The ever-faithful wife of Odysseus, the king of Ithaca whose long journey home is the subject of The Odyssey. While Odysseus was away, Penelope was courted by dozens of suitors led by Antinous, but she held them off with cunning: she told them she'd wed one when she finished weaving a burial shroud for Odysseus's father Laertes, but she unwove her progress each night. When Odysseus returned, she tested his identity by asking the maid to move their bed, which cannot be done since the bed—crafted by Odysseus—had one post that was a living olive tree. Her only child is a son, Telemachus.