Penelope

Abstract

Penelope DAVID GOMES CÁSSERES Days after Odysseus skipped out of Ithaka, His oar on his shoulder, on some incomprehensible quest, His queen Penelope, daughter of a sea-nymph and a Spartan king Called out the goddess Athena. Athena had no temple on the island, so Penelope Found a high shelf of basalt on a hillside Under the midmorning Ionian sun And there she sacrificed a sheaf of barley, a length of her own weaving White with streaks of red running along it And a newborn lamb, its blood striping the black stone in the ocean air. Far-off Athenian goddess, she cried, What have you done to me? You brought back my longago husband Let him dance me around before my loom Until we agreed that he was he and I was I And let him into my ancient and anchored bed. But he and our bloody son had murdered my poor maids. For their weakness: giving in to my suitors. I rejoiced, you white-eyed goddess, when he killed the suitors I reveled in the stink of their blood all over him When we danced our recognition before my loom, Before the bed pinioned to bedrock, Before the sweating and thumping reunion. O my flesh! But O, my little maids, my girls, my little girlfriends— What do you have to say to me, you foreign goddess? arion 22.3 winter 2015 Athena appeared to her as a woman of middle years with gray in her hair Walking from behind, by her left side In Athenian dress with an owl perched on her shoulder There on the black ledge. She said nothing. They gazed at each other; then Athena turned and walked away Up the hillside, vanishing around a salted and sunburnt boulder, Leaving only the pure silent blue of the ocean sky. Penelope tried again over the years, but Athena stayed away. She couldn’t mend Anything she’d caused to happen; her consequences rushed in, a tide of bloodshed At the hands of her Odysseus and a thousand other clever murderers. She went back to Olympus and Athens, and she gave up men. Penelope reconciled herself to herself after many years, and built a small shrine To Athena Grey-eyed Who had after all Saved her husband’s life For what it was worth. penelope 36 ...