Penelope

The topic of this article is the described episode from the Odyssey in which Odysseus, after his long wanderings around the world, returns to Ithaca where he confirms his identity by shooting with a bow and arrow through 12 axes planted into the ground. The goal of the study is to reveal the character and semiotics of this act. The analysis begins with a presentation of the female aspects of the axe and especially of the double axe i.e. the labrys as a woman and a goddess. This is followed by an analysis of the arguments that point to the symbolic identification of these tools with the female genitalia and specifically - the equation of their handle opening with the vulva and uterus. Sufficient attention is also dedicated to the multiplication of the axes, based on several archaeological finds, as well as the symbolism of the bow and arrow, with special emphasis on the traditions that represent them as a symbol of the male principle. At the end, based on all the separately analyzed elements, a thesis is presented and argued that in the given period the mentioned act functioned as a ritual in which the archer entered a symbolic coitus with the female deity represented through the double axes. This procedure bore the character of hierogamy through which the man confirmed his masculinity, his legitimacy as a husband, as a companion (impregnator and son) of the Great Goddess and as ruler of the given land.

Key words. – Odyssey, Odysseus, hierogamy, axe, double axe, labrys, bow and arrow.

Archaic Greek epic exhibits a pervasive eristic intertextuality, repeatedly positioning its heroes and itself against pre-existing traditions. In this article, I focus on a specific case study from the Odyssey: Homer’s agonistic relationship with the Catalogue of Women tradition. Hesiodic-style catalogue poetry has long been recognized as an important intertext for the Nekyia of Odyssey 11, but here I explore a more sustained dialogue across the whole poem. Through an ongoing agōn that sets Odysseus’s wife against catalogic women, Homer establishes the pre-eminence of his heroine and—by extension—the supremacy of his own poem.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a preview of the article.

Women in the Homeric epics “remember” (μιμνήσκεσθαι) differently from men. This difference contributes to the distinctive quality of Penelope’s kleos in the Odyssey as well as, more generally, to the characterization of the ideal wife in archaic and classical Greece. Αlthough studies on Penelope constitute practically a sub-genre within the critical literature on the Odyssey, the subject of her memory (and its contribution to the poetics of the Odyssey) has received only sporadic attention. This is surprising, especially given the explicit link that Αgamemnon makes between Penelope’s kleos and her memory (ὡς εὖ μέμνητ᾿ Ὀδυσῆος), in a famous passage of Book 24 (lines 192–202). is “remembering” just a synonym for constancy? To be sure, Penelope’s mêtis, with which she deceives the suitors and even her own husband, provides more immediately gratifying food for thought. Upon closer inspection, however, it becomes clear that even within the discourse on female fidelity of which “remembering” is a part, Penelope sets her own terms, defining both memory and marital fidelity in radically innovative ways.

La historia es conocida. ULYSES se ha retrasado pero finalmente ha llegado a ITACA. Mientras duerme en la playa y espera que alguien aparezca piensa, piensa que no quiere regresar, que no tiene sentido. A partir de esa negativa de ULYSES aparecen los pensamientos de PENELOPE, de TELEMACO y del mismo HOMERO.

Winner of Spain's national poetry prize, Francisca Aguirre is the author of the long poem Itáca (1972), a reconceptualization of the island home of Penelope and Odysseus. Aguirre's engagement with myth is both reactionary and revisionary as it responds to the idea of Ithaca as symbolic homeland and as the impetus for a liberating, life-changing journey. Inspired by the poetry of Greek writer C. P. Cavafy, Itáca is also in dialogue with the mythology of place, exile, recognition, and the restructuring of identity. However, as a woman encountering his work decades later in Francoist Spain, Aguirre found that Cavafy, like Homer, promised a journey that was not accessible to her. Thus, her poem becomes an investigation of how narratives of the self are limited by social expectations and how divergent subjectivities are silenced, and reborn.

You can read reviews in:

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/non-fiction/article4541221.ece

http://www.tnr.com/booksarts/story.html?id=1f861e19-ddfd-40bf-b8c3-d56c132c8dbe&p=4

http://www.lambdacc.org/iris/20092.pdf

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?aid=6162036

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-6563.2010.00273_62.x/pdf

For the conference "Space Oddities - on the reception of the Odyssey in visual arts and culture from the late 18th century until today" I traced how the curators of the Athenian EMST-collection - as it was presented at Museum Fridericianum during documenta 14 - used motifs from the Odyssey to communicate with their international audience. My forthcoming article deriving from this presentation goes a step further, presenting the Odyssey as Leitmotiv of documenta 14 as a whole that is determined by the EMST collection.

