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Ulysses vocabulary

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mythology

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Penelope: synonyms: Molly Bloom ???

tags: [mythology]

► definition

Definition:

the wife of Ulysses, celebrated for her conjugal fidelity during his twenty years' absence, in the later half of which an army of suitors pled for her hand, pleading that her husband would never return; but she put them all off by a promise of marriage as soon as she finished a web (called after Penelope's web) she was weaving, which she wove by day and undid at night, till their importunities took a violent form, when her husband arrived and delivered her.

Rev. James Wood. The Nuttall Encyclopaedia (1907)

^{image: by Francesco Primaticcio, public domain}
^{https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Francesco_Primaticcio_002.jpg}

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Uses:

Penelope no less constant than she, yet more wise, would be weary to unweave that in the night, she spun in the day, if Ulysses had not come home the sooner.

John Lyly. Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit (1578)

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I will embolden him to call the Achaeans in assembly, and speak out to the suitors of his mother Penelope, who persist in eating up any number of his sheep and oxen; I will also conduct him to Sparta and to Pylos, to see if he can hear anything about the return of his dear father—for this will make people speak well of him."

Homer. The Odyssey (Butler translation)

Penelope is mentioned 117 times in The Odyssey

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Turns out that in her heart our girl was more Penelope than Whore of Babylon.

Junot Díaz. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007)