What It Is
The shroud of Laertes is the cloth that Penelope says she is weaving for her father-in-law, the hero Laertes, for when death takes him. She presents it to the suitors as a duty: no Achaean woman should blame her for leaving without a shroud a man who owns so much. She asks them to wait for the wedding until the cloth is finished, and by day she weaves, and by night, by torchlight, she unweaves. The trick lasts three years, and in the fourth a servant denounces her, and Penelope is forced to finish the cloth.
Where It Appears
The story is told three times, by three mouths. In Book II, it is Antinous who tells it, in the assembly, to say that the fault lies with Telemachus's mother:
κοῦροι ἐμοὶ μνηστῆρες, ἐπεὶ θάνε δῖος Ὀδυσσεύς, / μίμνετʼ ἐπειγόμενοι τὸν ἐμὸν γάμον, εἰς ὅ κε φᾶρος / ἐκτελέσω, μή μοι μεταμώνια νήματʼ ὄληται, / Λαέρτῃ ἥρωι ταφήιον,(2.96-99), young men, my suitors, since radiant Odysseus is dead, wait, though you are eager for my marriage, until I finish a cloth, so that the threads are not lost in vain: a shroud for the hero Laertes.
ὣς τὸ μὲν ἐξετέλεσσε καὶ οὐκ ἐθέλουσʼ ὑπʼ ἀνάγκης·(2.110), so she finished it, unwillingly, out of necessity.
In Book XIX, it is Penelope herself who tells it to the beggar, without knowing she is speaking to her husband:
ὣς ἐφάμην, τοῖσιν δʼ ἐπεπείθετο θυμὸς ἀγήνωρ. / ἔνθα καὶ ἠματίη μὲν ὑφαίνεσκον μέγαν ἱστόν, / νύκτας δʼ ἀλλύεσκον, ἐπεὶ δαΐδας παραθείμην.(19.148-150), so I spoke, and their proud spirit was persuaded. Then by day I wove the great loom, and by night I unwove it, after setting torches beside me.
νῦν δʼ οὔτʼ ἐκφυγέειν δύναμαι γάμον οὔτε τινʼ ἄλλην / μῆτιν ἔθʼ εὑρίσκω· μάλα δʼ ὀτρύνουσι τοκῆες / γήμασθʼ, ἀσχαλάᾳ δὲ πάϊς βίοτον κατεδόντων, / γιγνώσκων· ἤδη γὰρ ἀνὴρ οἷός τε μάλιστα / οἴκου κήδεσθαι, τῷ τε Ζεὺς κῦδος ὀπάζει.(19.157-161), now I can neither escape the marriage nor find any other plan; my parents press me hard to marry, and my son, aware of it, is distressed that the others consume his goods; for he is already a man most able to look after the house, to whom Zeus grants glory.
In Book XXIV, in Hades, it is Amphimedon, one of the dead suitors, who tells it to Agamemnon, repeating Penelope's words:
κοῦροι ἐμοὶ μνηστῆρες, ἐπεὶ θάνε δῖος Ὀδυσσεύς, / μίμνετʼ ἐπειγόμενοι τὸν ἐμὸν γάμον, εἰς ὅ κε φᾶρος / ἐκτελέσω, μή μοι μεταμώνια νήματʼ ὄληται, / Λαέρτῃ ἥρωϊ ταφήϊον(24.131-134), young men, my suitors, since radiant Odysseus is dead, wait, though you are eager for my marriage, until I finish the cloth, so that the threads are not lost in vain, a shroud for the hero Laertes.
Around the shroud are the news of Laertes. In Book XI, Anticleia tells Odysseus that his father sleeps in the countryside, in the ashes by the fire, nursing his grief; in Book XV, Eumaeus says Laertes prays to Zeus every day that life will leave him; in Book XXIV, Odysseus finds him alive, digging around a plant, in a patched tunic and gloves.
What It Means
The cloth is a lie that looks like a duty. Penelope gains time through honor, and the reason she gives, the censure of the Achaean women, is one the suitors cannot refuse. The cunning of the trick is what the poem credits to Odysseus: Antinous says she is proud of the gifts of Athena, of her skill at works, and of a cleverness no woman of the past had. The cloth ends because a servant denounces her, and Penelope finishes it, says Antinous, without wanting to, out of necessity.
Whoever tells the trick changes what it means. Antinous, who most wants to see her married, quotes her words in anger and recounts the triumph of having forced her. Penelope tells it as a deadline that has run out, and then says she has no other plan. Amphimedon, from Hades, tells it as the start of the chain that killed him, since it is just after the cloth that an evil spirit brings Odysseus to the hut. Whether Penelope believed what she said, or used the phrase as a strategy, the poem does not state.
The trick grants the suitors what they want to hear, that Odysseus is dead, and uses that concession to gain time. The shroud is for a father-in-law who is still alive, and the phrase that opens it gives the husband up for dead: two living men declared dead, in the cloth and in the speech, and a cloth unwoven every night postpones the decision about both.
Relationships
- Standard themes: Loyalty and betrayal, Truth and lies, Family.
- Characters: Penelope, Laertes, Antinous, Odysseus.
- Neighboring symbols: the bed of olive wood, the other fidelity Penelope keeps, and the bow of Odysseus, the trial she proposes when the cloth's deadline runs out.