Penelope uses her loom in an interesting way; in weaving a tapestry or fabric, the threads stretched lengthwise on the loom are called the warp, and the threads woven across the warp are called the woof. Stretched across the backbone or the “warp” of The Odyssey, are Penelope’s intelligence and creativity. The woof can only be supplied by time.
Every thought she possesses in her daily activity of weaving becomes embellished within the design of the fabric. Since she prolongs time with the act of weaving and unweaving, the shroud she creates for the hero Laertes becomes a veil, which not only provides her with protection, but also acts a device of divination.
As she weaves, she is concentrating on her love for Odysseus. The tenderness and effort she places into her work make it beautiful, but the thoughts and visions she has as her fingers deftly move across the loom make it magical. She goes into a trance-like state and is able to tap into Odysseus’ state of being. She senses that he is alive. Not only that, but she experiences portions of his journey with him. This provides an explanation to the phenomena of repetition in the pattern of Odysseus’ wanderings.
In books IX, X, and XII Odysseus gives a detailed account of his journey. Each book poses a three-fold challenge to the hero. The challenges are; recklessness, cannibalism/monsters, and temptation/seduction. These are the threads, which provide the “woof” for Penelope’s fabric. We can visualize the minute details of Odysseus’ adventure as threads of contrasting shades of color that when united together, form strikingly beautiful designs.
Odysseus is in a liminal situation. He has moved beyond the boundary that he once strove to defend, to an unknown world of mysticism where he has no control. He is now trying to get back to a stable domestic life and the role, which makes him who he is. He exists somewhere between the world of action and the world of thought.
Within The Odyssey, explicit interaction exists between past and future, human and divine, tradition and mysticism. Within this chaos exists a connection between Odysseus and Penelope. She is the weaver not only of her life and history, but also of Odysseus’ life and history. Afterall, who is he if not her lover and life partner?
Yet, when we get our first glimpse of Odysseus his very existence is threatened. As the sole survivor, guilt has paralyzed him. He is trapped on the island of Ogygia with the goddess Calypso. She desires him to stay with her and become her husband. In return, she offers immortality. Kleos, everlasting glory and undying fame would be his, but at what cost?
Calypso’s very name literally translates as “she who buries”. He would be immortal, but what she offered was a detached, “embalmed” state of immortality. Nevertheless, Odysseus stayed with Calypso for seven years until Zeus sends the messenger Hermes to request that Odysseus be sent on his way.
The lives of Odysseus and Penelope parallel each other in that they were both forced to do something against their will. For Penelope, it was when her cunning ploy of weaving and unraveling of Laertes’ shroud was discovered by a servant and revealed to the suitors. “So, against her will and by force, she had to finish it” (II. 110). For Odysseus, it was when he was on the island of Calypso. He describes “days sitting on the seashore, and his eyes were never wiped dry of tears,” how “the sweet lifetime was draining out of him, as he wept for a way home” (V. 151-53). He also described how during the nights, “he would lie beside her, of necessity, in the hollow caverns, against his will” (V. 154-55). For each of them, this moment of “being forced” in reality, was fate rapping at the door, signifying changes soon to come.
And so begins the hero’s journey home.
Beginning in Book IX the thread of recklessness occurs when Odysseus talks about his transgressions against the Kikonians. Odysseus freely admits to Alkinoos, “I sacked their city and killed their people, and out of their city taking their wives and many possessions…” (IX. 40-41). A battle ensued as the Kikonians fought back to avenge their loss. As a result, six men from each of Odysseus’ twelve ships were killed.
Next, they landed in the country of the Lotus-Eaters. Here we see the thread of temptation. These Lotus-Eaters tempted Odysseus’ men with the flowering plant. Although the threat posed by the Lotus-Eaters was not mortal, it was dangerous because “… any of them who ate the honey-sweet fruit of the lotus was unwilling to take any message back, or to go away, but they wanted to stay there with the lotus-eating people, feeding on lotus, and forget the way home” (IX. 94-97).
After pulling his men away, they came upon the country of the Cyclops where the threat of cannibalism ensued. The Cyclops scooped men up two at a time and prepared them for dinner. Odysseus lost six men to his monstrous appetite.
