A Forgotten Perspective on Odysseus

Odysseus was once king of Ithaka, son of Anticlea and Leartes. He became, like the other princes of Greece, one of the suitors of Helen, but he wasn't successful in his endeavours because of the great number of competitors. Instead he solicited the hand of Penelope, the daughter of Icarius.

[Icarius]

Tyndarus, the father of Helen, favoured this solution, because this meant that it removed Odysseus from his list of problems. He was directed to choose one of the suitors without offending all the others, and to bind them all by a solemn oath that they would unite together in protecting Helen if any harm was ever done to her.

So, Icarius gave his daughter Penelope in marriage to Odysseus, but he was so tenderly attached to her that he wished her husband to settle at Lacedæmon. Odysseus refused, but when he saw the earnest petitions of Icarius, he told Penelope, as they were going to embark, that she might choose freely either to follow him to Ithaca or to remain with her father. Penelope blushed in silence, and covered her head with her veil. Icarius, upon this, permitted his daughter to go to Ithaca.

Odysseus and Penelope returned to Ithaca, where his father resigned him the crown, and retired to peace and rural solitude.

The abduction of Helen by Paris, did not permit him to remain in his kingdom for long, and he was bound, in common with the rest to defend her against every intruder. Thus he was summoned to the war with the other princes of Greece.

[Penelope]

Pretending to be insane, because he did not want to leave his beloved Penelope, he yoked a horse and a bull together, and ploughed the seashore, where he sowed salt instead of grain.

His cunning plan, however, soon unravelled. Palamedes, son of Nauplius, king of Eubea, was convinced that the father was not insane. So, he placed Odysseus' infant son Telemachus before the plough. Palamedes was proven to be right, because Odysseus turned away the plough from the furrow, not wanting to hurt his son.

Telemachus was still in the cradle when his father went with the rest of the Greeks to the Trojan war, which means he was in his early twenties when Odysseus finally returned to Ithaka. 

This perspective also shows the close relationship between Helen and Penelope. Close enough to be a doublet?

[Text adapted from the Classical Dictionary (1847), compiled by Charles Anthon]