Yea, I believe! thou hast conquered my heart, however unloving!”[[8]]
Odysseus’s anger quickly melts as he clasps his sweet wife in his arms; and so we may leave Penelope in her happiness. Homer has one word more to say about her, however. It occurs, with apparent naïveté, almost like a curious little afterthought, in the last book of the poem. But there is really exquisite art in it. The souls of the suitors have gone wailing on their way to the World of the Dead; and there they meet the great Greek heroes who died at Troy. There too, they meet the haughty spirit of King Agamemnon, murdered by his wife on his return to Mycenæ. To him the suitors tell their tale of the faithful wife of Odysseus, and their ignominious end. And then from Agamemnon’s lips, bitterly contrasting his wife with Penelope, falls what is perhaps the noblest and most impressive tribute to her:
“O fortunate Laertes’ son,
Odysseus many-counselled, who a wife
So virtuous and so excellent have won!
“How rightly minded from of old was she,
Icarius’ child, unblamed Penelope!
How well remembered she her wedded lord
Odysseus! Therefore undecayed shall be
“Her fame for worth, among mankind so long