Текст книги "Asimov’s Guide To Shakespear. Volume 1"

Автор книги: Isaac Asimov

10. The Tragedy of Coriolanus

Oe of the most popular of the ancient historians was Plutarch, a Greek who was born in Chaeronea, a town about sixty miles northwest of Athens, in a.d. 46. In his time, Greece had long passed the days of its military splendor and was utterly dominated by Rome, then at the very height of its empire.

Anxious to remind the Romans (and Greeks too) of what the Greeks had once been, Plutarch wrote a series of short biographies about a.d. 100 in which he dealt with men in pairs, one Greek and one Roman, the two being compared and contrasted. Thus, Theseus (see page I-18), the legendary unifier of the Attic peninsula under Athens, was paired with Romulus, the legendary founder of Rome. For this reason, the book is commonly called The Parallel Lives. Plutarch's style is so pleasing that his book, with its gossipy stories about great historical figures, has remained popular ever since.

It was put into English in 1579 (from a French version) by Sir Thomas North, who did it so well that his book turned out to be one of the prose masterpieces of the Elizabethan Age. Shakespeare read it and used it as the basis for three of his plays. He paid the translation the ultimate compliment of scarcely changing its words in some cases. They made almost perfect blank verse as they stood.

Shakespeare wrote Coriolanus about 1608 and it was the last of his three Plutarchian plays. Its subject matter was, however, the earliest in time, so I am placing it first.

The action opens in 494 b.c. (according to legend), only fifteen years after the rape of Lucrece, the expulsion of the Tarquins, and the establishment of the Republic by Brutus (see page I-211). The events described in the play are therefore of extremely dubious value historically, for they take place a century before the destruction of the Roman annals by the Gallic invaders (see page I-204).

Nevertheless, with Plutarch's guidance, Shakespeare can draw upon a complete and interesting story, though perhaps one that is too romantic to sound completely true.

 
… to die than to famish
 

Coriolanus opens in the streets of Rome, with citizens hurrying onstage in a fever of agitation, carrying weapons. Some crisis is taking place and the men are desperate. Their leader is called "First Citizen" in the play and he calls out to them:

 
You are all resolved
rather to die than to famish?
 

—Act I, scene i, lines 4-5

Only fifteen years before, King Tarquin had been driven out of Rome and the institution of the monarchy had been destroyed. The Roman Republic was set up and was to last for five centuries. Control was placed in the hands of the aristocracy (the "patricians"), with numerous checks and balances, to make sure that no one of the aristocrats could gain so much power as to make himself a king and start the round of tyranny and revolt over again.

That did not mean, however, that Rome had become a little corner of heaven. The patricians, now that they had power in their hands, intended to keep it there. They reserved to themselves virtually all the rights, both political and economic, and yielded very little to the common people ("plebeians").

The plebeians in those days were small farmers who were expected to leave their farms and fight the city's battles whenever duty called. In the years after the first founding of the Republic, duty called frequently, for the exiled king tried to regain his position and made use of neighboring tribes as allies. Rome had to fight for its life.

As a result of those wars, though, the plebeian soldier might return from battle to find his farm neglected, or even ravaged, and would be in need of capital to begin again. The city did not consider itself economically responsible for its farmers and the loans a plebeian could get from the patricians were on harsh terms; and if they were not repaid, he and his family could be sold into slavery.

Furthermore, when food was scarce there was nothing to prevent the patricians (who had the capital for it) from buying up the supplies and then reselling it to the plebeians at a profit, thus capitalizing on the general misfortune.

It would be utterly inhuman to expect that the plebeians would sit still for all this. Undoubtedly, their lot had worsened under the Republic and they found it intolerable that they were expected to give their lives for the patricians while getting nothing in return.

The riotous citizens onstage are rebelling plebeians, then, and the First Citizen reminds them whom they are chiefly to blame for their misfortunes. He cries out:

 
First you know, Caius Marcius
is chief enemy to the people.
 

—Act I, scene i, lines 7-8

Caius Marcius is the proper name of the hero of the play. He is to gain the surname of Coriolanus under circumstances to be described later.

Caius Marcius came from an old patrician family. According to Plutarch (in a passage Shakespeare quotes later in the play) he was a descendant of Ancus Marcius, the fourth king of Rome. This did not mean that Caius Marcius, as the descendant of a king, was necessarily a royalist.

