Contempt - Alberto Moravia [77]
“It seems to me,” I protested, “that you’re blackening the character of Ulysses. In reality, in the Odyssey—”
But he interrupted me impatiently. “We’re not going to worry ourselves in the least about the Odyssey. Or rather, we’re going to interpret, to develop the Odyssey. We’re making a film, Molteni. The Odyssey is already written...the film is yet to be made!”
I was silent again, and he resumed: “The reason for the bad relations between Ulysses and Penelope must therefore be sought in the difference between their characters. Before the Trojan War, Ulysses had done something to displease Penelope. What? This is where the suitors come in. In the Odyssey, we know that they aspire to the hand of Penelope and in the meantime live extravagantly at Ulysses’ expense, in his house. We’ve got to reverse the situation.”
I gazed at him open-mouthed. “Don’t you understand?” He asked. “Well, I’ll explain it to you at once. As for the suitors, it may perhaps be convenient for us to reduce them to one person, Antinous, for instance. The suitors, then, have been in love with Penelope since before the Trojan War...and, being in love, they shower presents upon her, according to Greek custom. Penelope, being proud and dignified, in the antique manner, would like to refuse their presents, would, above all things, like her husband to turn the suitors out. But Ulysses, for some reason that we don’t know but that we shall easily find, does not wish to offend the suitors. As a reasonable man, he does not attach much importance to their courting of his wife, since he knows she is faithful; nor does he attribute much significance to their gifts, which perhaps do not really displease him at all. Remember that all Greeks were greedy for presents, Molteni. Naturally Ulysses does not for a moment advise Penelope to yield to the suitors’ desires, but merely not to offend them because he does not consider it worth while. Ulysses wants a quiet life, and he hates scandals. Penelope, who was expecting anything rather than this passive attitude on Ulysses’ part, is disgusted, almost incredulous. She protests, she rebels...but Ulysses is not to be shaken, there seems to him no cause for indignation...so he again advises Penelope to accept the presents, to behave kindly—what does it cost her, after all? And Penelope, in the end, follows her husband’s advice...but at the same time conceives a deep contempt for him...She feels she no longer loves him, and tells him so...Ulysses then realizes, too late, that, by his prudence, he has destroyed Penelope’s love. Ulysses then tries to remedy matters, to win his wife back again, but he is unsuccessful. His life at Ithaca becomes a hell. Finally, in desperation, he seizes the opportunity of the Trojan War to leave home. After seven years the war ends and he puts to sea again to return to Ithaca, but he knows he is awaited at home by a woman who no longer loves him, who, in fact, despises him, and therefore, unconsciously he welcomes any excuse for putting off this unpleasant, this dreaded, return...and yet, sooner or later, return he must. But, on his return, the same thing happens to him as happened to the cavalier in the legend of the dragon—do you remember, Molteni? The princess demanded that the cavalier should kill the dragon if he wished to be worthy of her love, so the cavalier killed the dragon and then the princess loved him. In the same way Penelope, at Ulysses’ return, after proving that she had been faithful to him, gave him to understand that her faithfulness did not mean love but merely virtue: she would recover her love for him on one, and only