In Homer's epic The Odyssey...
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In Homer's epic The Odyssey, the gods punished the war hero Odysseus by sending him on a fantastic voyage to wild and dangerous places, instead of allowing him to return safely to his home on Ithaca. Left alone at home, his wife Penelope became the object of many suitors, who believed and would have had her believe that her husband had perished. Penelope refused all the attention she was paid, finding herself unable to accept that the great Odysseus could have died after surviving the Trojan war. To stave off the unwelcome attentions of the many men around her home, she promised that she would wed one of them when she finished the weaving on which she was working. Each day she worked at the cloth as the suitors paid her court, and each night she picked the day's work almost apart. For ten years, far beyond any reasonable hope that her husband would ever return, she managed to keep the work in progress, until the day when Odysseus did return to his home to claim his wife. -- Walker
