Aphrodite-like Penelope (Part 2.3)

This is a series on Penelope, who rocks and everyone should know more about. The breakdown is based on my reading (in ancient Greek, thank you very much) of the Odyssey and with some help from Jenny Strauss Clay, Nancy Felson-Rubin, and Sheila Murnaghan. Read Goddess-Like Penelope, Hera-Like Penelope, and Artemis-Like Penelope below.

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Aphrodite, on the other hand, offers Penelope New Life. The myths of the Goddess of Love are in many ways the most applicable to Penelope’s situation. Think, for example, of the fling she had with Ares, the God of War while she was still Hephaestus’ wife, or the fact that it was her intervention that caused Helen to leave Menelaus and elope with Paris, thus beginning the Trojan War. These are examples of Dalliance as described by Nancy Felson-Rubin.

Nevertheless, Aphrodite does not merely advocate free love in this scenario but new marriage. This is particularly noticeable in the quotation below where it is she, and not the Protectress of Marriage (Hera), who petitions Zeus for the marriage of the daughters of Pandareos. When Penelope washes her face in the ambrosia of Aphrodite (18.185), the hardship, the old weighing life she had, falls away and she is born anew, just as the Goddess of Beauty ritually renews herself in the sea.

So if Aphrodite is running the show, Penelope would do well to go ahead and choose one of the Suitors for her husband and start a new life with him. Likewise, if Artemis is running the show, the only option that will bring her relief is a chaste death. Hera, as we saw in a previous post, is not well-equipped to help women in Penelope’s position and indeed, barely manages when her own husband isn’t in eye-sight.

It’s also worth noting that Aphrodite is a powerful goddess, and more of a personality in the Odyssey than Artemis – who, as you may recall from the last post, represents the chaste-death option for Penelope. Helen, who comes down the stairs looking like Artemis, of all people, is the one who makes that power most obvious. Helen takes no responsibility for her behavior; she was forced, she says, by Aphrodite. Poor Penelope. She knows the story of Helen, and that of Klytaimnestra, and so she knows the influences that Aphrodite can have on women’s lives when she chooses to interfere. But she does not know which goddess is running the show in her own life, and is caught in between trying to decide on the correct direction.

Felson-Rubin, Nancy. “Penelope’s Perspective: Character from Plot.” Reading the Odyssey: Selected Interpretive Essays. Seth L. Schein, ed. Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, 1996

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Next week: Which goddess is Penelope really like?