Straight to the palace they went, with their servants and belongings, not waiting for an invitation. For they knew that they would be treated as honored guests, whether they were welcome or not.
“Penelope,” they said,“it is not the custom in our country for a widow to live long unwedded. We have come as suitors for your hand, and you dare not turn us all away. Choose, now, the man among us who pleases you best, and the rest will forthwith depart.” And then each one began to tell of his own good qualities, of his noble f***ly, his powerful friends, his wealth, and his courage.
But Penelope answered sadly, “Princes and heroes, this cannot be; for I am quite sure that Ulysses still lives, and I must hold his kingdom for him till he returns.”
“Return, he never will,” answered the suitors.“So make your choice, as becomes your duty.”
“Give me yet a week, a month, to wait for him,” she pleaded. “In my loom I have a half-finished web of soft linen. I am weaving it for the shroud of our father, Laertes, who is very old and cannot live much longer. If Ulysses fails to return by the time this web is finished, then I will choose, although unwillingly.”
“Will you work upon this web every day?” asked Antinous.
“Every day,” she answered, “I will sit at my loom and weave the web. It would be a sin, indeed, if Laertes should go to the grave while the shroud is unfinished.”
“Let her delay her choice as she desires,” said Agelaus. “In the meantime, we will enjoy ourselves.”
Forthwith the suitors made themselves at home in the palace. They seized upon the best of everything. They feasted daily in the great dining hall, eating and wasting the provisions that had been stored away with greatest care against the homecoming of Ulysses. They helped themselves to the wine in the cellar and to the fruits and flowers in the garden. They were rude and uproarious in the once quiet and beautiful chambers of the palace. They were insolent and overbearing to the servants and friends of Penelope, and they kept the people of Ithaca in constant terror by reason of their lawless deeds.
Ⅲ The Discovered Secret
Every day Penelope sat at her loom and wove. “See how much I have added to the length of the web,” she would say when the ev