In Act 4 Scene II from William Shakespeare’s Richard II he says, “My grief is within. These external ways of lamenting are merely shadows. The unseen sadness / that swells up in silence / In the tortured spirit; There is the substance.” By saying this, Richard II explains that a sign of sorrow externally could not accurately reflect his deepest grief. Penelope weeps in The Odyssey for her missing husband and threatened son. Her “external way of lamenting,” however, is a reflection of the depth of her feelings. Homer helps the reader understand Penelope’s sorrow by relating her words, sleep habits, and physical surroundings to her feelings.
Penelope is able to express her sorrow in a very articulate manner. Penelope, when she first appears in the epic (1.336-344), asks the bard not to sing about the horrible journeys the Achaians make on their return from Troy. Her words are filled with deep sadness. She describes her grief as a ‘heart affliction’, as though it was a sickness that struck her to the core. (1.341). In Book IV, after Telemachos left Ithaca unnoticed, she remarks that she has already suffered the loss of her husband. If she knew her son was going, he could have stayed or she would be “dead” in the hallways (4.734). She is adamant about her love for him, as she prefers death to separation.
Homer’s tears extend Penelope’s sadness beyond her spoken words and into the real world. She is said to be “all weeping” before she speaks (1.336). Literally, she would have had tears in every atom of herself. This description makes the reader feel her love for her husband even at the beginning of this epic.
In other passages, this image is repeated. In Book IV, Penelope weeps when she thinks of losing her only son in a suitor ambush. Hearing this news, she was overcome with “tears” (4.705). A “cloud of heartless sorrow” (4.716), also engulfed her. She is drenched by a mist of water that settles over her. Her sorrow consumes her. Penelope, who is crying over the stories Odysseus, disguised, tells her, about her husband in Book XIX is described by the author as having a body that melts like snow on the top of the mountain (19.204-209). The image of rivers being flooded by melting snow is a reference to the thaw following winter. Winter is an appropriate image, as it’s often associated with loneliness and expectation. Penelope’s melting suggests she will soon be freed from the twenty years of solitude, far from her husband. Penelope’s life is renewed as the winter thaws, with love and passion. Her tears liberate her. One would believe that her rebirth was premature. She hasn’t formally been reunited to her husband because she doesn’t know if the beggar in question is him. Her tears at the small story of a place where he might have been during the last twenty years indicate how desperate she is to see her husband again.
She weeps until she falls asleep after finishing her conversation with Odysseus the beggar. By Book XIX this has become her habit. She repeats this pattern from Book I to Book IV. She can sleep off her sorrows and forget about her husband’s absence. Penelope can be seen as being in a state of hibernation while she awaits her husband’s arrival. Athene’s “sweet slumber” is frequently mentioned to accompany her sleep (1.364). Athene is able to rest and soothe Penelope’s tired eyelids during her sleep, as they are worn out from crying during the daylight hours. Penelope explains the connection between sleep and repose in Book XX, lines 83 to 87. She also confirms their significance:
Penelope weeps in her bedchamber every night before she goes to sleep. In Book XIX she says that her bed has become “a sorrowful, soiled thing” because of the tears she’s shed (19.595-596). Odysseus is most likely to feel his absence in the bed, as it’s the origin of their relationship. Penelope feels this is the place where she should grieve. She has the strongest connection with him in that bed, perhaps because it was the place where they shared intimate moments.
Penelope spends a lot of time at the pillar in a hall where suitors gather. Penelope stands in this location in three different books: Book I, where she asks for the bard’s stop, Book XVIII to suggest that the suitors give her presents and Book XXI to begin the contest. In each passage, the pillar’s joinery is said to have “supported the roof” (1.333). Penelope may be wishing for the support of Odysseus who, prior to the war, supported her house. She cannot address the suitors without Odysseus.
Homer transforms the pillar and bed into places of reunion when they reunite in Book XXIII. Here, the association between Odysseus and the pillar has been confirmed. He is sitting next to the pillar when she first meets him (23.90), which represents his return to support her household. Penelope asks the servants to move the bed in the hallway. It then becomes a symbol of Odysseus’s return and a place for Penelope to grieve and rest. This test is how she determines that her husband is the one in front of them.
Homer changes Penelope’s character, too. She initially doesn’t cry. In fact, Penelope refrains from speaking altogether. She tells Telemachos “My Child, the wonder that I feel in my heart is so great, I can’t find anything to express to him.” (23.105-106) Penelope is at a critical point. She’s been crying and talking a lot, but now she has a moment of truth. Homer suspends the time by altering Penelope’s character and halting her action. The reader is then able to see how important this moment for Penelope really is.
Penelope’s tears are a completely different type than those she had previously shed. These tears are of joy, of homecoming. Odysseus was welcomed to Ithaca by Penelope, despite never having left Ithaca. Homer compares Penelope’s wait to her husband’s seafaring. Homer transforms Penelope’s story into one of a survivor and an adventurer by comparing her wait for her husband with her husband’s labors at sea.
Penelope’s last tears were significant because they portrayed the opposite Penelope than we, the readers, have come to expect. She is described throughout the epic as a woman who weeps in bed, gravitates towards the pillar, takes solace in sleeping, and cries as if her body were made of water. Homer describes Penelope’s grief in poetic terms and by relating it to specific objects and places, he clarifies the grief of the reader. Penelope is grieving for the fate of her family: for her son who faces danger, but mainly for her absentee spouse, and also for herself, as she fears living forever without Odysseus.
