d explain why she lies abed so much weeping
and not knowing what to do.

" ... so does my doubtful heart toss to and fro whether
to bide beside my son and keep all here in safety--my
goods, my maids, and my great high-roofed house--and
thus revere my husband and _heed the public voice_, or
finally to follow some chief of the Achaiians who woos
me in my hall with countless gifts. My son, while but a
child and slack of understanding, _did not permit my
marrying_ and departing from my husband's home; but now
that he is grown and come to man's estate, he prays me
to go home again and leave the hall, so troubled is he
for that substance which the Achaiians waste."

If these words mean anything, they mean that what kept Penelope from
marrying again was not affection for her husband but the desire to
live up to the demands of "the public voice" and the fact that her
son--who, according to Greek usage, was her master--would not permit
her to do so. This, then, was the cause of that proverbial constancy!
But a darker shadow still is cast on her much-vaunted affection by her
cold and suspicious reception of her husband on his return. While the
dog recognized him at once and the swineherd was overjoyed, she, the
wife, held him aloof, fearing that he might be some man who had come
to cheat her! At first Odysseus thought she scorned him because he
"was foul and dressed in sorry clothes;" but even after he had bathed
and put on his princely attire she refused to embrace him, because she
wished to "prove her husband!" No wonder that her son declared that
her "heart is always harder than a stone," and that Odysseus himself
thus accosts her:

"Lady, a heart impenetrable beyond the sex of women the
dwellers on Olympus gave you. There is no other woman
of such stubborn spirit to stand off from the husband
who, after many grievous toils, came in the twentieth
year home to his native land. Come then, good nurse,
and make my bed, that I may lie alone. For certainly of
iron is the heart within her breast."

HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE

A much closer approximation to the modern ideal of conjugal love than
the attachment between Odysseus and Penelope with the "heart of iron,"
may be found in the scene describing Hector's leave-taking of
Andromache before he goes out to fight the Greeks, fearing he may
never return. The serving-women inform him that his