The Suitors did not appear on the scene right away. For the first nine or ten years of Odysseus’s absence we knew where he was—he was at Troy—and we knew he was still alive. No, they didn’t start besieging the palace until hope had dwindled and was flickering out. First five came, then ten, then fifty the more there were, the more were attracted, each fearing to miss out on the perpetual feasting and the marriage lottery. They were like vultures when they spot a dead cow: one drops, then another, until finally every vulture for miles around is tearing up the carcass.

They simply showed up every day at the palace, and proclaimed themselves my guests, imposing upon me as their host. Then, taking advantage of my weakness and lack of manpower, they helped themselves to our livestock, butchering the animals themselves, roasting the flesh with the help of their servants, and ordering the maids about and pinching their bottoms as if they were in their own homes. It was astonishing the amount of food they could cram into themselves—they gorged as if their legs were hollow. Each one ate as if to outdo all the others at eating their goal was to wear down my resistance with the threat of impoverishment, so mountains of meat and hillocks of bread and rivers of wine vanished down their throats as if the earth had opened and swallowed everything down. They said they would continue in this manner until I

chose one of them as my new husband, so they punctuated their drunken parties and merrymaking with moronic speeches about my ravishing beauty and my excellence and wisdom.

I can’t pretend that I didn’t enjoy a certain amount of this. Everyone does; we all like to hear songs in our praise, even if we don’t believe them.

But I tried to view their antics as one might view a spectacle or a piece of buffoonery. What new similes might they employ? Which one would pretend, most convincingly, to swoon with rapture at the sight of me? Once in a while I would make an appearance in the hall where they were feasting—backed by two of my maids—just to watch them outdo themselves. Amphinomous usually won on the grounds of good manners, although he was far from being the most vigorous. I have to admit that I occasionally daydreamed about which one I would rather go to bed with, if it came to that.

Afterwards, the maids would tell me what pleasantries the Suitors were exchanging behind my back. They were well positioned to eavesdrop, as they were forced to help serve the meat and drink.

What did the Suitors have to say about me, among themselves? Here are a few samples.

First prize, a week in Penelope’s bed, second prize, two weeks in Penelope’s bed.

Close your eyes and they’re all the same just imagine she’s Helen, that’ll put bronze in your spear, ha ha!

When’s the old bitch going to make up her mind’.

Let’s murder the son, get him out of the way while he’s young the little bastard’s starting to get on my nerves.

What’s to stop one of us from just grabbing the old cow and making off with her? No, lads, that would be cheating too know our bargain whoever gets the prize gives out respectable gifts to the others, we’re agreed, right?

We’re all in this together, do or die. too do, she dies, because whoever wins has to fuck her to death, hahaha.

Sometimes I wondered whether the maids were making some of this up, out of high spirits or just to tease me. They seemed to enjoy the reports they brought, especially when I dissolved in tears and prayed to grey-eyed Athene either to bring

Odysseus back or put an end to my sufferings. Then they could dissolve in tears as well, and weep and wail, and bring me comforting drinks. It was a relief to their nerves.

Eurycleia was especially diligent in the reporting of malicious gossip, whether true or invented: most probably she was trying to harden my heart against the Suitors and their ardent pleas, so I would remain faithful to the very last gasp. She was always Odysseus’s biggest fan.

What could I do to stop these aristocratic young thugs? They were at the age when they were all swagger, so appeals to their generosity, attempts to reason with them, and threats of retribution alike had no effect. Not one would back down for fear the others would jeer at him and call him a coward.

Remonstrating with their parents did no good:

their families stood to gain by their behaviour.

Telemachus was too young to oppose them, and in any case he was only one and they were a hundred and twelve, or a hundred and eight, or a hundred and twenty it was hard to keep track of the number, they were so many. The men who might have been loyal to Odysseus had sailed off with him to Troy, and any of those remaining who might have taken my side were intimidated by the sheer force of numbers, and were afraid to speak up.

I knew it would do no good to try to eject my unwanted suitors, or to bar the palace doors against them. If I tried that, they’d turn really ugly and go on the rampage and snatch by force what they were attempting to win by persuasion. But I was the daughter of a Naiad; I remembered my mother’s advice to me. Behave like water, I told myself. Don’t try to oppose them. When they try to grasp you, slip through their fingers. Flow around them.

For this reason I pretended to view their wooing favourably, in theory. I even went so far as to encourage one, then another, and to send them secret messages. But, I told them, before choosing among them I had to be satisfied in my mind that Odysseus would never return.

XV.  The Shroud

Month by month the pressure on me increased. I spent whole days in my room—not the room I used to share with Odysseus, no, I couldn’t bear that, but in a room of my own in the women’s quarters. I would lie on my bed and weep, and wonder what on earth I should do. I certainly didn’t want to marry any of those mannerless young whelps. But my son, Telemachus, was growing up he was almost the same age as the Suitors, more or less and he was starting to look at me in an odd way, holding me responsible for the fact that his inheritance was being literally gobbled up.

How much easier for him it would be if I would just pack up and go back to my father, King Icarius, in Sparta. The chances of my doing that of my own free will were zero: I had no intention of being hurled into the sea a second time. Telemachus initially thought my return to the home palace would be a fine outcome from his point of view, but on second thought after he’d done the math he realised that a good part of the gold and silver in the palace would go back with me, as it had been my dowry. And if I stayed in Ithaca and married one of the noble puppies, that puppy would become the king, and his stepfather, and would have authority over him. Being ordered around by a lad no older than himself did not appeal.

Really, the best solution for him would have been a graceful death on my part, one for which he was in no way to blame. For if he did as Orestes had done but with no cause, unlike Orestes and murdered his mother, he would attract the Erinyes the dreaded Furies, snake-haired, dog-headed, bat winged and they would pursue him with their barking and hissing and their whips and scourges until they had driven him insane. And since he would have killed me in cold blood, and for the basest of motives the acquisition of wealth it would be impossible for him to obtain purification at any shrine, and he would be polluted with my blood until he died a horrible death in a state of raving madness.

A mother’s life is sacred. Even a badly behaved mother’s life is sacred witness my foul cousin Clytemnestra, adulteress, butcher of her husband, tormenter of her children and nobody said I was a badly behaved mother. But I did not appreciate the barrage of surly monosyllables and resentful glances I was getting from my own son.