Essay - Penelope: the Crafty Ideal of Greek Womanhood One Might Think...

Penelope: the Crafty Ideal of Greek Womanhood

One might think of Achilles, the hero of the Iliad, as the ***** m*****culine ideal. He triumphs over his enemies in an open agonistic contest because he is a greater warrior than they. He shows the virtue of compassion when he f*****ally yields Hector's body to Priam. Even Achilles's arrogance and ***** obsession with honor, his inability to deal with slights to his reputation, though they might seem repugnant to our sensibilities, are clearly meant to elicit the sympathy from Homer's audience. They ***** wish to act in the same way if they stood in his shoes. Yet Odysseus, the hero of the Odyssey, presents an entirely different masculine i*****. He shuns glory because it brings responsibilities that are not really in his best interest. Though a br*****ve and able fighter, he is "the man of many wiles" who triumphs because of ***** clever deceptions and strategies. Perhaps the author of ***** Odyssey, at least, considered his ***** a superior ch*****racter. While Achilles enjoys fleeting glory within the scope ***** the Iliad, he ultimately fails, being killed by a bow-shot from ***** feeble P*****ris before Troy is sacked. *****, on t***** other hand, despite ***** ***** m*****fortunes, ultimately succeeds. It is through his trickery that Troy is taken and that he eventually makes it back home. Another good reason for thinking of Odysseus as a ***** ideal ***** that *****'s wife Penelope is unquestionably an ideal of Greek femininity. Penelope, however, succeeds through the same tricky nature as her husb*****d. Both ultimately have the ***** goal, the continuation, or even restoration, of their marriage and family, and both are protected by ***** most Greek of the gods, Athena. Taken toget*****, Penelope ***** Odysseus represent the ideal ***** ***** male and fe***** sphere of Greek life. In *****, we ***** able to see all the character*****tics of a model *****, mother, daughter-in-law, and queen. Unlike her, Alcmene or Megara helplessly need to be rescued by another suit*****; other victims would have remarried; Atalanta tried ***** avoid marriage by testing her suitors.

***** actions were like an etiquette book for Greek society. All of ***** problems came about because she obeyed the Greek rules of hospitality and accepted her suitors as guests. But she went beyond this ***** even treated beggars with hospitality while ***** ***** mocked ***** the suitors, supposedly noblemen. She w***** an ideal wife, m*****, *****d queen. Above *****, she remained faithful to ***** marriage which ***** Odysseus could not do; but fidelity was more a wifely th*****n a husbandly ***** in ancient Greece. She was patient and faithful, devoted to both her husband and son. *****r faithfulness to her husband goes beyond the demands of social convention to a deep and abid*****g love.

Penelope listened with tears flowing down.

Her flesh melted—just as on high mountains snow melts away under West Wind's thaw, once E*****t Wind blows it down, *****, as it melts, the flowing rivers fill—that's how her fair cheeks