Wasn’t she like this—hewed and twisted by her husband’s actions into a life she could never have predicted? Could she be like this tree—ignored for so long and yet somehow, still standing, stubbornly and defiantly bloom with new life?
Penelope put her hand on her belly. She didn’t know if it was still possible, but if she’d learned anything lately, it was that life had an endless capacity to surprise.
The queen shrugged out of her tunic and let it fall at her feet again. She slid naked beside the body of the man she’d been consecrated to in what seemed like another lifetime. She snuggled against this stranger’s, yet not stranger’s deliciously warm body, and he turned to her, murmuring her name.
Realizing she had not yet said these words, she pressed herself against him and whispered, “Welcome home, Odysseus.” He sighed and they came together again slowly, softly, as if in a dream. When they finally slept, not even the caresses of rosy-fingered dawn, nor the noises of a grieving house trying to put itself in order could draw them up from their ancient, but still living marriage bed.
Notes from the Authors
Song of Survival and Epilogue
by Vicky Alvear Shecter
Normally, the first story in a collaborative novel introduces the other characters readers will meet in subsequent stories. That was impossible in this case because Penelope and Telemachus were isolated on Ithaca. They had no idea whether Odysseus was alive, let alone what he was up to, or with whom he was contending. So instead of introducing characters that readers would see again, Penelope and Telemachus introduced themes and ideas that expressed themselves in later stories—of Odysseus’s penchant for storytelling and of his charisma (both charming and deadly), as well as of the cost, in human terms, of his hubris and mistakes.
Both Penelope’s and Telemachus’s characters sprang from a series of questions: How did Ithaca survive when their neighboring Achaean kingdoms were flush with Trojan riches? How did Penelope keep the kingdom stable financially without their king and their share of Trojan gold? What would’ve been the cost psychologically and emotionally to losing all of the “best of men” of Ithaca? From there, it became easier to imagine that Penelope would’ve needed to protect herself and her son from angry Ithacans, hence her solution for housing young men as guest-hostages. Young men who would later see themselves as “suitors”.
Her skill at weaving, of course, is legendary, which informed my characterization of how she kept the economy stable. I was fascinated by Duane and Letitia Roller’s article in The Classical Journal, where they explored why Homer described Penelope’s hand as “thick” or “stout”. It turns out that descriptor is usually reserved for men and/or warriors—a thick or stout hand meant excellence with the spear or javelin. It was rare for any mortal woman to earn such an epithet and they concluded that it referred to her excellence as a weaver; in this case, her literal and artistic craftiness which kept Odysseus’s kingdom stable during his absence.
John Churchill’s article, “Odysseus’s Bed; Agamemnon’s Bath” in Johns Hopkins’ College Literature magazine was also an excellent resource; it informed the way I imagined Penelope related to the reality of her marriage bed in the Epilogue.
As for Telemachus, at twenty, he should’ve been married and ruling Ithaca. Why wasn’t he? Either he was incapable or he was too immature. I chose the latter, imagining that Penelope shielded him as a youth from angry Ithacans who would likely have blamed him in his father’s stead for all their losses. Homer also states clearly that Telemachus’s grandfather, Laertes, withdrew from his duties to tinker in his orchards. That left Telemachus abandoned by both his father and his grandfather. The psychological and emotional cost of that, I imagined, would have been significant.
Special thanks to Stephanie Thornton, an early reader, and the wise input from H-Team founders, Eliza Knight, Stephanie Dray, and Kate Quinn.
I particularly want to thank fellow collaborator Russ Whitfield, who created Odysseus and Amphinomus whole-cloth at the same time that other team members were creating their reinterpretations of Homer’s “monsters” and “witches”. As a result, he worked in the dark and was forced to recast his story a number of times to match the others. Usually, we avoid this kind of problem, but the episodic nature of the Odyssey meant there was less collaboration up front, and more readjusting on the back end. As usual, Russ handled it all with his trademark cheery quips and masterfully creative storytelling.
As we did in A Song of War: A Novel of Troy, we removed the supernatural (though not the character’s belief in the gods and the supernatural) as we explored the human cost of war and ancient concepts of honor. I was completely and utterly blown away by the talented and outrageously creative reinterpretations of the witches and monsters in Amalia Carosella’s Sirens, Libbie Hawker’s Circe, Scott Oden’s Kyklops, and David Blixt’s Calypso. Hats off to my uber-talented fellow authors!
Xenia in the Court of the Winds
by Scott Oden
I’ve spent the last seven years writing about monsters. Literal monsters—creatures of myth and legend which I’ve taken from their niches in folklore and shoehorned into actual northern European history. It’s been an interesting journey; rich and rewarding, if not in money then in the healing coin of the soul. This is perhaps what prompted Russ Whitfield to invite me to participate in A Sea of Sorrow. It came at a watershed moment: my fourth book was being prepared for a summer release, and my fifth was in outline form...but I wanted a moment of respite from the grim broodings of my monstrous protagonist, Grimnir. And there was Russ. His pitch went right to the heart of my imagination: “Take a monster from The Odyssey,” he said, “and make it human.”
And like an arrow shot from blessed Apollo’s bow, I flew straight for one-eyed Polyphemus. The Kyklops. A ghastly, flesh-eating beast who imprisoned Odysseus and his crew in his cave, and would have made a great meal of them were it not for the sharp cunning of the wily king of Ithaca. But, more than just a good monster story, the tale of Polyphemus served as a parable on the duties and penalties of guest-friendship—xenia—in the Greek world.