She cleverly promises to make a certain decision once she finishes weaving a shroud for her father-in-law, Laertes; when that fails after three years, she sets up a challenge involving shooting an arrow through twelve axes.
Didymus holds that her name was originally Arnacia, and that she got her better-known name from the birds that fed her after Nauplius tossed her into the sea; another uncommon tradition places her as the mother by Hermes in the shape of a ram of Pan, possibly confusing her with a similarly named nymph. She becomes the mother of Italus after marrying Telegonus in one tradition, while earlier her father Icarius had forced her husband to beat him in a footrace to marry her. She wisely tells her servant Eurykleia to move her husband's bed, which cannot be done, and her other household servants includes the swineherd Eumaeus and the cowherd Philoetius. She cleverly promises to make a certain decision once she finishes weaving a shroud for her father-in-law, Laertes; when that fails after three years, she sets up a challenge involving shooting an arrow through twelve axes. Tolerating men like Agelaus and Antinoos, for 10 points, identify this ever-faithful mother of Telemakhos and wife of Odysseus.
Didymus holds that her name was originally Arnacia, and that she got her better-known name from the birds that fed her after Nauplius tossed her into the sea; another uncommon tradition places her as the mother by Hermes in the shape of a ram of Pan, possibly confusing her with a similarly named nymph.
Penelope