The Penelopiad Read Online Free Page A

understand what he says. I certainly never could! It was lucky for both of us that he didn’t win me !’
    She gave the patronizing smirk of someone who’shad first chance at a less than delicious piece of sausage but has fastidiously rejected it. Indeed, Odysseus had been among the suitors for her hand, and like every other man on earth he’d desperately wanted to win her. Now he was competing for what was at best only second prize.
    Helen strolled away, having delivered her sting. The maids began discussing her splendid necklace, her scintillating earrings, her perfect nose, her elegant hairstyle, her luminous eyes, the tastefully woven border of her shining robe. It was as if I wasn’t there. And it was my wedding day.
    All of this was a strain on the nerves. I started to cry, as I would do so often in the future, and was taken to lie down on my bed. Thus I missed the race itself. Odysseus won it. He cheated, as I later learned. My father’s brother, Uncle Tyndareus, father of Helen – though, as I’ve told you, some said that Zeus was her real father – helped him to do it. He mixed the wine of the other contestants with a drug that slowed themdown, though not so much as they would notice; to Odysseus he gave a potion that had the opposite effect. I understand that this sort of thing has become a tradition, and is still practised in the world of the living when it comes to athletic contests.
    Why did Uncle Tyndareus help my future husband in this way? They were neither friends nor allies. What did Tyndareus stand to gain? My uncle would not have helped anyone – believe me – simply out of the goodness of his heart, a commodity that was in short supply.
    One story has it that I was the payment for a service Odysseus had rendered to Tyndareus. When they were all competing for Helen and things were getting more and more angry, Odysseus made each contestant swear an oath that whoever won Helen must be defended by all of the others if any other man tried to take her away from the winner. In that way he calmed things down and allowed the match with Menelaus to proceed smoothly. He must have known he had no hope himself. It was then – so therumour goes – that he struck the bargain with Tyndareus: in return for assuring a peaceful and very profitable wedding for the radiant Helen, Odysseus would get plain-Jane Penelope.
    But I have another idea, and here it is. Tyndareus and my father, Icarius, were both kings of Sparta. They were supposed to rule alternately, one for a year and the other the next, turn and turn about. But Tyndareus wanted the throne for himself alone, and indeed he later got it. It would stand to reason that he’d sounded out the various suitors on their prospects and their plans, and had learned that Odysseus shared the newfangled idea that the wife should go to the husband’s family rather than the other way around. It would suit Tyndareus fine if I could be sent far away, me and any sons I might bear. That way there would be fewer to come to the aid of Icarius in the event of an open conflict.
    Whatever was behind it, Odysseus cheated and won the race. I saw Helen smiling maliciously as she watched the marriage rites. She thought I was being pawned off on an uncouth dolt who wouldhaul me off to a dreary backwater, and she was not displeased. She’d probably known well beforehand that the fix was in.
    As for me, I had trouble making it through the ceremony – the sacrifices of animals, the offerings to the gods, the lustral sprinklings, the libations, the prayers, the interminable songs. I felt quite dizzy. I kept my eyes downcast, so all I could see of Odysseus was the lower part of his body. Short legs , I kept thinking, even at the most solemn moments. This was not an appropriate thought – it was trivial and silly, and it made me want to giggle – but in my own defence I must point out that I was only fifteen.

vii
The Scar
    And so I was handed over to Odysseus, like a package of meat.