DOI 10.1007/s12138-009-0047-0

From Penelope to Winnie Mandela – Women Who Waited BETINE VAN ZYL SMIT

© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2008

The paper examines the depiction of Penelope, the faithful wife in Homer’s Odyssey, in some modern novels from different parts of the world. A brief analysis of Ovid’s hint at a more complex woman in the Heroides is followed by discussion of the versions of Jean Giono, Inge Merkel, Penelope Lively, Margaret Atwood and Njabulo Ndebele’s The Cry of Winnie Mandela. Whereas the epic focuses on the eponymous hero, these works, which all draw on the Odyssey, move Penelope to the foreground and the adventure story becomes the backdrop for a different kind of adventure that is played out in the marital home. It is notable that the modern novels concentrate on the psychology of the woman and on the marriage relationship and make the epic couple a paradigm for marriage in the modern world.

The Odyssey is an epic relating the adventures of its eponymous hero. Many, indeed most, of the later works of literature inspired by the Odyssey are based on that aspect of the poem. However, the Odyssey as a tale of marriage, and of a most unusual marriage, has also provided the starting point for many later works. In these Penelope is moved to the foreground and the adventure story becomes the backdrop for a different kind of adventure that is played out in the confines of the marital home in Ithaca. This paper shows how Ovid explored hidden facets of the Homeric Penelope and then goes on to examine modern retellings of the marital relationship of the famous couple by novelists from five countries: Jean Giono (France), Inge Merkel (Austria), Penelope Lively (England), Margaret Atwood (Canada) and Njabulo Ndebele (South Africa). In the Odyssey Penelope is the one who waits in Ithaca for Odysseus. She looks after his home, his son and his estate. She weeps lonely tears but nothing induces her to betray her husband and to neglect her duties, not even Betine Van Zyl Smit, Department of Classics, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UNITED KINGDOM International Journal of the Classical Tradition, Vol. 15, No. 3, September 2008, pp. 393-406.

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under pressure from the suitors does she contemplate infidelity. She refuses to accept the probability that Odysseus has died. Every aspect of her existence is defined by her relationship to Odysseus: she is his wife, the mother of his child and the mistress of his estate. The ancient epic depicts her as a meet spouse for the clever, much-enduring hero. She is equally patient and clever and thinks up stratagems to deal with the crises that come up in her environment. She is also a devoted mother to Telemachus.1 The enduring myth of Penelope as she emerges in the Odyssey is probably best summarised in the description of her by the shade of Agamemnon in the last book: ‘Son of Laertes, shrewd Odysseus!’ the soul of Agamemnon, son of Atreus, cried: ‘You are a fortunate man to have won a wife of such pre-eminent virtue! How faithful was your flawless Penelope, Icarius’ daughter! How loyally she kept the memory of the husband of her youth! The glory of her virtue will not fade with the years, but the deathless gods themselves will make a beautiful song for mortal ears in honour of the constant Penelope. What a contrast with Clytaemnestra, the daughter of Tyndareus, and the infamy she sank to when she killed me, the husband of her youth. The song men will sing of her will be one of detestation. She has destroyed the reputation of her whole sex, virtuous women and all.’ Od. 24.191 ff. (p. 360 Rieu tr.)2 This image of the constant wife, whose loyalty and virtue are brought into sharper relief by contrasting her with the adulterous husbandslayer Clytaemnestra, has dominated through the centuries. The paradigm of the good woman, the faithful support of her husband, unquestioningly accepting his need to be absent and dutifully looking after his son and home has survived in spite of occasional attempts to look deeper into her character. For instance Ovid, in his playful version of Penelope’s side of the story in the opening poem of the book of Heroides, does show Penelope entertaining some thoughts about her absent husband’s fidelity. However, she is still forever Odysseus’3 (or Ulysses’) wife as Ovid has her say: Penelope coniunx semper Ulixis ero.4 In the Odyssey Penelope’s intelligence is marked by her epithet ‘periphron,’ mindful, circumspect, which occurs fifty times; but her intelligence is confined to the domestic sphere whereas Odysseus’ cleverness epithets, poluphrōn, polumēchanos, polumētis and polutropos emphasise the variety of fields and situations where he displays his many skills5. Penelope’s behaviour may prove puzzling to many readers. Certain aspects of her character, notably the way in which she handles the suitors, show independence and ingenuity. Yet, although she longs for her husband, she does not express resentment at having to endure loneliness and being de1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Heitman (2005) 35-9 discusses the maternal side of Penelope. I quote from the 1991 revised edition of E.V. Rieu’s translation as that is the version used by two 21st century novelists whose reinterpretation of Penelope’s story will be discussed in this paper, namely Margaret Atwood and Njabulo Ndebele. This paper uses the names as they appear in the version discussed, thus Odysseus, Ulysses, Ulysse. ‘I shall always be Penelope, the wife of Ulysses.’ (Her. 1.84) Heitman (2005) 108-9.

