Letter to Penelope

The Ides of March have passed, and now we come to the day the world first glimpsed your radiant face! O face more lovely to me than that of Helen to her Paris! O face that sweetly haunts me and compels me to go on in spite of all that I have suffered. Home to Ithica! Home to Penelope! And so I write and cast this letter to Poseidon my enemy who will deliver it. Aye, will sink it to the very depths, as lost and dissolved parchment, but write it I must! What else is my heart to do?


My Dearest Penelope,

For ten long, hard years I battled at Troy, witnessed the heroics of Achilles, and his death by the coward, Paris. I saw, with my own eyes, the deeds and death of Hector, the burning of Troy, the lamenting of Cassandra and the crazed Helen carried off in tears. Nothing but grief! Grief! Grief! And death! Death! Death! And for what? The trysts of a woman?

I was so glad to have started the journey home at long last and I looked forward to nothing more than your fair face and loving arms! Things were going well. The contrary winds were contained in a great bag given to me by the god of the winds, and, in spite of Poseidon’s raging, we made fair sail.

Ithica was in site! And I thought I was safe and could take a moment's rest from guarding that damn bag of wind. But as I slept, curiosity got the better of my men who found a way to open the bag only to find that the winds escaped! And the captive, contrary, angry winds, fed on the milk of Poseidon’s wrath and blew and raged till Ithaca was lost to us and we were driven back, so far back, that I fear it may be another ten years just to find you again.

The Fates are cruel—the hags! I wonder…is there purpose in their spinning, measuring and cutting? Do they think about a man’s life? Or is it whimsy? Do they laugh, light heartedly, as the thread is snipped—unconcerned that the slightest palsy or slip of the hand could rob a man of years from his lifespan? What is it to them? O, to have Ithica in site! The prize and meaning of my life at my very finger tips and to have it snatched away suddenly with such seeming spite!

They say that a man cannot fight the fates! Perhaps it is so. And Yet I will fight them, Penelope, with every last breath that I breathe, my dear heart, that I may return to you. Because you are Ithica to me. You are the land to which I will return. I am no king but for your love. Aye it is your heart for me that makes me king of that land! It is your heart for me that makes me long for Ithica!

Care for Telemacus! I should be there for him. Do you see me in him? He is the promise of my return. Give him my love. Did I say wait for me only until he is man enough to grow a beard? All the more urgency to fight my fate! O Penelope, wait and engage no suitor, for your lord, Odysseus will return!