Odyssey 2.96 · Book 2, lines 96–98
Penelope's plea: wait for the web
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Penelope — κοῦροι ἐμοὶ μνηστῆρες, ἐπεὶ θάνε δῖος Ὀδυσσεύς, μίμνετʼ ἐπειγόμενοι τὸν ἐμὸν γάμον, εἰς ὅ κε φᾶρος ἐκτελέσω, μή μοι μεταμώνια νήματʼ ὄληται,
Young men, my suitors, since noble Odysseus has died, hold back — though eager for my marriage — until I finish this web, lest my spinning be wasted and come to nothing,
Word by word
The setting
Antinous now quotes Penelope's own words to the suitors. She asks them to hold off pressing their suit until she has finished a great web — a request that sounds like modest piety and is in fact the opening of her deception.
A note on this passage
Penelope frames her delay as decorum. She concedes the premise the suitors want — that Odysseus is dead — and asks only for the time to finish one piece of weaving before she remarries. It is a small, reasonable request, and that reasonableness is the trap.
The undercurrent is how the plea disarms them. She grants everything except the timing, and grief for the dead is a claim no suitor can decently refuse. By pinning the delay to a funeral cloth, she makes stalling look like duty to the very household she is protecting from them.
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