ll
not take the right way of wooing Penelope by going to her father and
giving the bridal gift according to custom, but consume the son's
property under pretense of their suit for the mother. The second point
is the strong appeal to the Ithacans--to their sense of right, to their
sense of shame, and to their fear of the Gods, who "in their divine
wrath shall turn back ill deeds upon the doer." But in vain; that
Ithacan Assembly contains friends and relatives of the Suitors, and
possibly purchased adherents; nay, it contains some of the Suitors
themselves, and here rises one of them to make a speech in reply.

This is Antinous, who now makes the most elaborate defense of the case
of the Suitors that is to be found in the poem. The speech is
remarkable for throwing the whole blame upon Penelope--not a gallant
proceeding in a lover; still it betrays great admiration for the woman
on account of her devices and her cunning. She has thwarted and fooled
the whole band of unwelcome wooers for three years and more by her
wonderful web, which she wove by day and unraveled by night. And even
now when she has been found out, she holds them aloof but keeps them in
good humor, though clearly at a great expense of the family's property,
which fact has roused Telemachus to his protest. Antinous, though
feeling that he and the rest have been outwitted by the woman, does not
stint his praise on that account, he even heightens it.

But we hear also his ultimatum: "Send thy mother away and bid her be
married to whomsoever her father commands, and whoso is pleasing to
her." So the will of the parent and the choice of the daughter had to
go together even in Homer's days. Of course Antinous has no ground of
right for giving this order; he is not the master of the house, though
he hopes to be; his assumed authority is pure insolence. Then why
should the Suitors injure the son because they have been wheedled by
the mother? Still they will continue to consume "his living and his
wealth as long as she keeps her present mind."

But the most interesting thing in his speech is to discover the
attitude and motives of Penelope. We see her fidelity, but something
more than fidelity is now needed, namely the greatest skill,
dissimulation, or female tact, to use the more genteel word. She has a
hard problem on her hands; she has to save her son, herself, and as
much of the estate as she can, from a set of bandits who have all in
their might. Were she