Read the passage from The Odyssey - Penelope. Ruses serve my turn to draw the time out—first a close-grained web I had the happy
thought to set up weaving on my big loom in the hall. I said, that day: 'Young men—my suitors, now my lord is dead let me finish my weaving before I marry, or else my thread will have been spun in vain. It is a shroud I weave for Lord Laertes when cold Death comes to lay him on his bier. The country wives would hold me in dishonor if he, with all his fortune, lay unshrouded.' I reached their hearts that way, and they agreed. So every day I wove on the great loom, but every night by torchlight I unwove it; and so for three years I deceived the Akhaians. Which line from the passage best shows that Penelope is clever?
So every day I wove on the great loom, but every night by torchlight I unwove it; and so for three years I deceived the Akhaians.
Explanation:
This famous passage from the <em>Odyssey </em>is exemplar in showing how clever —and faithful— Penelope was. Not wanting to remarry, and hoping that Odysseus would eventually return, she came up with this ruse to postpone the moment where she would be forced to choose one of her suitors and marry him. This detail, once Odysseus finally comes back, is decisive in demonstrating to Odysseus that his wife had remained faithful.
