A violent storm and cold wind blew in through the wide-open window. She opened her eyes and suddenly realized she had fallen asleep at the loom. Exhaustion and time had relentlessly drained her strength. Three years of weaving could no longer be prolonged. A faithless maid had informed the suitors, exposing her trick of weaving the shroud by day and unraveling it by night.
Penelope raised her head and looked out the window. For the past twenty years, she had stood in the bedchamber of Ithaca's palace, watching the sea and waiting for the great ship carrying her husband to return. She saw the clamor raised by the suitors below the palace. Argus, the hunting dog her husband Odysseus had raised with his own hands, could now only lie atop a dung heap in the mule stable. He could no longer sink his teeth into prey as he once had, nor could he rise and drive away these vicious Ithacan nobles.
When Antinous had still been a little boy, her husband had sat him on his knee, fed him meat, and shared fine wine with him from his cup. Yet now Antinous wanted to kill his best friend—Telemachus, the son she had borne with her husband. The honor that Axius and his son Laertes, Laertes and his son Odysseus, had once bestowed upon Ithaca's nobles had been cast aside by them, like the bones and meat they casually discarded during their feasts.
Bound by the sacred oath of hospitality, Telemachus had no choice but to host this band of suitors. He could not harm them and could only generously share food with them.
The foreigner whom her son Telemachus had brought back last night had brought news of Odysseus. He had even described the clothes Odysseus had worn—a red cloak,