Rome's seven kings could be divided into two groups, in fact, with Ancus Marcius belonging to the older. When he became king, he established an advisory body consisting of a hundred of the older representatives of the various clans that made up the city's people. This group of older men was the "Senate," so called from the Latin word for "old men." These senators were called "patricians" from the Latin word for "father," because they were, in theory, the fathers of the people. The word was then extended to all the old families from whom senators might be drawn.

According to tradition, Ancus Marcius brought in new colonists from among conquered tribes outside Rome, since the growing city could use the extra hands. These, however, were not granted the political powers of the old Romans. It was their descendants who became plebeians.

Ancus Marcius was not succeeded by his sons, but by a king called Tarquinius Priscus ("Tarquin the Elder"), who was an Etruscan from the north. (The Etruscans to the north of Rome were at that time the dominant people in Italy, and the succession of Tarquinius Priscus may be actually a sign of Etruscan overlordship of Rome-a situation softened in the Roman legends out of Roman pride.)

Under Tarquinius Priscus, Rome prospered materially, but the power of the king increased at the expense of the patricians. He was finally assassinated by those on the side of the old kings, but eventually the son of Tarquinius Priscus gained the throne. This was the Tarquinius Superbus who was expelled from Rome after the events outlined in The Rape of Lucrece (see page I-211).

Caius Marcius, by family tradition, then, would be against the Tarquinian notion of monarchy. And he would be strongly pro-patrician and anti-plebeian.

 
… dog to the commonalty
 

When the Second Citizen, a less extreme leader of the plebeian mob, expresses reservations against aiming at Marcius particularly, the First Citizen replies firmly:

 
Against him first:
he's a very dog to the commonalty.
 

—Act I, scene i, lines 28-29

This is the key to Marcius' character. He is a "dog" to his enemies. He snarls and bites. Plutarch says of him: "he was so choleric and impatient, that he would yield to no living creature, which made him churlish, uncivil, and altogether unfit for any man's conversation."

That is his tragedy: the tragedy of his personality. What he might have gained, and ought to have gamed for the better qualities within himself, he threw away by his perpetual anger and willfulness.

It may have been just this which was the challenge that interested Shakespeare and made him decide to write the play. In Antony and Cleopatra (see page I-317), which he had written a year or so earlier, Shakespeare shows us a flawed hero, Mark Antony, who sacrificed honor and worldly ambition to love and to sexual passion. In Coriolanus he shows us the reverse, a hero who served only military honor and who allowed nothing to stand in his way (with one exception).

Yet although Antony is loaded to the breaking point with weaknesses, while Marcius is stuffed to the bursting point with virtues, we end by loving Antony and feeling a cold dislike for Coriolanus. Surely Shakespeare is far too good a playwright to have done this by accident. Might not Coriolanus be viewed as a frigid satire of the military virtues; as an example of Shakespeare's distaste for war, a distaste that shows through even the official idolatry of the English hero-king in Henry V (see page II-481)?

 
… to please his mother.. .
 

When the Second Citizen urges in Marcius' defense that he has served his country well, the First Citizen admits that much but insists it was not done for Rome. He says:

 
… though soft-conscienced men can be content
to say it was for his country,
he did it to please his mother…
 

—Act I, scene i, lines 37-39

There is Marcius' one weakness. He loves his mother. And even that weakness is, looked at superficially, another piece of nobility. Why should not a man love his mother? Certainly the United States of today, with its Mother's Day and its semiofficial matriolatry, is no society in which to argue that to love one's mother is wrong, or even a weakness.

Yet it is made plain as the play progresses that the love-of-mother in Coriolanus' case is extreme. It is the clearest case of an Oedipal fixation in Shakespeare, far clearer than in the dubious case of Hamlet.

According to the legend, Marcius' father died while he was very young and the boy was then brought up by his mother. The rearing was successful in establishing a close relationship between them. Here are Plutarch's words: "… touching Marcius, the only thing that made him to love honor was the joy he saw his mother did take of him. For he thought nothing made him so happy and honorable, as that his mother might hear everybody praise and commend him, that she might always see him return with a crown upon his head, and that she might still embrace him with tears running down her cheeks for joy."

This sort of thing, we can see, is not calculated to endear him to Rome generally. Those plebeians who got only the rough side of Marcius' tongue and the harsh side of his advice on policy might not feel any necessity to be grateful for something he did only to please his mother. Let his mother reward him, not the people, and this is what the First Citizen seems to be implying.

