Avoiding the advances of many
Weaving the shroud of a living parent by day
Undoing a part of it by night
Will they be able to string the most rigid of bows
Throw an arrow through twelve axes?
Will the Gods intervene... will they not?
Living in fear each day praying
In a story distraught with affairs and liaisons, Penelope turned out to be a stellar example of Fidelity.
ReplyDeleteOne of the most respected and strong women of the Greek mythology, as a cousin of Helen of Troy, Penelope was a very beautiful lady married to Odysseus, the King of Ithaca. Penelope waited almost twenty years for her husband's return from the war while suitors barged on her door pressuring her for marriage.
To avoid these suitors, she kept a condition that she would choose one amongst them once she had prepared the burial shroud for her beloved father-in-law (who happened to still be living). She wove it by day in front of her suitors and then undid a part of it by night to delay her decision.
Finally when her suitors caught onto this trick of hers, she kept another condition wherein she would marry the person who would string Odysseus's rigid bow and shoot an arrow through twelve axe shafts. Penelope knew that only her husband was capable of this feat. But still there is a fear in her and she prays each day for the Gods to bring back her husband and save her from the fate that seems so unavoidable.
"I may not be brave or strong or smart, but somewhere in my secret heart I know - Love will find a way.
Like dark turning into day, somehow we'll come through"