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prived of the benefits of a normal married life. She does not seem to entertain the possibility of her husband being unfaithful. She even accepts, without complaint, Odysseus’ announcement, on the night of their reunion after twenty years, that he is leaving again (23.266-87). Penelope’s inner life remains enigmatic. Writers over the centuries have found inspiration in trying to supplement the hidden side of the mysteriously dutiful and tractable Penelope created by Homer. Modern scholars6 too have devoted considerable attention to analysing the role and character of Penelope in the Odyssey. Close reading of the epic text by scholars reveals many hints that Penelope, especially in her delayed recognition of her returned husband, is a complex character whose compliance with her husband’s unorthodox conduct masks an independent spirit. Adaptors have used the character of the loyal and enduring wife, who is also clever enough to be a helpmeet to her inventive husband, as the starting point for creating a more autonomous Penelope and for retelling the story from her side7. In addition to the modern Penelopes who figure in novels, Homer’s enigmatic heroine has inspired many modern poets. Lilian Doherty has studied how American women poets of the twentieth century responded to the Penelope theme.8 Doherty’s exploration of the Penelope poems confirms that they echo many of the themes raised in the novels. Ovid Heroidum Epistula I Ovid set his innovative interpretation strictly within the framework of the ancient epic. His verse epistle carries clear pointers to the context of book 19 of the Odyssey. Troy has fallen and more precise references to Telemachus’ journey to Pylos and Sparta (37-8, 63-5, 99-100) recall Penelope’s conversation with her son (Od. 17.107-65) the day before the test of the bow.9 A stranger, a beggar, has arrived in Ithaca, and as Penelope cannot sleep, she spends the night writing a letter to Ulysses pleading with him to return to her. However her appeal carries an undercurrent of reproach that implies that he could return if he really wanted to. Ovid’s text offers a sophisticated interplay with the Odyssey and invites the reader to assess Penelope’s version against that of the epic.10 Ironic engagement with the Odyssey is enhanced by the ingenious twist that Ulysses himself, the disguised beggar, would be asked to carry the letter to its intended recipient. Ovid’s Penelope epistle is not simply a rhetorical reworking of a Homeric theme, but a masterly revelation of feminine feelings. Thus the Latin poet succeeds in giving new life to the traditional material. Penelope utters the complaint of the male elegiac lover, of being confined to a lonely bed. If only Paris had been drowned on his way to Sparta, she would not have been deserted: non ego deserto iacuissem frigida lecto, / nec quer6.

Among others Heitman (2005), Hall (2008), Cohen (1995), Felson (1994), Foley (1995) and Zeitlin (1995). 7. Hofmann (1999) 51-2, notes some musical versions that show Penelope making her own choices and even marrying before Odysseus’ return. 8. Doherty (2009). 9. Knox (1995) 87. 10. Knox (1995) 87.

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erer tardos ire relicta dies (7-8).11 The feminine adjectives, frigida and relicta, emphasize that this time it is the woman who is suffering unrequited love. Penelope evokes Ulysses as her husband but also her lover. She is the pining mistress but also the housewife, occupied in her duties. These mundane tasks cannot console her for the absence of her lover/husband. In this epistle Penelope’s love is shown not only in her longing for Ulysses, but also in her concern for his safety: quisquis erat castris iugulatus Achivis, / frigidius glacie pectus amantis erat (22).12 The just god of chaste love, casto deus aequus amori (23), looks after her because her man is not killed at Troy. Yet now he has not returned and inevitably her thoughts turn to the possibility that Ulysses may not be so eager to come home as she is for him to return. She rehearses the possibility that his heart may be unfeeling, ferreus (58). Her uncertainty of his whereabouts fuels her imagination. Ever practical, however, she makes use of the opportunity of pressing a letter into the hands of each stranger who visits Ithaca to take along on his journey, a letter for Ulysses, such as the one she is currently writing (59-64). In a nice touch of intertextual irony Ovid has Penelope imagining that captivated by a foreign love Ulysses might even be comparing her unfavourably (rustica coniunx 77) with the stranger’s more elegant charms. Ovid boldly manipulates Penelope’s fame as a fine weaver13 by making her cite it as a mark of her lack of sophistication, she is only suited to dull domestic work (78). The poet is undoubtedly expecting his readers to call to mind what Homer’s Odysseus tells Calypso about his wife: ‘I too know well enough that my wise Penelope’s looks and stature are insignificant compared with yours’ (Od. 5.214-20). The letter ends with an appeal to Ulysses to hasten home: to the three people who should be most important to him in the world: his wife, his father and his son (uxor … senex … puer 97-8). She warns that she who was but a girl (puella) when he left, has now the appearance of an old woman (anus 115-16). In Homer there is no description of Penelope’s physical appearance, but some twentieth century retellings of the Odyssey actually do represent Penelope in a less than flattering light, such as the plump secret drinker she becomes in the novel of Merkel and the unfaithful egotistical spouse of Giono’s version. Superficial as some of these points may appear, the general tendency in the modern world has been to explore Penelope anew as an independent woman and not to conceal her true character behind the loyal wife stereotype. This new light on Penelope is often accompanied by a change of focus from epic distance to a closer, more realistic and often witty and satirical portrayal of Homer’s chaste guardian of the home. Some of the modern novels also introduce strong features of parody.