Furthermore, Marcius' attitude as described by Plutarch and as adopted by Shakespeare is that of a boy, not a man. Marcius is a boy who never grew up, except physically. Emotionally he remains a boy, not only with respect to his mother but with respect to everything else. If we are to understand the play, this point must not be forgotten.

 
… To th'Capitol
 

While the citizens talk, there are shouts from offstage which seem to signify the revolt is spreading. The First Citizen cries out impatiently:

 
Why slay we prating here?
To th'Capitol!
 

—Act I, scene i, lines 48-49

The city of Rome eventually spread out over seven hills. One of the earliest to be occupied was the Capitoline Hill. This had steep sides in some directions, which made it suitable for defense. A large temple to Jupiter was built upon it which could also serve as a last-ditch fortress.

The name of the hill is from a Latin word meaning "head," and the legend arose that a head or skull was uncovered when the foundations of the temple were being dug. The Senate met in the Capitol fortress and so it was the center of the city's politics; in that sense the hill was the head (or most important part) of the city, and perhaps that is how the name really arose.

Naturally, the plebeians would want to storm the Capitol and seize control of it.

 
Worthy Menenius Agrippa.. .
 

But now a patrician steps on the scene who is not assaulted. He is a very unusual patrician; one who can speak to the people bluffly and pleasantly and make himself liked by them-the antithesis of Marcius. The newcomer is Menenius Agrippa, and the Second Citizen identifies him at once as:

 
Worthy Menenius Agrippa,
one that hath always loved the people.
 

—Act I, scene i, lines 52-53

Even the extremist First Citizen says, rather churlishly:

 
He's one honest enough;
would all the rest were so!
 

—Act I, scene i, lines 54-55

Menenius Agrippa's role in history (even the legendary history of the times before 390 b.c., as purveyed by Livy and Plutarch) is confined to the one incident that is about to be related. Nothing else is known of him either before or after. Everything else about him in this play is Shakespeare's own invention.

In the actual tale told by Livy and Plutarch, the occasion is not a brawl in the street but, in a way, something more serious. The plebeians have decided to secede altogether. If Rome takes all and gives nothing, she is not a true mother and the plebeians will make one for themselves. They withdraw to a neighboring hill and prepare to found a city of their own.

This is a deadly danger for the patricians, for they need plebeian hands on the farms and in the army. What's more, Rome cannot endure the founding of a neighboring city that is bound to become and remain a deadly enemy. The plebeians must be brought back and, for a wonder, the Senate tried persuasion and gentleness. They sent Menenius Agrippa, a patrician with a reputation for good humor and with no record of animosity toward the plebeians.

 
A pretty tale…
 

Menenius urges the citizens to desist, saying the shortage of food is the fault of the gods, not of the patricians. The First Citizen answers bitterly that the patricians have cornered the food market and now grind the faces of the poor for their own profit. We are strongly tempted to believe the First Citizen, for all he speaks in prose where Menenius orates La gentle pentameters, especially since Menenius drops the subject and decides to be more indirect. He says:

 
/ shall tell you A pretty tale;
it may be you have heard it;
 

—Act I, scene i, lines 90-91

The tale he tells is the fable of the organs of the body rebelling against the belly. The organs complain that they do all the work while the belly gets all the food. The belly answers that it is his function to digest the food and send it out to all the body. Without the belly, all the rest of the organs would weaken and die. The Senate and the patricians are then compared to the belly by Menenius. Through their careful management of the commonwealth, the patricians distribute benefits to all.

The fable may sound well, but surely to the plebeians of the time it must have been unconvincing, since it was precisely their complaint that the patricians were not distributing benefits to all the commonwealth but were reserving them for themselves.

Plutarch says of the tale, "These persuasions pacified the people conditionally." Note the word "conditionally." Words alone were not enough. The people demanded a reform of the government and got it.

 
… let me use my sword.. .
 

Before Shakespeare gets to these reforms, however, he wants to bring on Marcius and display him as he is. Marcius comes whirling in, acknowledges Menenius' greetings in the briefest possible way, and grates out harshly to the citizens:

 
What's the matter, you dissentious rogues
That, nibbing the poor itch of your opinion,
Make yourself scabs?
 

