Hem of Your Garment

©Parker Gables Reid September 2022

Odysseus watch your head when we enter the barn stall. The beams are low there. I fear you will rap yourself and cry out in pain.

I will take care Penelope. Leave off your direction of me now. I am not your child as yet Wife.

Do not grow so cross with me Odysseus. We started this travail on a lark and now you are the one grown grim. Here take my hand Husband. Let us play together once more. Help me over this turnstile. Grab me about the waist and lift me down just so my love.

Penelope you cajole me. Odysseus holds her lightly at the waist and lifts her over the stile. You know that touching you is antidote to my mood disease.

Just so my love. So do it. Touch me and vanquish the humor. We should pause here until you recover yourself.

Pause here? No. No Penelope. Let us charge forth through this thick undergrowth. Let me take the lead now. That is my mode of recovery. I will take charge Wife. I am the King. I am undone this morning by your pestering. Pestering and ordering. Constant. Now leave off.

Odysseus. You are in need of much correction since your homecoming. Let me apologize to you My Liege. I do not mean to dishumor you and make you sour. I was so many years without you.

Do not forget it Wife. I do not forget it. How can I forget it?

How do you think I ruled Ithaca Odysseus? This is my question to you. I developed an authority. Of course I did. I modeled it after you and yet and still my Husband it is my own leadership. You must understand this. I am not a passive wife. I am not a passive leader. How could I be so and still successfully preserve our kingdom?

Woe. Woe. This strikes me hard in the heart Penelope. I understand you. I have striven to understand since the very night of my homecoming. And yet the tale is woven of your compliant easy nature is it not? Poor Penelope pines for her King. They say this do they not? The Queen sits at her loom and weeps the live long day. None of that is true. I know it. I see that Wife.

It is not true. I find it grievous. The minstrels are singing falsehood Odysseus.

How could a woman of your strength and skill be passive? Odysseus takes her hand as they walk through a scrub of tall grass.

Indeed. I see this Penelope. I am sorry my love. You preserved the kingdom. You did. Come let us embrace. I am fully recovered from my mood disease now. Let us breath deeply the moist morning air of the Ithaca we both love— our blessed blessed Achaea surrounds us now. What a sight it is. I am no beggar to be home. I rejoice. Agalliao. Agalliao.

Wonderful Odysseus. Wonderful. That is right. I do so mind the minstral song. With my husband I say Husband know me as I am. I give all to you. I give all to you Odysseus. I supplicate. You are my master and I am your Queen. It is an equivalency to us.

It is true my Queen. I supplicate to you. I supplicate to you. You are my mistress entire and I am not a weak man to admit it.

I tell the men Penelope is my Queen. I bed her but Men she beds me in return. They laugh Penelope. They laugh and they say King you are not bed by a woman. No. They say she is a Goddess sure. I say Men you are right.

This amuses me Odysseus. Your banter with your men is a pure delight to me. Now my love we are happy happy lovers again. Take my hand. Eumeaus has cleared the barn and set the servants off on many useless errands. They scratch their heads and go. It is a lark. What a humor for us. No one has any awareness of our present folly. Eumeaus remains silent on this. I know him. And he will want a full report of what we do in the barn and that will satisfy him. He can laugh with Philo and that will bond them to us even further as it always does.

I love these men. My men.

Yes. My maids are not so steady Odysseus. The two lovers have stopped on a survey and taken seats on a grassy knoll.

Melantho is my concern just now as you warned but I do not want to take the matter of Melantho up with you and spoil our show Odysseus.

No we will not take this matter up now. Later Penelope we will condole on Melantho and plan a course of action. You are fully satisfied that her tale of my abuse of her has no merit? Just tell me this Wife and then we will let it go for now.

Odysseus I am satisfied. Let us not say anything further at present. It has been an upset. Penelope lifts his hand and kisses it. My love.

Odysseus softens and takes a knee before her. Here in this wild green pasture I pledge my troth again to you my dear dear Penelope.

O Odysseus get up you fool. You are pleasuring me with your words and actions. I blush. Stop. We have a cow to milk.

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