11. ‘then I would not have lain cold in my deserted bed, nor would now be left complaining that the days go by slowly.’ 12. ‘whoever it was in the Argive camp that was killed, the heart of your lover became colder than ice.’ 13. Evoked in 9-10: nec mihi quaerenti spatiosam fallere noctem / lassaret viduas pendula tela manus. ’Nor would the hanging web now be wearying my widowed hands while I attempt to beguile the spacious night.’

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Jean Giono La Naissance de l’Odyssée One of the earliest of these is the French novelist Jean Giono’s version in La Naissance de l’Odyssée first published in 1938, but written more than ten years earlier. Although this novel still relates the story of Odysseus’ adventures and homecoming primarily from the male hero’s point of view, Giono subverts the image of the virtuous Pénélope. The womaniser Ulysse is brought up short when he hears rumours that Pénélope has also taken a lover - Antinoüs, who is her son’s contemporary and friend. When news of her husband’s imminent arrival reaches Ithaca, Pénélope tries to hide evidence of the affair. In a burlesque dénouement, Antinoüs, fleeing from the returned husband, is killed when the edge of a cliff gives way and he is cast down and crushed in the sea below. Giono’s refashioning of the epic tale into the lower register of an adventure tale brings an element of mockery to his intertexuality. Both husband and wife are stripped of their epic qualities: Ulysse is another straying husband, Pénélope a modern woman with the weaknesses and emotions of modern women. Giono maintained that he had told the true history of Odysseus. The novelist was thus refuting the truth of the Homeric version14. Giono claimed that his novel15 restored the real story. This was based on elements in Homer’s text where Odysseus emerges as a prolific liar and inventor of stories and falsehoods. The tale of his travels in the Odyssey is based on his own stories, and, suggests Giono, these may be false, and the true story may be the one that Giono is now telling. Ulysse’s main reason for relating the stories is to avert the anger of his suspicious wife. She needs reasons for the length of his absence from home. This motive of course immediately casts doubt on the account of the nervous, ageing husband. Thus the story of La Naissance de l’Odyssée is the untold side of the return of Odysseus as recounted in the last twelve books of the Odyssey. Within the traditional framework elements that do not figure in the epic are narrated. In the new version the epic dimension disappears. Ulysse is returning from the Trojan war but there are only a few indirect and unheroic allusions to it. Ulysse is no longer a king at the head of his army, but a well-off peasant who produces wine from his vineyard and whose family runs a pig business. He is no longer a hero but an ex-soldier not at all desirous of getting involved in any fighting. Instead of the faithful dog Argos, Ulysse’s pet is a bird, a magpie, who is killed by his shabby master because of his fear that the bird’s devotion will lead to his exposure. This pusillanimous protagonist was settled in a sometimes stormy, sometimes comfortable life with Circe when rumours of Pénélope’s infidelity reached him. This spurred his decision to return home, to his farm, but he was mortally afraid of suffering Agamemnon’s fate. That is the reason why he arrives disguised as an old beggar. Pénélope is also recreated: the true and constant wife longing for her husband’s return has become a pleasure seeker who is vain and shallow and alarmed at news of his return. Giono has changed the heroic characters of the epic into a commonplace couple with many human flaws, such as cowardice and evasiveness. The medi14. What Genette calls the ‘hypotext’ (Genette [1982] 510-14). 15. ‘Hypertext’ according to Genette.