Was passiert, wenn wir die Odyssee nicht als Epos um den homerischen Helden Odysseus lesen, sondern als den Tagtraum Penelopes, die im Schatten eines Sonnensegels in ihrem Hof auf Ithaka sitzt und webt?
So die Prämisse der KuratorInnen des Griechischen Museums für Gegenwartskunst (EMST) in ihrer Präsentation der Skulptur „Slumber“ (1994/2000) von Janine Antoni. Durch einzelne Elemente der Installation  wird „Slumber“ im Rahmen einer größeren Sammlungspräsentation, als Teil eines Narrativs lesbar, in dem das EMST homerische Motive für eine Auseinandersetzung auf der internationalen Bühne der documenta 14 aufgreift und aktualisiert.

El presente estudio pretende ilustrar los aspectos innovadores que se manifiestan en la lectura de algunos ejemplos de reelaboración del mito de Penélope. Los poemas de la antología L’altra Penelope (2008) se revisten de connotaciones femeninas y feministas que, pese al hecho
de mantener ataduras ontológicas con el modelo de partida, suponen un punto de inflexión contundente. Se propone una comparación entre algunas de estas composiciones con los versos de un poeta chicano, Tino Villanueva, quien dedicó un poemario a la mujer de Odiseo. La finalidad cardinal del análisis estriba en examinar los nuevos derroteros temáticos que establecen un vínculo indisoluble con el pasado, a la vez que renuevan los elementos más significativos de la narración homérica.

This  study  aims  to  illustrate  the  innovative  aspects  that  reveal  themselves  through  the  reading of some of the re-elaborations of the myth of Penelope. The poems of L’altra Penelope(2008) anthology are marked by feminine and feminist connotations that imply a crucial change of  viewpoint,  although  they  keep  an  ontological  tie  with  the  archetype.  It  intends  to  make  a  comparison  between  some  of  these  compositions  with  the  verses  of  a  Chicano  writer,  Tino  Villanueva, who dedicated a collection of poems to the wife of Odysseus. The cardinal porpoise of the  analysis  is  based  on  the  examination  of  the  new  thematic  paths  that  establish  a  binding  connection with the past and at the same time they renew the most significant elements of the Homeric narration

Il saggio propone un’analisi testuale e contestuale del romanzo breve L’orizzonte (1966) di Carla Vasio, composto all’epoca del suo sodalizio col Gruppo 63.  Pur aderendo a un paradigma modernista sperimentale del raccontare, Vasio non rinuncia alla ricerca di un “orizzonte” ermeneutico e psicologico, e si distacca dunque dalla tendenza all’indeterminatezza labirintica e all’abolizione dell’io caratteristiche della neoavanguadia. Benché mai fisso o totalizzante, tale orizzonte serve nondimeno a orientare la ricerca narrativa, collegandola a un’identità femminile, e costruendo un “io” riconoscibile, capace di dare un senso e una direzione nuova all’esperienza della protagonista. La metafora del lavorare a maglia e del disfare viene interpretata come rivisitazione e originale revisione femminista del mito di Penelope, e come allegoria della tessitura sperimentale del racconto e della storia esemplare di una giovane donna, testimonianza del nuovo femminismo in fieri in Italia mentre si preparano le battaglie per il divorzio e per l’aborto.

Lassen Sie sich mitnehmen in die Welt der Antike, mitten hinein in das Liebesleben von Frauengestalten wie Medea, Hero, Sappho, Oenone, Penelope oder Phaedra. In Briefen an ihre Männer erleben wir tiefe Liebe, blanken Hass, Sehnsucht, Sorge, Eifersucht, Rachgier und Verzweiflung. Verfasst wurden diese Briefe von Ovid, einem Zeitgenossen des Kaisers Augustus.

