THE RETURNS AND THE ODYSSEY 497
the man who is the "man of many twists and turns" (polytropos, an epithet given
him in the first line of the poem), the cleverest of the Greeks.
Penelope's usual epithet is periphron ("circumspect"); that is, she is wary and
resourceful, able to keep the suitors at bay by her intelligence. In her first meet-
ing with Odysseus (in Book 19) she says "I spin out my stratagems," and she
tells him of the weaving and unravelling of the burial-garment for Laertes. She
used her sexual power to weaken the suitors. When she appears before them
she is repeatedly likened to Aphrodite and Artemis, and "the suitors' knees went
slack; she bewitched their spirits with lust, and all longed to lie beside her in
bed" (Odyssey 18. 212-214). She gets them to give her gifts (observed with joy
by Odysseus himself, who is in the hall disguised as a beggar), and, when it ap-