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ocre Ulysse’s strongest suit is his capability of inventing fantastic tales. This reduction of the epic personalities to characters comprehensible in terms of the lives of ordinary twentieth century people is echoed, even in the title of Inge Merkel’s 1987 novel Eine ganz gewöhnliche Ehe (A very ordinary marriage). Inge Merkel Eine ganz gewöhnliche Ehe Marriage is the central theme of this novel which redefines notions of bravery, courage and heroic deeds. Instead of the dangers of the battlefield, of fighting monsters and freaks of nature, Merkel poses the less spectacular challenges of life, dealing with life’s normal round: being born, coming to terms with daily existence and perhaps finding happiness or contentment. As the title indicates, the focus of her attention on how to deal with life centres especially on marriage. Surprisingly, the marriage that she depicts is not that of an ordinary modern middle-class family, but that of one of the most famous couples from ancient myth.16 In the process Merkel demystifies not only this couple as a couple but also the heroic adventurer and his constant and clever wife, Penelope. In this novel the mythical couple represent the paradigm of the marriage of any man and any woman. In Merkel’s novel the abduction of Helen was not the real reason for the Trojan war but only the precipitating cause. Men, and especially Merkel’s Odysseus, need adventures. Their urge to roam the world is stronger than the marital bonds that tie them to the home. Men believe and say that they have to prove themselves. The key word in the German text is the frequently used noun Bewährung (p. 8),17 testing oneself and proving one’s worth. Home only attains its full meaning upon one’s return from such a venture. The Trojan war offered men the opportunity to experience the dangers and risks associated with unknown regions, not only heroic deeds on the battlefield but also the thrills of adventure, including erotic encounters. Merkel’s Penelope knows about her unfaithful husband’s many erotic escapades but is pragmatically prepared to accommodate them for the sake of renewed companionship and some measure of a new love life together upon his return. Odysseus’s heroic status is somewhat diminished in that after a certain age he found it difficult to satisfy the nymph Calypso’s sexual demands. According to Merkel ‘at a certain age the husband has to return to the faithfully caring wife.’18 The greatest part of the novel deals with the attempts of both spouses to find each other again after their twenty-year separation, a Bewährung, or trial period different to that experienced by Odysseus previously. Merkel commented19 that her primary concern in the novel was to show that in the marriage relationship the man and the woman each has to contribute to establishing a life together. Together they have a chance to build a lasting relationship and to lead a contented existence. Conversation, intelligent discussion, constitutes a vital bond between Penelope and Odysseus. Odysseus 16. As a Preface to the novel, Merkel has an exchange of letters between herself and a male friend who is a natural scientist. In this correspondence the reasons for her choosing Odysseus and Penelope to represent an ordinary married couple are discussed (5-12). 17. Compare Schneider (2000) 385 and Stanzel (1999) 70. 18. Schneider (2000) 387. 19. Quoted in Schneider (2000) 387.

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is renowned as a master of storytelling, a good talker, and Penelope is a good listener, active and critical, who sometimes interrupts Odysseus’ stories with sharp and ironic comments. In Merkel’s version Odysseus’ reputation as a long-suffering hero is cast into doubt and from the narrative it is clear that it is Penelope who deserves this epithet. She resists the powerful urge to succumb to erotic temptations from the suitors and others. The reasons for her refusal to give in to temptations of the flesh lie in her philosophy of life. While Odysseus is motivated by Bewährung, putting himself to the test, she is motivated by Bewahrung, protection and preservation. Odysseus loses himself in many relationships, ostensibly to find himself, but Penelope resists temptation, not for the sake of her husband’s honour alone, but because of her own honour. Penelope embodies a woman who, in spite of sexual temptation, does not give way to lust. Her honour and fidelity require tender love and respect towards her partner. Inge Merkel has declined to be called a feminist writer, but her novel makes a strong case for the value of the feminine in human life. Eine ganz gewöhnliche Ehe ends with Odysseus’ death and Penelope’s confession that, in spite of knowing all his lies, deceit and disloyalty, she would choose him again as her life’s partner (p. 428). Another Austrian novelist who has explored the family relationships of the Ithacan ruler is Michael Köhlmeier. His Telemach appeared in 1995, followed by Kalypso in 1997, but the planned third volume, to be titled Penelope, has not to my knowledge been published. However, Penelope does figure as a character in the published novels. 20 Köhlmeier’s liberal resort to anachronism even has Odysseus rubbing her back as she is in labour with Telemach’s birth! Presumably Köhlmeier will develop this modern approach to parenthood and marriage further in his Penelope novel. In Kalypso Odysseus’ attitude to and loyalty to Penelope are overshadowed by his personal struggle to respond to the goddess’s offer of perpetual partnership, passion and immortality. His decision to reject Kalypso’s seductive offer and to return to Penelope is based on his own realisation that if he were to live for ever, he would also suffer for ever because of his guilt for past transgressions. Instead he chooses to return home because that is where he experienced his greatest happiness, the birth of his son Telemach.21 Köhlmeier has preserved the outline of the Odyssey but has given his characters a modern mindset. It would thus be of great interest to know how he interprets the character of Penelope Penelope Lively Penelope A modern version that creates a Penelope character who is able to match her modern Odysseus in all respects, including love affairs and exploitation of the modern global world, is Penelope Lively’s short story called simply Penelope. This story is one of the adventures the author imagines in Making It Up for her alter ego, if her life had taken different turns at different points. In the introduction to the story Lively recounts how Andrew Lang’s Tales of Troy and Greece fired her imagination as a child and how she identified with Penelope 20. Köhlmeier’s Neue Sagen des klassischen Altertums, von Eos bis Aeneas (1997), has a chapter on “Untergang der Stadt Troja,” including “Heimkehrergeschichten.” 21. See also Stanzel (1999) 71-6.

