The loyal wife waits for him. Her fingers are tired of weaving and unweaving at her loom. She is tired of her son who rages at her and her suitors who want to own her.
She craves a body beside her on her olive tree bed, and she watches the moon, perhaps hoping in the back of her mind that the goddess will shoot her down with gentle arrows. Her days are full of torment and she has no one to comfort her in the nights.
If only it was possible for her to be happy without marrying again. Maybe if they let her, she could sleep in peace, rule in peace, live in peace. But the dutiful wife cannot lose her patience or her faith, even when her husband finally comes back bearing gifts of deception and war.
With the blood of her unwanted guests splattered across her palace floors and her husband’s body, there is nothing left to do but love him.
Penelope and the Suitors by John William Waterhouse
The lustful nymph keeps him close. He is held captive on her island until the messenger interferes, but he is not truly a prisoner.
She cries that she saved him, that she satisfied him for a time, but they will not listen. No one quite understands how lonely she is, and how blissful it was to have a companion. But now that bliss will be ripped away from her. Paradise can not last, it seems, and she will never be offered the same privileges as kings and princes of gods.
She watches as he sails away from her to his true home, and she sheds a tear. He may not have cared about her, but she didn’t stop herself from loving him.
Calypso calling heaven and earth to witness her sincere affection to Ulysses by Angelica Kauffman
The lavish sorceress helps him on his journey. His men may think of her as dangerous — a mysterious force of witchcraft, a seductress who makes friends with lions and turns men to swine.
But who else could offer them shelter and luxury for a year? Who else could guide him on his journey to the land of the dead? Who else could warn him of the perils of the sea?
He could not make this journey without her, and he must know it. She gave him the gift of life, and he repays her with the curse of a birth. And while he leaves to go back to the wife and son he truly wants, perhaps she sings her love for him in vain.
Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses by John William Waterhouse
been re-reading it over and over this is too perfect, thank you for such a nice read!
maya this is absolutely brilliant