Es lesen die Schauspielerinnen Ronja Forcher und Sabine Osterholz
Musik: Andy T. J. Steiner
Ein Film von Flowing Frames
aufgenommen in der Archäologischen Sammlung der Universität Innsbruck
Idee und Organisation: Sabine Fick

interdisciplinary project music, art, and ancient Greek studies
with music by Hans Adolfsen, Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini, and Marianne Schuppe
and art and performance by Krassimira Drenska, Anne-Dominique Hubert, Karin Käppeli von Bülow, Kitty Schaertlin, Vernea Schindler, Nicole Schmölzer, Dadi Wirz
and others

L'articolo è la rielaborazione in lingua italiana dell'intervento «Of fragments and footnotes: Absence and Invention of the Text in Roberto Bazlen» ed è contenuto in Diego Bertelli, «Viaggio al termine della scrittura: Calvino Pasolini Bazlen Parise Cattafi» (Firenze, Le Lettere, 2017, pp. 101-120)

The abortive messages that Dolios almost but never conveys from
Penelope to Laertes and from Laertes' farm to Penelope in Books 4 and 24 of the Odyssey allude to alternative versions of Odysseus's nostos in which Odysseus returned to Ithaca with an armed band and expelled the suitors with the knowing collusion of Penelope and Laertes. By referencing these epichoric variants, Homer creates a narrative opening for his original audience to infer that Penelope and Laertes conspire to use the palace and Laertes' farm as power centers from which to lead the insurrection against the suitors upon Odysseus's return, while at the same time articulating norms of licit and illicit means of trickery through the divergent fates of Dolios and his "bad seed" offspring Melanthios and Melantho.

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Public Lecture Organised by:
Department of Classical & Modern Greek Philology, Charles University in Prague, and the Union of Classical Philologists - Jednota klasických filologů (JKF) in the frame of Erasmus+ Teaching Staff Mobility 19-23.02.2018

Abstract: Helen and Penelope: The visions of the eagle and the geese.
A comparison of the omen and dream episodes: Od. xv:160-178 and Od. xix.535-555
In the Odyssey, Helen and Penelope experience similar portents in their respective omen and dream episodes. Both involve the actions of an eagle, and a goose/geese. What the interpretations of these visions also have in common is the entrenched epic’s thematic focus on Odysseus’ pending homecoming and the restoration of his οἶκος. Recent scholarship on Helen has commented that Od.xv.172-178 is evidence of her divine nature (Blondell, 2013 and Clader, 1976), and her uncanny sixth sense (Suzuki, 1989). In contrast, in the dream episode, Penelope does not believe what is said to her in the dream nor her disguised husband’s exact same interpretation. Russo (1982) has argued that there is ambivalence in Penelope’s complex state of mind, while Austin (1994) and Bolmarcich (2001) have focussed on the intense mental harmony and ὁμοφροσύνη between Penelope and Odysseus. Amory (1966), Rozokoki (2001) and Haller (2009) discuss the dream, and Penelope’s and Odysseus’ relationship delving into the symbolic significance of the gates of horn and ivory. This paper will argue that Helen’s interpretation of the omen is supportive of the Homeric Odyssean οἶκος, specifically Odysseus’ οἶκος. Helen’s interpretation also states that Odysseus will wreak vengeance on the suitors for their breach of ζενία. While Penelope’s character is the loyal, supportive, long-suffering wife, it is actually Helen, traditionally seen as the antithesis of Penelope’s qualities, who interprets the shared visions of the eagle and the goose/geese in favour of Odysseus. She ‘divinely’ interprets Odysseus’ homecoming, the cleaning of his οἶκος, and his restoration with Penelope reclaiming his rulership of Ithaca.
Bibliography:
Amory, A. ‘The Gates of Horn and Ivory’ Yale Classical Studies. No.20.1966. pp.1-57.
Austin, N. Helen of Troy and her Shameless Phantom Cornell, 1994
Blondell, R. Helen of Troy. Beauty, Myth Devastation. OUP, 2013.
Bolmarcich, S. ‘ΟΜΟΦΡΟΣΥΝΗ in the ‘Odyssey’’ Classical Philology. Vol.96, No.3. 2001
pp.2015-213.
Clader, L. Helen. The Evolution from Divine to Heroic in Greek Epic Tradition. Brill, 1976.
Haller, B. ‘The Gates of Horn and Ivory in Odyssey 19: Penelope’s Call for Deeds, Not Words’
Classical Philology. Vol.104, No.4. 2009. pp.397-417.
Rozokoki, A. ‘Penelope’s Dream in Book 19 of the ‘Odyssey’’ The Classical Quarterly.
Vol.51, No.1. 2001. pp.1-6.
Russo, J. ‘Interview and Aftermath: Dream, Fantasy, and Intuition in Odyssey 19 and 20’
American Journal of Philology. Vol.103, No.1. 1982.  pp.4-18.
Suzuki, M. Metamorphoses of Helen. Authority, Difference, and the Epic. Cornell, 1989.

