Ovid, Heroides
1. Penelope to Ulysses
The situation
Penelope is at home in Ithaca, besieged by the suitors. Other Greek leaders have returned – but not
Ulysses. She is loyal to him but wonders how long she can hang on under the joint pressure of suitors
and family to remarry.
Structure
1-22: Penelope’s fears while Ulysses is fighting at Troy
23-56: other wives’ happiness at the return of their husbands to Greece
57-80: attempt to get information: has he left her for another woman?
81-96: pressure in Ithaca from the suitors and her family to marry
97-116: her isolation and precarious position
Other treatments of Penelope
1. Odyssey
Passim
2. Ovid – Tristia 2.375-6
aut quid Odyssea est nisi femina propter amorem
dum vir abest, multis una petita procris
What is the Odyssey except a woman on her own because of love,
sought by many suitors while her husband is absent.
3. Horace – Odes 1.17
Hic in reducta ualle Caniculae
uitabis aestus, et fide Teia
dices laborantis in uno
Penelopen uitreamque Circen;
Here in the remote valley
you will avoid the heat of Canicula, and on a instrument from Teia
You will speak of those troubled over one man
Penelope and glassy Circe.
4. Parthenius – Love Romances 2 and 3
2. POLYMELA
While Ulysses was on his wanderings round about Sicily, in the Etruscan and Sicilian seas, he arrived
at the island of Meligunis, where King Aeolus made much of him because of the great admiration he
had for him by reason of his famous wisdom: he inquired of him about the capture of Troy and how
the ships of the returning heroes were scattered, and he entertained him well and kept him with him
for a long time. Now, as it fell out, this stay was most agreeable to Ulysses, for he had fallen in love
with Polymela, one of Aeolus’s daughters, and was engaged in a secret intrigue with her. But after
Ulysses had gone off with the winds shut up in a bag, the girl was found jealously guarding some
stuffs from among the Trojan spoils which he had given her, and rolling among them with bitter tears.
Aeolus reviled Ulysses bitterly although he was away, and had the intention of exacting vengeance
upon Polymela; however, her brother Diores was in love with her, and both begged her off her
punishment and persuaded his father to give her to him as his wife.
3. EVIPPE
Aeolus was not the only one of his hosts to whom Ulysses did wrong: but even after his wanderings
were over and he had slain Penelope’s wooers, he went to Epirus to consult an oracle, and there
seduced Evippe, the daughter of Tyrimmas, who had received him kindly and was entertaining him
with great cordiality; the fruit of this union was Euryalus. When he came to man’s estate, his mother
sent him to Ithaca, first giving him certain tokens, by which his father would recognize him, sealed up
in a tablet. Ulysses happened to be from home, and Penelope, having learned the whole story (she
had previously been aware of his love for Evippe), persuaded him, before he knew the facts of the
case, to kill Euryalus, on the pretence that he was engaged in a plot against him. So Ulysses, as a
punishment for his incontinence and general lack of moderation, became the murderer of his own
son; and not very long after this met his end after being wounded by his own offspring with a seafish’s prickle.
(Translation: Loeb)
5. Lucian True Stories 2.35
At that juncture Odysseus came to me without the knowledge of Penelope and gave me a letter to
carry to Ogygia Island, to Calypso. …. On the third day out from there we touched at the island of
Ogygia and landed. But first I opened the letter and read what was in it. It was:
"Odysseus to Calypso, greetings.
"Soon after I built the raft and sailed away from you I was shipwrecked, and with the help of
Leucothea managed to reach the land of the Phaeacians in safety. They sent me home, and there I
found that my wife had a number of suitors who were living on the fat of the land at our house. I killed
them all, and was afterwards slain by Telegonus, my son by Circe. Now I am on the Isle of the Blest,
thoroughly sorry to have given up my life with you and the immortality which you offered me.
Therefore, if I get a chance, I shall run away and come to you." In addition to this, the letter said that
she was to entertain us. On going a short way from the sea I found the cave, which was as Homer
described it, 1 and found Calypso herself working wool. When she had taken the letter and read it,
she wept a long time at first, and then she asked us in to enjoy her hospitality, gave us a splendid feast
and enquired about Odysseus and Penelope--how she looked and whether she was prudent, as
Odysseus used to boast in old times. 1 We made her such answers as we thought would please her.
(Translation: Loeb)