I
WHAT HAPPENED IN ITHACA WHILE ODYSSEUS WAS AWAY
While Odysseus was fighting far away in Troyland, his baby son grew to be a big boy. And when years passed and Odysseus did not return, the boy, Telemachus, grew to be a man.
Telemachus loved his beautiful mother, Penelope, but his heart always longed for the hero father whom he could only dimly remember. As time went on, he longed more and more, for evil things came to pass in the kingdom of Odysseus.
The chiefs and lords of Ithaca admired Penelope for her beauty. They also coveted her money and her lands, and when Odysseus did not return, each one of these greedy and wicked men wished to marry her and make his own all that had belonged to brave Odysseus.
"Odysseus is surely dead," they said, "and Telemachus is only a lad and cannot harm us."
So they came to the palace where Penelope and Telemachus lived, and there they stayed, year in, year out, feasting and drinking and wasting the goods of Odysseus. Their roughness and greed troubled Penelope, but still more did they each one daily torment her by rudely asking: "Wilt thou marry me?"
At last she fell on a plan to stop them from talking to her of marriage.
In the palace hall she set up a great web, beautiful and fine of woof.
Then she said, "When I have finished weaving this robe I shall give you my answer."