PENELOPE, THE BRAVE CLEVER PATIENT GREEK HEROINE

March, 8, International Women's Day

International Women's Day (IWD) is celebrated on the 8th of March every year around the world. It is a focal point in the movement for women's rights.

Commemoration of International Women's Day today ranges from being a public holiday in some countries to being largely ignored elsewhere. In some places, it is a day of protest; in others, it is a day that celebrates womanhood.

The earliest Women's Day observance, called National Woman's Day, was held on February 28, 1909, in New York City, organized by the Socialist Party of America at the suggestion of activist Theresa Malkiel.

There have been claims that the day was commemorating a protest by women garment workers in New York on March 8, 1857, but researchers Kandel and Picq have described this as a myth created to detach International Women's Day from its Soviet history in order to give it a more international origin.

The Stones are celebrating the IWD in Ithaca, where they are spending some days. The Grandma wants to support this day claiming for the defence of Civil and Human Rights, basically respect and equality.

To commemorate this important day, The Stones have visited Penelope, one of the bravest and most popular Greek heroines in universal Literature, who fighted against all the adversities with her husband Ulysses and  her son Telemachus.

More information: Saint John's College

In Homer's Odyssey, Penelope, in Greek Πηνελόπεια or Πηνελόπηis the wife of Odysseus, who is known for her fidelity to Odysseus while he was absent, despite having many suitors. Her name has therefore been traditionally associated with marital fidelity.

The origin of her name is believed by Robert S. P. Beekes to be Pre-Greek and related to pēnelops (πηνέλοψ) or pēnelōps (πηνέλωψ), glossed by Hesychius as some kind of bird, today arbitrarily identified with the Eurasian wigeon, to which Linnaeus gave the binomial Anas penelope, where -elōps (-έλωψ) is a common Pre-Greek suffix for predatory animals; however, the semantic relation between the proper name and the gloss is not clear. In folk etymology, Pēnelopē (Πηνελόπη) is usually understood to combine the Greek word pēnē (πήνη), weft, and ōps (ὤψ), face, which is considered the most appropriate for a cunning weaver whose motivation is hard to decipher.

Penelope is the wife of the main character, the king of Ithaca, Odysseus (Ulysses in Roman mythology), and daughter of Icarius of Sparta and his wife Periboea. She only has one son by Odysseus, Telemachus, who was born just before Odysseus was called to fight in the Trojan War. She waits twenty years for the final return of her husband, during which she devises various strategies to delay marrying one of the 108 suitors, led by Antinous and including Agelaus, Amphinomus, Ctessippus, Demoptolemus, Elatus, Euryades, Eurymachus and Peisandros.

On Odysseus's return, disguised as an old beggar, he finds that Penelope has remained faithful. She has devised tricks to delay her suitors, one of which is to pretend to be weaving a burial shroud for Odysseus's elderly father Laertes and claiming that she will choose a suitor when she has finished. Every night for three years, she undoes part of the shroud, until Melantho, one of twelve unfaithful slave women, discovers her chicanery and reveals it to the suitors. 

The Stones visit Ithaca guided by Penelope

Because of her efforts to put off remarriage, Penelope is often seen as a symbol of connubial fidelity. But because Athena wants her to show herself to the wooers, that she might set their hearts a-flutter and win greater honor from her husband and her son than heretofore, Penelope does eventually appear before the suitors.

She is ambivalent, variously asking Artemis to kill her and, apparently, considering marrying one of the suitors. When the disguised Odysseus returns, she announces in her long interview with the disguised hero that whoever can string Odysseus's rigid bow and shoot an arrow through twelve axe heads may have her hand. For the plot of the Odyssey, of course, her decision is the turning point, the move that makes possible the long-predicted triumph of the returning hero.

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There is debate as to whether Penelope is aware that Odysseus is behind the disguise. Penelope and the suitors know that Odysseus, were he in fact present, would easily surpass all in any test of masculine skill, so she may have intentionally started the contest as an opportunity for him to reveal his identity. On the other hand, because Odysseus seems to be the only person, perhaps excepting Telemachus, who can actually use the bow, she could just be further delaying her marriage to one of the suitors.

When the contest of the bow begins, none of the suitors are able to string the bow, but Odysseus does, and wins the contest. Having done so, he proceeds to slaughter the suitors -beginning with Antinous whom he finds drinking from Odysseus' cup- with help from Telemachus, Athena and two slaves, Eumaeus the swineherd and Philoetius the cowherd.

Odysseus has now revealed himself in all his glory, with a little makeover by Athena; yet Penelope cannot believe that her husband has really returned -she fears that it is perhaps some god in disguise, as in the story of Alcmene- and tests him by ordering her slave Eurycleia to move the bed in their bridal-chamber.

Odysseus protests that this cannot be done since he made the bed himself and knows that one of its legs is a living olive tree. Penelope finally accepts that he truly is her husband, a moment that highlights their homophrosýnē (ὁμοφροσύνη, like-mindedness).

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Homer implies, that from then on, Odysseus would live a long and happy life together with Penelope and Telemachus, wisely ruling his kingdom and enjoying wide respect and much success.

Penelope is recognizable in Greek and Roman works, from Attic vase-paintings -the Penelope Painter is recognized by his representations of her- to Roman sculpture copying or improvising upon classical Greek models, by her seated pose, by her reflective gesture of leaning her cheek on her hand, and by her protectively crossed knees, reflecting her long chastity in Odysseus' absence, an unusual pose in any other figure.

Latin references to Penelope revolved around the sexual loyalty to her absent husband. It suited the marital aspect of Roman society representing the tranquility of the worthy family. She is mentioned by various classical authors including Plautus, Propertius, Horace, Ovid, Martial and Statius. The use of Penelope in Latin texts provided a basis for her ongoing use in the Middle Ages and Renaissance as a representation of the chaste wife. This was reinforced by her being named by Saint Jerome among pagan women famed for their chastity.

More information: The Telegraph

How I wish chaste Artemis would give me a death so soft,

and now, so I would not go on in my heart grieving all my life,

and longing for love of a husband excellent in every virtue.

Penelope, The Odyssey