Introduction
Penelope was the wife of Odysseus and mother of Telemachus, left to manage the kingdom of Ithaca during her husband's decade at Troy and further decade of wandering home.
Family
- Spouse: Odysseus (married)
- Children: Telemachus
The Unfinished Shroud
As the years passed and Odysseus's fate remained unknown, a crowd of suitors descended on the palace to press Penelope to remarry and claim the kingdom. She held them off for years with a ruse: she would choose a husband once she finished weaving a burial shroud for her father-in-law Laertes, but secretly unraveled each night's work before dawn. When the trick was discovered, she was forced toward a decision, resolved only by Odysseus's return and his defeat of the suitors, disguised as a beggar until the moment he revealed himself.
As with all figures of Greek heroic legend, sources diverge on many particulars; the account above follows the most widely transmitted classical tradition.