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whose name she shared: ‘I seized on that story, and its furnishings, and juggled them around to make a version that was personally satisfying and more relevant to my own circumstances.’ (p. 233) She imagines a Penelope just as beautiful as Helen. This Penelope turned the princes who pestered her to marry into frogs. When Ulysses came home she knew he had been staying with Calypso and Circe. Penelope does not take kindly to being called less comely than Calypso, so when Achilles conveniently came around at that moment and proposed to her, she ran off with him. Penelope sailed with Achilles to Egypt (where the young Penelope Lively was living with her parents during the years of the second World War). Achilles had a tank made by the gods and he chased the Germans and killed Rommel in single combat. Achilles then retired from the war and he and Penelope settled down for ever and ever in a palace rich in treasure and with a swimming-pool with a diving board in the garden. This childish fantasy is followed by a modern tale with the funeral of the Odysseus character, Orson, as its starting point. Whereas Achilles seemed a far more appropriate consort for the heroine Penelope imagined by the young Penelope Lively, the mature novelist envisages an accommodation with Orson, who has the typical Odyssean shortcomings as an ideal husband. While Orson travels the world giving support and aid, especially in ‘third world’ or ‘underdeveloped’ countries, all the while enjoying many liaisons with different women, such as Caroline (Calypso) and Clara (Circe) by whom he has a son22, Tam, who is mush closer to Penelope than their own Toby (Telemachus). This Penelope is well adjusted to the modern world and establishes her own luxury couturier business. She also moves in a world of money and glamour and conducts her own discreet affaires. Within the framework of the variant of the narrative which has Circe’s son killing his own father, Penelope Lively retells the story of the marriage of Penelope and Odysseus as a thoroughly modern one: the surface is humanitarian aid (the modern version of heroic deeds) and celebrity. There is infidelity on both sides but the appearance of a stable marriage is maintained. This short story is a satire of modern manners but simultaneously recognizes the female partner’s right to the same autonomy as the male. Margaret Atwood The Penelopiad The accent on the feminine is clear in the title of Margaret Atwood’s novel The Penelopiad. This work also shares some structural similarities with Merkel’s in its alternation of prose passages with choral lyrics. Atwood’s ‘chorus line’ of 12 hanged maids is, however, reminiscent of the chorus of satyr drama in its mocking and deflating commentary. Atwood’s novel is set in the afterlife23 in 22. For this version of the myth found in Apollodorus, Epit. 7 and Hyginus, Fab. CXXVII, see also Graves (1955) 373-4 (readily available in the Anglophone world). 23. Similarly the novel of the Hungarian author Sándor Márai, Béke Ithakában, is narrated retrospectively from the afterlife. Like Giono’s novel, Márai’s purports to tell the true story of the marriage of Penelope and Ulysses as the blind singer who had stayed with them in Ithaca for a long time and had spread false tales about them. This ‘truth’ is a detailed and intricate account of the love affairs of both partners. Márai adopts the version of the myth where Ulysses is eventually murdered by his own son by Kirke, Telegonos (see above, with n. 22). In the Hungar-

