You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To

It's not that you're fairer
Than a lot of girls just as pleasin'
That I doff my hat
As a worshipper at your shrine
It's not that you're rarer
Than asparagus out of season
No, my darling, this is the reason
Why you've got to be mine

You'd be so nice to come home to
You'd be so nice by the fire
While the breeze on high, sang a lullaby
You'd be all that I could desire
Under stars chilled by the winter
Under an August moon burning above
You'd be so nice
You'd be paradise,
to come home to and love

-frank sinatra

Penelope.

Penelope is the wife of Odysseus. Immediately we begin the characterization of this woman through her relationship to her husband because in this context she is so affectionately framed. She is the good greek woman/wife. She is contrasted against the wife of Agamemnon, Clytemnestra. However she is not Clytemnestra, nor is Odysseus Agamemnon. Odysseus is much more the modern man. He relies heavily on his own intelligence and cunning to carry him through difficult situations. He is persuasive and strategic and yet he is forced to travel the seas for 10 years on his way home from Troy. One reason for this odyssey is the pride that Odysseus feels for his own accomplishments. His lack of humility at certain moments angers the gods, who are rightfully above him, and so he is forced to amend his mistake.

But gods aside, another suggestion remains to why the King of Ithaca does not return directly to his home, to Penelope. Alberto Moravia, in his novel "Il Disprezzo" (Contempt) places several dialogues on the story within his text. One of his characters therefore suggests that Ulysses, as he is called in this context, does not return straight home because he is apprehensive about returning to a woman with whom he has had a falling out. In "Il Disprezzo" the suggestion is made that Ulysses and Penelope are two people on different sides of the same situation.

In this version, Penelope has been lightly burdened with the presence of the suitors before Ulysses leaves for Troy. Penelope is annoyed by Ulysses lack of action. Ulysses allows these men to linger inappropriately around his home, because he does not feel intimidated by their presence, and does not mind the gifts they offer to his household. Penelope sees Ulysses non-action as endorsement of their actions. Penelope feels not like an upstanding wife, but more like a kept woman. She wishes for Ulysses to throw out the suitors, to be a man. But Ulysses doesn't realize this is the case. Ulysses begins to realize that although Penelope is the perfect wife, she no longer loves him. Ulysses sees the opportunity to get away with the Trojan war, and goes.

Penelope is left behind with the suitors, her household, and her son. She is ever dutiful to her husband. But when Ulysses returns she does not immediately welcome him home. She is kind, but she treats him as a stranger. Eventually she treats him as a suitor in his own home. She announces that she will choose a husband. She announces a game to win her hand, and calls for gifts from her suitors. Ulysses sees these things, and doesnt think of it this way. He thinks she is on his side.

After Ulysses stands up against the suitors, and they are all slain with few exception... he has the women of the household killed for their behavior with the suitors, so-called betrayal to his house. It is a curious action on his part. Were the women as threatening to him as the men? Regardless, Ulysses has the women surrounding Penelope, with again few exception killed. Penelope finally recognizes in Ulysses the man who made their bed, the man whom she married. This is only after Ulysses has killed practically everyone.

Ulysses must kill the suitors because he must assert the legitimacy of his marriage to Penelope, and he must kill the women perhaps because he must rebuke the past sexual temptations and transgressions that he has committed against his marriage bed. Could this be a possible explanation? It is curious to me.

But Penelope does recognize him, but only after her son yells at her for being so cold to his father. Once again the child is the fathers. Penelope and Ulysses stay up all night talking. Things look promising for Ulysses. Athena even smooths out the business with the angry families of the suitors. Ulysses is home with Penelope. Everything else is detail.

penelope unweaves the first loom.