After they had made their escape from the dreadful Cyclops, Odysseus yells and taunts him. In response, “he broke away a peak of a great mountain and let it fly” (IX. 481), forcing Odysseus and all his men back on shore. His taunting incomplete, Odysseus waits and “when we had cut up the sea to twice the previous distance, I again started to call the Cyclops…” (IX. 491-92). At this point Cyclopes calls out to Poseidon, a prayer that Odysseus may never reach home. “Then for a second time lifting a stone far greater he whirled it and threw…” (IX. 537), this second time the rock pushes them forward, onto the island rather than back. I believe that the back and forth motion in addition to their eventual success reaching the other shore was in part due to the motion of Penelope’s loom.
In book X, we again see the thread of recklessness when, very close to home, the crew’s mistrust of Odysseus causes them to open the gift of winds given by Aiolos. As a result of this folly, they are blown back to the Aiolian island. Upon learning that Aiolos will have no more to do with them because he believes them to be vexed by an evil spirit, they sail onward to the land of the Laistrygones.
This was a land of man-eating giants, where Odysseus suffered his most devastating loss. In an attempt to escape certain death, all but one ship from his fleet of twelve was destroyed.
From there, Odysseus sails onward to the island of Aiaia, home of the dread goddess Circe who represents the challenge of temptation. After transforming half of his crew into pigs, Odysseus cunningly resists her magic and is invited into her bed. He asks her transform his friends back into the men they once were and they stay with her, feasting and drinking wine for one year.
The three fold challenge is again witnessed in book XII, with the first pattern of temptation being presented by the Sirens, described by Circe as “enchanters of all mankind” (XII.39-40). They speak directly to Odysseus’ pride and attempt to lure him with the promise of esoteric knowledge:
Come this way, honored Odysseus, great glory of the Achaians,
and stay your ship, so that you can listen here to our singing:
for no one else has ever sailed past this place in his black ship
until he has listened to the honey-sweet voice that issues from our lips;
then goes on, well pleased, knowing more than ever he did; for we know
everything…
(XII.184-189)
The next challenge in book XII came in the form of Skylla and Charybdis, who represent the pattern of violence and cannibalism within the poem. As Odysseus recalls, “Skylla out of the hollow vessel snatched six of my companions, the best of them for strength and hands’ work” (XII. 245-46). He describes the men gasping and struggling as they were hoisted in the air until, “right in her doorway she ate them up” (XII. 256).
Maneuvering around Charybdis also proved to be a precarious task, yet Odysseus somehow managed to pass through these dangers and move onward to the island of Helios. It is here where the theme of recklessness is again woven into the poem. Odysseus had been warned by the prophet, Teiresias as well as by the goddess Circe, many times to avoid this island, yet the mutinous spirit of Odysseus’ men again forced them into folly.
Odysseus made an attempt to avoid any reckless action by making his companions swear to an oath that they would not kill any of the cattle or sheep. Unfortunately, circumstances were stacked against them and their provisions soon ran out. When Odysseus lay sleeping, the men assented. “At once, cutting out from near at hand the best of Helios’ cattle” (XII. 353-54). This devious transgression had its repercussions when a furious Helios complained to Zeus and threatened to “go down to Hades’ and give my light to the dead men” (XII. 383). Zeus, in turn struck the ship down with a bolt of lightening, smashing it to pieces. Odysseus recalls, “my men were thrown in the water, and bobbing like sea crows they were washed away on the running waves…and the god took away their homecoming” (XII, 417-19).
But god did not take away Odysseus’ homecoming. The goddess Calypso rescues him as he nakedly clings for life upon her shore. Wounded and weary with grief, he stays with Calypso until he is again strong, and it is the will of the gods that he return home.
As Anne Armory discusses in her essay, “The Reunion of Odysseus and Penelope”, “at book XIX two main threads of The Odyssey merge, and the action begins to quicken toward its climax” (p.100). At last Odysseus does find his way home to his loving and faithful wife.
All is set into motion at the time when Penelope displays her miraculous weaving. “She had washed it, and it shone like the sun or moon” (XXIV. 148). Penelope’s weaving was an accumulation of her and Odysseus’ tiny threads of experience. In the end it became an epic tale all it’s own, a striking testimony of the paths their hearts had taken and how they found their way back home to each other.