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the form of retrospective comments on the action of the Odyssey by Penelope’s spirit. Atwood has incorporated some material from other sources as well, notably Robert Graves’ Greek Myths.24 Like Giono, and Merkel in some passages, Atwood parodies the traditional elements. Burlesque features include anachronism and colloquial language. For instance the choral part titled ‘The Trial of Odysseus as Videotaped by the Maids’ (pp. 175-84) ends this way: Attorney for the Defence: I call on grey-eyed Pallas Athene, immortal daughter of Zeus, to defend property rights and the right of a man to be the master in his own house, and to spirit my client away in a cloud! Judge: What’s going on? Order! Order! This is a twenty-first century court of justice! [To the Erinyes] You there, get down from the ceiling! Stop that barking and hissing! Madam, cover up your chest and put down your spear! What’s this cloud doing in here? Where are the police? Where’s the defendant? Where has everyone gone? This scene illustrates the melding together of mythology and its conventions with modern rationalism and realism. The result is a farcical deflation of the traditional assumptions of epic poetry and carries the implication that it is difficult for modern audiences to accept the notions and beliefs that underpin the ancient narrative. Atwood’s Penelope is not a sympathetic heroine like Merkel’s: ‘arrogant, vain, insecure, unsympathetic and sexually possessive’ is Edith Hall’s judgement.25 Hall continues: ‘Atwood’s Penelope is granted agency, intelligence, and gifts as a raconteur, but is difficult to like. This is post-feminism at its most cynical; not only have women reclaimed the old stories, but they have reclaimed the right to be vile.’ The mean spirit of this Penelope also emerges in her jealous and vindictive attitude towards Helen. This is in sharp contrast to the ancient epic where Penelope does not reproach Helen but generously ascribes her action as induced by the gods (Od. 23.218-24). Nevertheless, not everyone will share Hall’s attitude to Atwood’s ‘heroine’ and it must be noted that, although her Penelope is nominally ‘dead’ she has a more extrovertly lively personality than Homer’s restrained heroine. Atwood, like Márai, has made Penelope retrospectively omniscient. Although hampered by mortality, she has usurped this facet of the gods of ancient epic whose role has been radically reduced in most of the modern versions. The ambivalent and deceptive character of Atwood’s reinterpretation is well illustrated by Penelope’s description of the exchange between herself and Odysseus on being reunited: ian novel Telegonos is first Penelope’s lover and then her husband, as in the variant of the myth which also had Telemachos marrying Kirke. Márai depicts the two couples living together, for reasons of economy, on Kirke’s island Aiaia. Márai’s adaptation of the Odyssey is thoroughgoing. He recasts the framework of the narrative as well as the characters and their relationships. For illuminating commentary on and analysis of this novel, see Ritoók (2004) 313-25. 24. For the range of sources that inspired Atwood, see the ‘Notes’ (197-8) in her novel. 25. Hall (2008) 126.

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The two of us were – by our own admission – proficient and shameless liars of long standing. It’s a wonder either one of us believed a word the other said. But we did. Or so we told each other. (p. 173) Njabulo Ndebele The Cry of Winnie Mandela A novel that avoids parody and interprets the separation of Penelope from her husband compassionately is Njabulo Ndebele’s Cry of Winnie Mandela. Like Merkel, Ndebele asserts that his is ‘not a feminist novel’ (Cape Times 21 Nov. 2003). It does however raise issues central to the lives of many women. By comparing the absence of the husbands of four modern South African women and of Nelson Mandela to Odysseus’ absence from Penelope, Ndebele’s treatment takes on universal significance for the power relationships in modern marriages. Ndbele’s introduction of the Mandela marriage into his fictional narrative forms a factual counterpoint to the mythical and fictional stories of Penelope and the four others who spent their married lives waiting for absent husbands. The novel is firmly grounded in the South African context: the parallels between four South African women, ‘Penelope’s descendants’26 and Penelope are invoked from the first page: Do you remember Penelope? She is that remarkable woman in Homer’s Odyssey who waited nineteen years for her husband, Odysseus, to return home from his wanderings (p. 1). The women have in common the experience of an ‘absence without duration.’ The reasons for the absence of the South African men reflect the political and economic realities of modern South Africa. First men left home to work mining diamonds, then gold. Subsequent economic expansion led to men leaving for other careers: teachers, salesmen, civil servants. Then political life took its tolls, organisations were banned, many detained without trial or sentenced for political offences, after 1960 many went into exile. With great sensitivity Ndebele explores the plight of women left, not merely alone, but in uncertainty, ‘absence without duration.’ The hardship of ensuring the survival of their families, the longing for the absent partner and the inability to plan for the future are evoked. Ndebele stresses the added burden of the expectation that the wives should be faithful. He notes ‘Our Penelope is not necessarily admired in her own right. She is the embodiment of female virtue that gives comfort to men, allaying their fears and pampering their vanities’ (p. 4). Women who stayed ‘loyal and true’ (p. 2) for 19 years and then slipped would be condemned as ‘heartless creatures.’ The precarious situations and harrowing hardships of many South African women come alive in the stories of four of ‘Penelope’s descendants.’ They represent different social strata, different regions, rural and urban. Mamete Mofolo’s husband is forced to leave Lesotho for Johannesburg in 26. This also the title of the first chapter of the novel and the subsequent chapters are headed ‘The First Descendant,’ ‘The Second Descendant’ etc.

