Penelope and the suitors (wooer and wooed)

Penelope, wife of Odysseus, stands at the center of a prolonged and increasingly violent courtship by over a hundred suitors who have occupied her home on Ithaca. For nearly four years, these men—chiefs from Ithaca, Dulichium, Same, and Zacynthus—feast on her livestock, drink her wine, and pressure her to choose a new husband, all while her son Telemachus grows into manhood and her husband remains missing. The relationship between Penelope and the suitors is the engine of the poem's domestic conflict, a contest of wits and endurance that tests the limits of loyalty, cunning, and hospitality, and that ultimately justifies the bloodbath of the poem's climax.

The Siege of the House

The suitors' courtship is less a wooing than an occupation. They gather daily in Odysseus's halls, slaughtering his oxen, sheep, and fat goats for their banquets and drinking his wine without restraint. Telemachus, in his first public speech, describes how they "are eating up my house under the pretext of paying their court to my mother" and warns that they will soon do the same to him. The suitors themselves acknowledge the scale of their depredation: Antinous boasts that they will not leave "till she has made her choice and married some one or other of us." Their presence is a constant drain on the estate, and their behavior grows more insolent over time, culminating in physical assaults on disguised Odysseus and plots to murder Telemachus.

Penelope's Strategic Resistance

Penelope never openly refuses to marry, a stance that keeps the suitors hopeful and prevents them from forcing a resolution. Her primary stratagem is the weaving trick: she sets up a great loom in her room and begins work on a funeral shroud for Laertes, telling the suitors she will choose a husband only after it is finished. For three years she weaves by day and unravels her work by night, fooling the suitors completely. The deception is only discovered when a maidservant betrays her, and she is forced to complete the shroud. Beyond this, Penelope employs a more subtle form of manipulation: she sends encouraging messages to each suitor while meaning the opposite. Athena herself describes this to Odysseus, noting that Penelope "gives hope and sends encouraging messages to every one of them, but means the very opposite of all she says." This calculated ambiguity keeps the suitors competing against one another and delays any final decision.

The Suitors' Insolence and the Erosion of Xenia

The suitors' behavior systematically violates the sacred laws of hospitality (xenia). They not only consume Odysseus's wealth without permission but also mistreat guests and beggars who come to the house. When Odysseus arrives disguised as an old tramp, Antinous strikes him with a footstool, an act that shocks even the other suitors, one of whom warns that the stranger "may turn out to be some god" traveling in disguise. The goatherd Melanthius kicks Odysseus in the hip, and Ctesippus throws a heifer's foot at him. The suitors also force the bard Phemius to sing for them against his will, and they plot to ambush and kill Telemachus as he returns from his journey to Pylos and Sparta. This accumulation of transgressions—against property, hospitality, family, and the gods—marks them as deserving of destruction.

The Contest of the Bow and the Turning Point

Penelope herself initiates the final crisis. Prompted by Athena, she proposes a contest: whoever can string Odysseus's great bow and shoot an arrow through twelve axe heads will win her hand. The contest is her last stratagem, a way to force a decision while still maintaining the appearance of fairness. When none of the suitors can string the bow, Odysseus—still disguised—takes it and succeeds effortlessly, then turns the weapon on the suitors themselves. The contest thus becomes the mechanism of their destruction, transforming Penelope's final act of courtship into the signal for massacre.

Aftermath and Recognition

After the slaughter, Penelope remains cautious. Even when Euryclea tells her that Odysseus has returned and killed the suitors, she refuses to believe it, fearing a trick from the gods. She tests Odysseus by asking Euryclea to move their marriage bed—a bed built around a living olive tree that cannot be moved. When Odysseus reacts with anger and describes the bed's construction in detail, Penelope finally accepts him. Her long resistance, born of both loyalty and cunning, ends not with a suitor's victory but with the recognition of her true husband. The suitors' courtship, which had threatened to destroy her house, instead leads to their own annihilation and the restoration of the rightful order.