The Penelopiad

In the present, Penelope runs into Helen in the fields of asphodel. She, “followed by her customary horde of male spirits,” (153) asks Penelope if she’d like to join her in taking a bath. Penelope points out that they have no need of baths, as they have no bodies, and Helen insists that it’s a “spiritual” endeavor. When Penelope asks if she will disrobe to bathe, Helen affirms that she will, saying that she feels she owes something to the men that died on her behalf. Penelope scoffs at her self-serving means of acquitting herself of guilt, but Helen jabs back, asking how many men Odysseus killed for Penelope, though she’d “long since satisfied herself that the total was puny compared with the pyramids of corpses laid at [Helen’s] door” (156). “‘Maybe you even felt prettier,’” (156) she taunts.

Penelope is locked away while the contest and subsequent slaughter takes place. Odysseus is the only one who could string his bow and then shoot an arrow through the twelve axes, “thus winning [Penelope] as a bride for the second time” [157]. He and