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search of a job when drought drives him off the land. He eventually starts a second family and simply disappears from his first family’s lives. Another man goes to Scotland to study medicine, to become the first black doctor from his township. He is financially supported by his wife but wastes precious years in idle dalliance and when he eventually returns rejects his wife. Mamello Molete’s husband disappears into exile for ten years, is arrested on entering the country for operational reasons and when he is released rejects his wife and marries a white woman. A fourth descendant loses her husband through his serial womanising. Only when he has lost his job and becomes ill does he return to her. To salvage her pride she buries him in a costly casket as if he had been a model and beloved husband. These four fictional women are united in the second part of the novel and discuss the most famous/notorious South African woman who waited, Winnie Mandela. She was different because her waiting was in public. Ndebele thus introduces a character from real life into his fictional narrative. Because of her fame/notoriety Winnie Mandela is a ‘larger than life’ figure and like many such figures, for instance celebrities from the world of show business, she acquires many of the features of a mythological character. However this woman is almost the polar opposite of the traditional image of the Homeric Penelope. Instead of waiting in dignified solitude, Winnie Mandela made use of her name, and her husband’s name, to defy the apartheid government. She suffered: ‘countless arrests, charges, courtroom dramas, interrogation and torture, imprisonments, detentions, restrictions, bannings, banishment, and the continued absence of [her] husband.’ (p. 60). While not discounting the difficulties experienced by the ‘Mother of the Nation,’ Winnie’s conduct is subjected to frank discussion and she is often addressed as if she were present: Here’s what you record yourself as having said to yourself when Nelson was arrested: “I knew at that time that this was the end of any kind of family life, as was the case with millions of my people – I was no exception.” Of course, you were no exception. That is why you are the ultimate public symbol of women-in-waiting. But the proclamation of your non-exceptionalism became at the same time a ritual of entitlement to exceptionalism. Being like everyone, you were not like everyone. In the absence of your husband, you were the absolute value of struggle. In time, you believed you owned the struggle. “Part of my soul went with him at that time.” How touching! (p. 61) The reason why Winnnie Mandela’s conduct is criticised is that along with her heroic defiance went other, darker behaviour: ‘kidnapping children; gruesome beatings and torture of children; disappearances and deaths; assassinations; defamations and denunciations; intimidation and terror.’ (p. 62) It is suggested that Winnie so much enjoyed her command that she began to wish for her husband’s perpetual and permanent absence. His return would mean the eclipse of her power. That is of course a radical revision of the traditional Penelope role. Winnnie’s flagrant love affairs also dishonoured the tradition of the chastely faithful waiting wife.

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The four women leave on a holiday trip in the company of Winnie Mandela. Along the way they pick up a mysterious woman, who, in a touch of magic realism, turns out to be Penelope. She adds her own footnote to Homer’s epic: ‘For more than two thousand years I have been on a pilgrimage of reconciliation. On the morning of our first night together in nineteen years of absence, Odysseus decided to leave me again to perform cleansing rituals to forestall possible civil strife following his brutal slaying of my shameless suitors. ‘Well he left, but it has never been said that when he returned I was gone. I went on my own cleansing pilgrimage. Odysseus should not have left like that on that special morning when I was still learning to savour his return. He should have shown more sensitivity. He should have returned not only to Greece but to me as well … He also needed to assert personal responsibility towards me. My Odysseus had no idea he had to reconcile himself with me as well. But such was the state of the world’s consciousness at the time. Nevertheless, I did not wait to lament that realisation; I made the decision to undertake my own journey.’ (p. 119-20) Thus Ndebele has freed not only Penelope from the confines of unconditional waiting for and subjection to her husband but has made the new Penelope the symbol of hope for women in the twenty-first century, not only South African women, but women everywhere. He has set Penelope free, and through her, all women. Women should have the courage of their convictions to undertake their own journeys. *** The depictions of the character of Penelope and of her marriage to Odysseus in the novels discussed above indicate that the Homeric paradigm of a faithful wife is no longer acceptable in modern literature and society. Just as Ovid with his interest in feminine psychology hinted at a different woman behind the uncomplaining façade, so modern novelists have endeavoured to compose a more realistic version of the true relationship in the Ithacan household. The attempts to transplant the story to the modern world offer different insights into Penelope’s character. Giono’s adulterous wife is overshadowed by her boorish husband, but in Merkel’s nuanced investigation of a woman’s deeply felt experience of being part of a couple a new truth about marital relationships emerges. Atwood’s satirical and light-hearted updating of the myth is a jeu d’esprit. Ndebele has boldly transgressed the parameters of his ancient exemplar and has let Penelope stride beyond the confines of the epic to serve as a model not of the conventional endlessly loyal and patient wife, but as an example of a woman who takes her own decisions and determines her own future. Thus a new myth of a Penelope who can take her rightful place in the second millennium has been created.

