance, that I slept with Amphinomus, the politest of the Suitors. The songs say I found his conversation agreeable, or more agreeable than that of the others, and this is true; but it’s a long jump from there into bed. It’s also true that I led the Suitors on and made private promises to some of them, but this was a matter of policy. Among other things, I used my supposed encouragement
to extract expensive gifts from them – scant return for everything they’d eaten and wasted – and I draw your attention to the fact that Odysseus himself witnessed and approved of my action.

The more outrageous versions have it that I slept with all of the Suitors, one after another – over a hundred of them – and then gave birth to the Great God Pan. Who could believe such a monstrous tale? Some songs aren’t worth the breath expended on them.

Various commentators have cited my mother-in-law, Anticleia, who said nothing about the Suitors when Odysseus spoke to her spirit on the Island of the Dead. Her silence is taken as proof: if she’d mentioned the Suitors at all, they say, she would have had to mention my infidelity as well. Maybe she did mean to plant a toxic seed in the mind of Odysseus, but you already know about her attitude towards me. It would have been her final acid touch.

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.

Presented by: The Maids

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.

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.