Penel´ope

A celebrated prince of Greece, daughter of Icarius, and wife of Uly es, king of Ithaca. She became the mother of Tele mach us, and was obliged to part, with great reluctance, from her husband, when the Greeks obliged him to go to the Trojan war. The strife between the hostile forces continued for ten years, and when Uly es did not return home at the conclusion of the war her fears and anxieties became overwhelming. She was beset by a number of suitors, who told her that her husband would never return, and she ought to give herself to one of her admirers. She received their advances with coldne , but as she was devoid of power, and, as it were, almost a prisoner in their hands, she temporized with them. After twenty years’ absence Uly es returned, and at once delivered her from the persecutions of her suitors. Penelope is described by Homer as a model of female propriety, whilst some more modern writers dispute the correctne of this view. The accounts given by different authors respecting her, in fact, differ materially. By some she is said to have been the mother of Pan.