The union of feminine and masculine elements is a common motif in cosmological narratives across cultures. Mythological accounts of the beginning of the world often imagine the production of things and concepts through sexual and erotic images. The article discusses matrimonial metaphors in Hesiod's Theogony and investigates the relation of the cosmological union to poetic description of human marriage. The article has three parts:
1. The Bond between Cosmic and Human Marriages
2. Marriage as Rape: The Feminine Perspective
3.Marriage as Trap: The Male Perspective

Per Mireia Rosich En molts mites i contes de fades el fet de filar apareix com un símbol de creació: crear la trama de la pròpia vida. Filar, cantar o ballar 1 són, en aquests relats, accions màgiques, creen i mantenen vida. Mitologies i religions estan farcides de símbols d'aquesta naturalesa que s'han d'anar desentrellant, precisament com si descabdellessis un fil. Com diu Jean Houston "Un mito es algo que nunca fue pero que siempre está ocurriendo" 2. El llenguatge poètic i simbòlic que utilitzen totes les tradicions quan intenten abordar temes transcendents és l'únic que ens apropa a la frontera entre la part humana i la divina, la part visible i l'oculta. Filar i desfilar, tan simbòlic en si mateix. En aquest article voldria aproximar-me als personatges mitològics que filen i posar alguns exemples de com s'han representat en diferents moments de la història de l'art. Les Moires, filadores del destí En la Grècia clàssica la simbologia del fil forma part del mateix misteri de la vida. En el relat de la creació de l'univers 3 se'ns explica que tot sorgeix del caos. D'aquest caos primigeni emergiran les criatures primordials, que donaven forma humana a conceptes abstractes que espantaven els homes, vulnerables davant la immensitat natural. Les Moires, primeres filadores, eren filles directes de la nit (Nix), i les tenebres (Èreb) 4 , i personificaven el destí de cada persona. Cap llei ni cap Déu, per molt poderós que fos, podien canviar aquest

To, Odisej, ti zamudnežu piše Penelopa tvoja.
    Nič ne odpiši nazaj! Rajši mi pridi ti sam!
Troja, odurna danajskim ženám, poteptana na tleh je!
    Priam in Troja tegà sploh nista vredna bila.
O, da takrat, ko s svojim brodovjem je plul proti Šparti,
    bedno vlačugar končal v divjih bi morskih vodáh!
V postelji ne bi prezebala zdaj, zapuščena in sama,
    tarnala ne bi, kako dnevi počasi teko,
tuhtala ne bi, kako noči naj predolge si krajšam,
    ne bi ob statvah bedé vdova si utrujala rok.

This article proposes a new view of the mysterious incident in which Odysseus wears Leukothea’s veil to make it safely ashore in Odyssey 5, arguing that it bears directly on one of the epic’s fundamental themes, the reunion of the hero with Penelope. Through an analysis of the traditional referentiality of the veil in the Homeric epics and of Odyssean similes associating shipwreck with family reunion, it is shown that Leukothea’s veil identifies Odysseus with Penelope while both signifying and magically effecting the recovery of chastity, and ultimately of his marriage.

This article offers insight into Alberto Savinio's play Capitano Ulisse (Captain Ulysses, 1934), with a particular focus on its representation of Penelope. An analysis of the play, in combination with an examination of some of Savinio's paintings, illustrates how his peculiar rewritings of Homer's Odyssey subvert mythology in order to mock bourgeois society. This article tries to shed light on the sense and scope of Savinio's de-heroization of myths, namely his reshaping of these stories into new, ironic, and unheroic forms and meanings.

Dose perturbations, backscatter dose perturbation factor (BSDF), and forward dose perturbation factor (FDPF) near high-Z material interfaces have been reported to be intense and significant in kilovoltage photon beams. Validity of estimation of dose perturbations is critical in the evaluation of radiation effects associated with high-Z interfaces. The magnitude of dose perturbations has been debated due to limitations in the measuring devices (mainly window thickness and chamber perturbations). Monte Carlo (MC) simulations have been proposed for the interface effects but poor statistics in small spatial bins (1 mm) near the interface makes MC data questionable even with a well designed code. A moving-window least-square polynomial fit (MLPF) method is proposed to smooth MC simulated data. This method is shown to be useful in achieving reasonable accuracy from statistically poor MC data obtained within a reasonable computation time. The EGS4 and PENELOPE MC simulated data at the interfaces between high-Z materials and a water phantom have been used to calculate the BSDF and FDPF which differ significantly from the measurements suggesting the necessity of further refinements in MC approaches and better measuring devices at interface effects.

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