’Telemachus, proud of speech and unrestrained in fury, what is this thou hast said to put us to shame, and wouldest fasten on us reproach?  Behold the fault is not in the Achaean wooers, but in thine own mother, for she is the craftiest of women.  For it is now the third year, and the fourth is fast going by, since she began to deceive the minds of the Achaeans in their breasts.  She gives hope to all, and makes promises to every man, and sends them messages, but her mind is set on other things.  And she hath devised in her heart this wile besides; she set up in her halls a mighty web, fine of woof and very wide, whereat she would weave, and anon she spake among us: 

’"Ye princely youths, my wooers, now that the goodly Odysseus is dead, do ye abide patiently, how eager soever to speed on this marriage of mine, till I finish the robe.  I would not that the threads perish to no avail, even this shroud for the hero Laertes, against the day when the ruinous doom shall bring him low, of death that lays men at their length.  So shall none of the Achaean women in the land count it blame in me, as well might be, were he to lie without a winding-sheet, a man that had gotten great possessions.”

’So spake she, and our high hearts consented thereto.  So then in the day time she would weave the mighty web, and in the night unravel the same, when she had let place the torches by her.  Thus for the space of three years she hid the thing by craft and beguiled the minds of the Achaeans; but when the fourth year arrived and the seasons came round, then at the last one of her women who knew all declared it, and we found her unravelling the splendid web.  Thus she finished it perforce and sore against her will.  But as for thee, the wooers make thee answer thus, that thou mayest know it in thine own heart, thou and all the Achaeans!  Send away thy mother, and bid her be married to whomsoever her father commands, and whoso is well pleasing unto her.  But if she will continue for long to vex the sons of the Achaeans, pondering in her heart those things that Athene hath given her beyond women, knowledge of all fair handiwork, yea, and cunning wit, and wiles—­so be it!  Such wiles as hers we have never yet heard that any even of the women of old did know, of those that aforetime were fair-tressed Achaean ladies, Tyro, and Alcmene, and Mycene with the bright crown.  Not one of these in the imaginations of their hearts was like unto Penelope, yet herein at least her imagining was not good.  For in despite of her the wooers will devour thy living and thy substance, so long as she is steadfast in such purpose as the gods now put within her breast:  great renown for herself she winneth, but for thee regret for thy much livelihood.  But we will neither go to our own lands, nor otherwhere, till she marry that man whom she will of the Achaeans.’