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Bibliography Ancient texts Homer, The Odyssey, trans. E.V. Rieu, revised by D.C.H. Rieu, ser. Penguin Classics (London New York: Penguin, 1991) Ovid, Heroides and Amores, with an English translation by Grant Showerman, rev. by G.P. Goold, Loeb Classical Library 41 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: W. Heinemann, 1977). Ovid, Heroides: Select Epistles, Peter E. Knox (ed.), ser. Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics (Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995). Modern texts Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad, Myths series (Edinburgh & New York: Canongate, 2005). Jean Giono, Naissance de l’Odyssée, ser. Sequana (Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1938). Michael Köhlmeier, Kalypso (Munich: Piper, 1997). ——-, Neue Sagen des klassischen Altertums, von Eos bis Aeneas (Munich: Piper, 1997). ——-, Telemach (Munich: Piper, 1995). Penelope Lively, Penelope, in: Lively, Making it up (London & New York: Viking, 2005), pp. 232-248. Alexander Marai, Verzauberung in Ithaka, trans. from the Hungarian Béke Ithakában by Tibor von Podmanicz (Munich: Kurt Desch, 1952). Inge Merkel, Eine ganz gewöhnliche Ehe: Odysseus und Penelope (Salzburg: Residenz Verlag, 1987). ——-, Odysseus and Penelope: An Ordinary Marriage, trans. by Renate Latimer (Riverside: Ariadne Press, 2000). Njabulo S. Ndebele, The Cry of Winnie Mandela (Claremont, South Africa: David Philip, 2003). Scholarly works Beth Cohen (ed.), The Distaff Side: Representing the Female in Homer’s Odyssey (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995). Lillian E. Doherty, “The Figure of Penelope in Twentieth Century Poetry by American Women,” in: Staley (ed.), American Women and Classical Myth, pp. 181-205 and 237-41 (notes). Nancy Felson-Rubin, Regarding Penelope: From Character to Poetics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994). Helene P. Foley, “Penelope as Moral Agent,” in: Beth Cohen (ed.), The Distaff Side, pp. 93-115. Gérard Genette, Palimpsestes : La littérature au second degré (Paris: Seuil, 1982). Robert Graves, The Greek Myths, vol. 2 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1955). Edith Hall, “Women’s work,” in: Hall, The Return of Ulysses: A Cultural History of the Odyssey (London & New York: I. B. Tauris, 2008), pp. 115-29. Richard Heitman, Taking Her Seriously: Penelope & the Plot of Homer’s Odyssey (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005). Heinz Hofmann (ed.), Antike Mythen in der europäischen Tradition, ser. Attempto studium generale (Tübingen: Attempto, 1999). ——-, “Odysseus: Von Homer bis zu James Joyce,” in: Hofmann (ed.), Antike Mythen in der europäischen Tradition, pp. 27-67. D. Kennedy, “Radical tale of women left in an ‘agony and dread’ of waiting,” book review in: Cape Times, 21 November, 2003. Zsigmond Ritoók, “Odysseus in der ungarischen Literatur des 20. Jahrhunderts,” in: J. Dalfen, C. Harrauer (eds.), Antiker Mythos erzählt und angewandt bis in die Gegenwart, Wiener Studien, Beiheft 28 (Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2004), pp. 309-25.

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Gerd K. Schneider, “Afterword,” in: Inge Merkel, Odysseus and Penelope, pp. 385-392. Gregory A. Staley (ed.), American Women and Classical Myth (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2009). K.-H. Stanzel, “Zeitgenössische Adaptionen der Odyssee bei Inge Merkel, Michael Köhlmeier und Botho Strauß,” in: Heinz Hofmann (ed.), Antike Mythen in der europäischen Tradition, pp. 69-89. Froma I. Zeitlin, “Figuring Fidelity in Homer’s Odyssey,” in: Beth Cohen (ed.), The Distaff Side, pp. 117-152.