We know how Athena maneuvers among her fellow gods, exploiting her position while being careful not to step beyond its bounds.  Yet one of her distinguishing characteristics on Olympus is her gender.  Athena is traditionally a virgin, and more than that, an outright disdainer of sex[1].  Her behavior does not quite match up with that of her fellows:  she adopts neither the quiet chastity of the Olympic hearth-goddess, Hestia, or the cruel-eyed virginity of Artemis.  Both of these are very feminine characters, the one a nun and the other a tease; Athena is an absolute tomboy, charging about the battlefields of Troy just as happily as Aphrodite shifts among her pillows. 

            All this would lead us to perhaps suspect Athena of misogyny, and allow her to be written off as a clever attempt by a male-focused Hellenic cult to usurp the power of the female.  The Minoan matriarchal religion, although distant by the time of Homer, no doubt still sent out nervous rumblings, and Athena, whip-smart, Zeus-sprung, and boy-clad, would help prove that the best of the women were, in fact, men.

            Yet it’s impossible to eliminate women altogether, and there are many in the Odyssey, young, old, human, and immortal.  How can Athena negotiate with members of a gender she seems to lean away from at all costs?

            This is where we have to acknowledge again that Athena comes equipped with two edges.  Just as much as she can be seen as a usurpation of the female, she can also act as a double agent for the female cause, infiltrating the male ranks while still maintaining a core of female character.  Athena has a few traits which might label her a trickster (somebody who gets by on wit), which is generally a male tradition, but she is not a naughty Eros or a huckster Hermes.  She is crafty, a feature which among the Greeks carries a distinctly effeminate connotation.[2] Craftiness is too indirect to be a heroic trait.  Athena is a weaver both of notion and of material, and seems to know her way around the quiet twists and knots of the female mind just as she understands the complications of a battle map.  It is this skill which guides her through necessary interactions with the women of the Odyssey in order to achieve her aims.  Of these, Penelope is the most crucial.

            We mentioned earlier Athena’s careful stalling of outside events so that Odysseus may play at Phaeacian games and recount his story.  What we left unanswered was her absence in that story itself.  If she is so sensitive to Odysseus’ progress as to freeze circumstance for a recuperative weekend get-away, how could she see seven years’ absence as affordable?

            The answer lies in no small part with Penelope.  Reading from the beginning, one is inclined to be annoyed by Penelope, who minces downstairs to moan on a semi-regular basis.  Generally she receives a chastening from some male or another and returns to her suite to sob and wring her wrists, generally until Athena smothers her with a forgiving sleep.  This is no less an injustice than marking off Athena as a male stooge.  As we learn, Penelope is in fact directly responsible for the fact that Ithaca is so well-preserved for Odysseus’ return.  Odysseus has to fight the suitors, yes, but his son is alive and nearly full-grown, his wife is both home and unmarried, his father is in reasonable health, and the kingdom has not fallen into a war of succession.  By the time we—riding on the back of Athena—arrive on the scene, Penelope’s considerable resources have simply been exhausted.  In truth, Penelope has bought Athena nearly seven years of biding-time, and she has done it with the very tools of Athena’s trade.

            What energies has Penelope expended?  The weaving scheme is the most obvious, and the most obviously Athenaic.  Antinous puts it bluntly in response to Telemachus’ Athena-prodded challenge:

“…by day she’d weave at her great and growing web—

by night, by the light of the torches set beside her,

she would unravel all she’d done.  Thee whole years

she deceived us blind, seduced us with this scheme…”  (B.2, 116-9)

 

To us this inevitably brings to mind the tradition of Arachne, in which the unfortunate girl sets up a weaving contest with Athena.  Although that story is possessed of a rather uncomplimentary ending, the association of weaving with Athena is extremely close, echoed in the Odyssey by passages like the one later encountered on Phaeacia in which the skillful weaver-women are described as having their talent directly from Athena herself.  Penelope is clearly a faithful student of Athena in this regard, if she is able to plan and construct a shroud with a pattern allowing for easy deconstruction without immediately betraying the retreat in its completion each night.  Three years is an impressive amount of time to maintain such a ruse, and furthermore it only fails when betrayed by another woman:

“Then, when the wheeling seasons brought the fourth year on,

one of her women, in on the queen’s secret, told the truth

and we caught her in the act—unweaving her gorgeous web.

So she finished it off.  Against her will.  We forced her.”  (B.2, 120-2)

 

It is a scheme so flawlessly female that only a female could have caused its downfall.  Yet this is only three years of the more than seven since Odysseus’ death has become assumed, and Penelope had yet more options at her disposal.  All of them, Antinous shrewdly notes, are cribbed from Athena.

“So long as [Penelope] persists in tormenting us,

quick to exploit the gifts Athena gave her—

a skilled hand for elegant work, a fine mind

and subtle wiles too…

[No queen] could equal Penelope for intrigue

but in this case she intrigued beyond all limits.