—Act I, scene i, lines 165-67

Menenius is attended because he speaks gently. Does Marcius think he can get anywhere by scolding? It doesn't matter whether he does or not, for there is no other way he can act, and the First Citizen indicates that by his dryly ironic rejoinder:

 
We have ever your good word.
 

—Act I, scene i, line 167b

Marcius continues to rail, denouncing them as utterly untrustworthy. He says:

 
Trust ye?
With every minute you do change a mind,
And call him noble that was now your hate,
Him vile that was your garland.
 

—Act I, scene i, lines 182-85

This is, of course, a standard complaint against the common people; that they are fickle and unreasoning. This dates back to the Greek historians, who showed that the Athenian democracy was subject to radical changes in its policies and that Athenian politicians suffered drastic changes in fortune at the hand of the fickle public-in contrast to the steady policies of Sparta, which was certainly no democracy. (And yet who would prefer the death-in-life of Sparta to the brilliance of Athens?)

Roman writers referred to the mobile vulgus ("fickle multitude") and about half a century after Shakespeare's death this was abbreviated to "mob," a word now used for any dangerous and disorderly crowd of people. Had Shakespeare had the use of the word it would undoubtedly have appeared somewhere in this speech.

In Elizabethan England, with its strong oligarchy, the view of the public by "gentlemen" was very much like the view of the Roman patricians. Shakespeare himself was born of a prosperous middle-class family and certainly held himself superior to those he considered plebeian. Furthermore, he was patronized by the aristocracy and liked to identify himself with them.

When, therefore, he had occasion to speak of the common people, he was rarely kind or sympathetic. He makes much of their dirtiness, greasi-ness, and bad breath. And he is never quite as unkind to them as in this play. This is one reason why Coriolanus is not one of Shakespeare's more popular plays in modern times. His social views embarrass mid-twentieth-century America.

It may be that Shakespeare is antiplebeian in this play partly because of the conditions in England at the time the play was written. The unpopular Scottish king, James VI, was on the English throne now as James I and there was a rising clamor against him. Voices from below were beginning to be heard against James's theory of absolute monarchy and against his contention that decisions in religion were entirely in the hand of the King. Those voices were to grow louder until (a generation after Shakespeare's death) they led England into revolution and James's son to the headsman's ax.

If Shakespeare was writing with at least part of his attention fixed on securing the approval of the aristocratic portion of his audience, on whose approval so much depended from an economic standpoint, this was the time for harsh words against the commons. The application would be seen.

The amazing thing, though, is that with all the animus against the commons which Shakespeare possesses, for both personal and economic reasons, he does not therefore make Marcius sympathetic. His integrity as a writer and his hatred of war forces Shakespeare to display Marcius' reaction to the commons as an overreaction, and the patrician champion loses us at the very start.

His response to the cry of the people for food, to their protest that they are starving, is:

 
Would the nobility lay aside their ruth,
And let me use my sword, I'd make a quarry
With thousands of these quartered slaves, as high
As I could pick my lance.
 

—Act I, scene i, lines 198-201

We are acquainted, of course, with people who think the proper answer to the protesting poor is the policeman's club, the cattle prod, and the gun. Such people are difficult to like, and Marcius is one of them.

 
Five tribunes. ..
 

But then Marcius must grumble forth the news that the patricians have not done as he would have liked them to do. They have compromised instead and granted the plebeians a new kind of officer. Marcius describes them as:

 
Five tribunes to defend their vulgar wisdoms,
Of their own choice. One's Junius Brutus-
Sicinius Velutus, and-I know not.
'Sdeath! The rabble should have first unroofed the city,
Ere so prevailed with me…
 

—Act I, scene i, lines 216-20

It was the grant of the tribunes, rather than Menenius' fable, that brought the plebeians back to Rome. The tribunes were officials drawn from the plebeian ranks and elected by the plebeians only. Their purpose was to safeguard the interests of the plebeians and to keep the patricians from passing laws they felt would be unfair to the common people. Eventually, indeed, the tribunes gained the power of stopping laws they disapproved of by merely crying out "Veto!" ("I forbid!"). Not all the power of the government could pass a law against a tribune's veto.

Actually, the institutions of the Republic developed only gradually and received their familiar form only by 367 b.c. However, later Roman historians tended to push back several of the features into the undocumented period before 390 b.c. to give them the added sanctity of extra ancient-ness. The history of the tribunate during the fifth century b.c. is quite obscure and the supposed first tribunes listed by Plutarch (he names only two out of the five and Shakespeare follows him in this) make no mark in actual history.

