I’m the first to admit that mythology, folklore, fairy tales, etc have had a major influence in how I view the world. As a child, I devoured myth and fairy tales like no one’s business and practically had the Myth and Folklore shelf at my school library memorized. I based my Studio Art capstone project in college on a few of my favorite Greek myths, and I even managed to pull the topic into my Masters paper in grad school.
As a result, I find it absolutely fascinating that I can look back now and tie my love of fiber arts to my love of mythology. There’s more than one myth where some sort of fiber art comes into play and I love them all, but right now I want to talk about Penelope.
If you’re like me, you were first introduced to Penelope in high school, while reading Homer’s Odyssey. Don’t get me wrong, I love Odysseus’ twisty, tactical mind, but honestly? Penelope might have had him beat. If you’re not familiar with The Odyssesy, it’s the story of Odysseus’ adventures after the Trojan War. He took a slight detour that lasted 10 years and was a bit late getting home.
While Odysseus was off fighting the Trojans and coming up with gift horses, his wife, Penelope, was left at home in Ithaca to keep the homestead fires going and raise their son, Telemachus. This was fine and good…except for the bit where Odysseus took his sweet time coming back. A few years later, pretty much everyone else who’d gone off to war had returned, but no one had heard from Odysseus.
I figure Penelope was likely a bit peeved, but not too worried. She was married to Odysseus after all, and he was rather prone to weird hijinks on occasion (check out the story of how he was convinced to go to war, for an example), but mostly managed to keep himself out of trouble. At this point too, the Trojan War had gone on long enough, and Odysseus had been gone long enough, that her son was about adult age.
But Odysseus was still gone.
Some of the lords in the area started to notice this. Penelope was considered an attractive woman…and she was queen of Ithaca. If Odysseus never returned or was declared dead, well, you see where this is headed and never mind the fact that his son was approaching the age where he could take over running Ithaca. Being Ancient Greece, someone would have come up with a solution to that obstacle pretty quickly.
So the lords started visiting Ithaca (108 of them!), trying to woo Penelope. Penelope, however, was having none of this; she was reasonably certain that her husband was still alive, if unavoidably detained. Also she was rather fond of him and really didn’t want to marry one of the idiots camped out in her home.
I’m going to preface the rest of this by saying that Odysseus really didn’t deserve his wife. Really didn’t deserve her at all. Penelope, under the guise of being a dutiful daughter-in-law (which she totally was), said that she couldn’t possibly think of marrying any of them until she’d finished the shroud she was weaving for Odysseus’ father, Laertes. And the 108 suitors figure, eh, how long could that take? It’s just a shroud.
So, Penelope would weave during the day, taking her time about it and making sure she got it perfect. And at night, when everyone was sleeping, she’d unravel the work she’d just done. She does this every day for 3 years. THREE YEARS.
If you’re at all familiar with the fiber arts, be it weaving, crocheting, knitting, etc, you know how heart-wrenching and annoying it is to have to frog any amount of work you’ve done on a project. Unraveling a shroud nightly? For three years? That is some serious dedication. Also, those 108 suitors were unobservant idiots because it took one of Penelope’s maids spilling the secret before they even noticed something was up.
While Penelope might have been fighting with her wits and shuttle, she’s definitely no less a BAMF than any other determined woman stuck in the middle of Greek mythology. It takes a lot of concentration and focus to keep 108 mooching suitors from eating her out of house and home, decimating the estate, and making sure they aren’t at each other’s throats. She worked with the tools she had available to her, and isn’t that a lesson we should all take to heart?
The Tangled Clew 