So, we will devour your worldly goods and wealth

As long as she holds out, holds to that course

The gods have charted deep inside her heart.”  (B.2, 127-136)

 

This is proof enough for Athena’s influence on Penelope’s actions, and her acts of mercy and reassurance towards her—those grateful sleeps—have to be interpreted as being given in consideration of Penelope’s marvelous and quiet service to Athena’s aims.  The Odyssey opens essentially when Penelope is no longer able to hold Ithaca in stasis.  The combined pressures of the suitors’ increasing impatience and her own son’s burgeoning adulthood are finally forcing her hand.  Telemachus can’t stay on the cusp of manhood, and she cannot balance any longer between being a widow and a new bride.  Athena has not stepped in earlier because the relative calm of Ithaca and the continued presence of Poseidon combined to make intervention difficult and ill-advised.  Penelope holds the line until it begins to break.

            This relationship is of a polar opposite type from that which Athena has with Odysseus.  Athena to Penelope is always covert or inspirational, as we can see from the list of her actions.  With Odysseus she sees fit mostly to alter his environment, or communicates with him directly.  The closest Athena comes to direct contact with Penelope is through the vision of her sister Iphthime in Book 4, and this after several prayers on her part—

“ ‘Hear me, daughter of Zeus whose shield is thunder—

tireless one, Athena!  If ever, here in his halls,

resourceful King Odysseus

burned rich thighs of sheep or oxen in your honor,

oh remember it now for my sake, save my darling son…’” (B.4, 858-863)

 

The fact that the adjectives of value she uses are tireless and resourceful does not seem accidental.  These are the qualities which have been essential to Penelope’s survival, and now she projects them onto both her husband and her patroness in the hopes that they will continue to provide in some way. 

            Athena responds almost immediately to this deeply felt plea:  the shade of Iphthime assures her that Telemachus will come home, and that the gods are attentive to her pain.  Penelope responds with less than complete happiness with this platitude.

 

“You tell me to lay to rest the grief and tears

that overwhelm me now, torment me, heart and soul? 

With my lionhearted husband lost long years ago…?

…And now my darling boy,

he’s off and gone in a hollow ship!  Just a youngster,

still untrained for war or stiff debate.

Him I mourn even more than I do my husband.”  (B.4, 914-922)

 

Duly guilt-tripped, Athena is forced to show a few more of her cards:

“‘Courage!’  The shadowy phantom reassured her.

‘Don’t be overwhelmed by all your direst fears.

He travels with such an escort, one that others

Would pray to stand beside them.  She has power—

Pallas Athena.  She pities you in your tears.’”  (B.4, 928-932)

 

Penelope, having gained this much advantage, then turns the mighty force of her circumspection towards the welfare of Odysseus.  Iphthime rebuffs her soundly with “I cannot tell you the story start to finish, / whether he’s dead or alive” (B.4, 940-1), but this is as much as to say that Odysseus is alive, but in circumstance of difficulty or deformity.  Penelope has wangled an impressive amount of information out of a notoriously tight-lipped goddess.  However, if Athena is willing to give her assurance in regards to Telemachus, to the point of disclosing her own personal involvement, why not give away Odysseus’ safe return?  It adds enjoyable intrigue to Penelope’s interactions with Odysseus in the latter books, but if Athena is truly both strategic and sympathetic in this communication with Penelope, there is a deeper reason for withholding of comfort. 

            The best explanation is that Penelope has to be made to prove her loyalty—and her craftiness—upon Odysseus’ return, while Odysseus must be made to assert himself as Penelope’s husband.  Their mutual uncertainty sets the two up to test each other in their separate convictions and identities.  This will be best brought about by displaying the two of them at the top of their game, and Odysseus and his bride, as we know, are at the top of their game when that game is a complicated one.  The implication is that Athena is concerned for Penelope’s character and wellbeing in the longterm as well as the immediate moment. 

            Penelope’s significance to Odysseus is one which has been greatly discussed.  What is certain is that the two of them share an intimacy which is not seen in any of the other couples in Greek storytelling.  They are not momentarily impassioned lovers, but long-wed spouses.  Penelope, like all brides, exists as a sort of commodity, but she bears a genuine affection for Odysseus that exists far beyond any concern for her material or social status (and vice versa, if we replace sexual gratification for social status).  There is also a plethora of ways in which her traits are similar those of Odysseus, viewed through a feminine lens.  She, too, is a clever manipulator and a skilled speaker, gifted with strategic forethought and talented in the crafts associated with female virtue (just as Odysseus is talented in the arts of battle).  For these reasons she is an ideal match for Odysseus.  We will later try to prove that Telemachus and Laertes exist as versions of our hero stretching forward and back in time; Penelope exists as a version of Odysseus reflected across the line of gender, tying him to the worlds of sex, family, and full human society.  For these reasons Penelope must be of great interest to Athena, both as herself and as a crucial element of Odysseus’ being. 

            To return to the short-term implications of this visit, the use of Iphthime’s form is one of remarkable sensitivity.  In her relationship with Telemachus, which is highly parental, she appears as Mentor, an undoubtedly paternal figure.  With Odysseus, she takes on a wide array of forms depending on the intended effect (and Athena must affect Odysseus in a myriad of ways in order to return him to Ithaca in proper fashion).  With Penelope, she sends the closest thing to Penelope herself—her sister.  Likewise, the princess Nausicaa is visited and nudged towards the river by “the shipman Dymas’ daughter, / a girl the princess’ age, and dearest to her heart.” (B.6, 25-6)  With men, she is always a challenging other; with women, a persuasive self.  She is not nearly so hands-on as she is with the boys, but the suggestion is that she does not need to be.  A tap on the web is enough.