Page "Penelope" Paragraph 5

On Odysseus's return, disguised as an old beggar, he finds that Penelope has remained faithful.

She has devised tricks to delay her suitors, one of which is to pretend to be weaving a burial shroud for Odysseus's elderly father Laertes and claiming that she will choose a suitor when she has finished.

Every night for three years, she undoes part of the shroud, until Melantho, one of twelve unfaithful serving women, discovers her chicanery and reveals it to the suitors.