Is Junius Brutus a descendant or relative of the Lucius Junius Brutus who helped found the Republic (see page I-210)? From the name one would suppose so, yet if he were, he would be a patrician and it is of the essence that the tribunes are plebeians. Or was there some dim feeling on the part of the legendmakers that since a Junius Brutus was one of the first two consuls of the Republic, a Junius Brutus ought also to be one of the first two tribunes?

From the standpoint of the play, of course, it doesn't matter.

 
… the Volsces ."..
 

In any case, civil broils must now be buried in the face of a foreign menace. A messenger hurries on the scene asking for Marcius. He says:

 
The news is, sir, the Volsces are in arms.
 

—Act I, scene i, line 225

At this early stage in their history, the Romans were still fighting for the control of Latium, that section of west-central Italy that occupies a hundred miles of the coast southeast of Rome. It is the home of the Latin language.

The Volscians were the tribes occupying the southeastern half of Latium. Under the last kings of Rome, they along with the other Latin tribes had been part of a loose confederacy headed by Rome, and it may be that all were more or less under Etruscan control. With the expulsion of the Roman kings and the weakening of the Etruscan hold, the Latin tribes squabbled among themselves. The Volscians fought with the Romans throughout the fifth century b.c. and were in the end defeated. In Marcius' time, however, the long duel was only beginning,

A deputation of senators comes to see Marcius now. He is their best warrior and they need his help. Marcius has no illusions that the fight will be an easy one, for the Volscians have a gallant leader, Tullus Aufidius. A senator says:

 
Then, worthy Marcius,
Attend upon Cominius to these wars.
 

—Act I, scene i, lines 238-39

Cominius is one of the two consuls of Rome at this time. They were the chief executives of the city, having replaced the office of the ousted king. The consuls were elected for a one-year term, since the Romans felt that one year was insufficient for any consul to build up a large enough personal following to serve in making himself a king.

Two consuls were chosen, rather than one, since the rule was that no action could be taken without agreement between them. It seemed reasonable to suppose that neither consul could take any real steps toward tyranny without the other jealously stepping in to stop him.

The chief duties of the consuls were to be in charge of the armed forces of Rome and to lead the Roman armies in warfare. Cominius, as consul, was to be the army leader, and Marcius, who was not a consul, would have to be a subordinate officer.

The senators are clearly not at all certain that Marcius will agree to this; a commentary on his sullen spirit of self-absorption. Cominius says hastily:

 
It is your former promise.
 

—Act I, scene i, line 239

This time, at least, Marcius gives in at once and all sweep off the stage, leaving behind only the two newly appointed tribunes, Sicinius and Brutus. They had come in with the senators but had remained silent. Left alone, they make it clear that they resent Marcius' pride and his harsh taunts.

Sicinius wonders that Marcius can bear to serve as an underling with Cominius commanding, and Brutus suggests a cynical interpretation, saying that Marcius shrewdly schemes to avoid responsibility in case of disaster:

 
For what miscarries
Shall be the general's fault, though he perform
To th'utmost of a man; and giddy censure
Will then cry out of Marcius "O, if he
Had borne the business!"
 

—Act I, scene i, lines 267-71

Nowhere in the play, however, is Marcius given credit for so devious a nature. Brutus is simply putting his own style of shrewdness into Marcius' mind. What is much more likely is that Marcius doesn't care who commands and who does not, whom Rome praises and whom she does not. All he wants is a chance to fight so that, in any office, he can win his mother's praise.

 
… to guard Corioles
 

The fast Roman response to the Volscian threat forces the Volscians to hasten their own plans. Tullus Aufidius is consulting with the Volscian council and one of the Volscian senators says:

 
Noble Aufidius,
Take your commission; hie you to your bands:
Let us alone to guard Corioles.
 

—Act I, scene ii, lines 25-27

This council of war is taking place in Corioli (or Corioles), a town whose location is now uncertain, and this, in itself, is one of the signs that the story of Coriolanus is legendary. At the time of the traditional date of this war, 493 b.c. (a year after the plebeian uprising, although Shakespeare, in the interest of speeding the action, makes it take place immediately afterward), what records we have indicate that Corioli was not a Volscian city but was in alliance with that portion of Latium which was under Roman leadership.

It is very likely that the tales of Coriolanus that were dimly remembered had to be adjusted to account for the name. Why should Marcius be remembered as Coriolanus unless he had played a key role in the conquest of that city? So the conquest was assumed.

And why was Marcius eventually given the name of Coriolanus if it was not because of the conquest of the city? No one will ever know. For that matter, can we be certain that such a man as Coriolanus ever existed at all?

 
… Hector's forehead…
 

Now, at last, Marcius' mother, Volumnia, is introduced. So is his wife, Virgilia. Virgilia is, however, a shrinking girl, much dominated by her mother-in-law, who is pictured as the ideal Roman matron. She is a most formidable creature and we cannot help but wonder if Marcius' little-boy love for her is not intermingled with more than some little-boy fear.

Shakespeare makes it plain that Marcius has become something that is his mother's deliberate creation. Even when he was young, she tells her daughter-in-law proudly, all she could think of was how honor (that is, military glory) would become him. She says:

 
To a cruel war I sent him,
from whence he returned,
his brows bound with oak
 

—Act I, scene iii, lines 14-16

(An oak wreath was the reward granted a soldier who had saved the life of a fellow soldier.)

Virgilia timidly points out that Marcius might have been killed, but Volumnia says, grimly:

 
I had rather had eleven die nobly
for their country than one voluptuously
surfeit out of action.
 

—Act I, scene iii, lines 25-27

And when Virgilia gets a little queasy over Volumnia's later reference to possible blood on Marcius' brow, Volumnia then says, in scorn at the other's weakness:

 
Away, you fool! It [blood] more becomes a man
Than gilt his trophy. The breasts of Hecuba,
When she did suckle Hector, looked not lovelier
Than Hector's forehead when it spit forth blood
 

—Act I, scene iii, lines 42-46

In later centuries the Romans invented a legend to the effect that they were descended from the Trojan hero Aeneas (see page I-20), and it is natural to read this back into early Roman history and to imagine that the early Romans identified strongly with the Trojans. Hector (page I-81) was Troy's greatest fighter.

 
… a gilded butterfly.. .
 

Volumnia's bloodthirsty and single-minded approach to the notion of military honor makes it plain why Marcius, trained by her, is what he is. But can it be that Shakespeare approves of this sort of mother and finds the product of her training to be admirable? Let's see what follows immediately!

Valeria, a friend of the family, comes to visit, and describes something she has observed that involves Marcius' young son. She says:

 
1 saw him run after a gilded butterfly;
and when he caught it, he let it go again;
and after it again; and over and over he comes,
and up again; catched it again;
or whether his fall enraged him, or how 'twas,
he did so set his teeth, and tear it.
 

—Act I, scene iii, lines 63-68

The promising child, in other words, plays cat-and-mouse with a butterfly and ends by killing it in a rage. But why a butterfly? Surely nothing can be as pretty, harmless, and helpless as a butterfly. It isn't possible that we can feel sympathetic for a child that would deliberately and sadistically kill one. And this is clearly the product of Volumnia's bringing up.

But can we really apply the unreasoning action of a young child to the behavior of the adult Marcius? Surely we can, for Shakespeare makes certain that we do. What does he have Volumnia say to Valeria's tale? She says, calmly:

 
One on's father's moods.
 

—Act I, scene iii, line 70

It seems reasonable to suppose that Shakespeare admires neither Volumnia's philosophy nor the individuals it produces.

 
… another Penelope…
 

Valeria wants Virgilia to come out on the town with her but Virgilia will not. Like a loyal wife, she will stay at home till her husband is back from the wars. Valeria says, cynically:

 
You would be another Penelope;
yet, they say, all the yarn she spun in
Ulysses' absence did but fill Ithaca full of moths.
 

—Act I, scene iii, lines 86-88

Penelope is the very byword of the faithful wife. Married to Ulysses (see page I-90) but a couple of years when he went forth to Troy, she remained faithful for twenty years in his home island of Ithaca, till he returned. In the last several years, he was rumored dead and many suitors clamored for her hand. She put them off with one ruse or another, the most famous being that she wanted first to finish a shroud she was weaving for Ulysses' aged father, Laertes. Every day she wove and every night she ripped out what she had woven, keeping it up a long time before she was caught. The story of Penelope and the suitors makes up a major portion of Homer's Odyssey.