Born Afar

Update/Edit: Since this inexplicably was given a daily deviation (tons of thanks to ^StJoan for that by the way and especially to the amazing =nycterent for suggesting this, she is amazing, go check out her work. Like now. Go.) I thought I would clarify a few points on this. A few comments addressed the fact that this was a bit hard on Odysseus. My original description here said that this poem was about the fact that Penelope waited for so long when he was off fighting monsters, getting it on with Circe and Calypso while she was pretty much the epitome of faithfulness but once he returned she was too old.

I should probably make it clear that I was thinking of the Tennyson poem, Ulysses (which you really should read if you haven't already). In particular I was thinking of the opening lines, "It little profits that an idle king, / By this still hearth, among these barren crags, / Matched with an aged wife," I wrote this poem a couple of years ago when I studied Tennyson at A level and it struck me as a horribly callous and throwaway comment about a wife that waited so long, and who sacrificed so much for him. In some of the apocryphal texts about Odysseus there are references to Telegonus, his son by Circe who Penelope marries after his death, so she did get to have some fun Telegonus literally translates to "born afar" and obviously, he is the second son after Telemachus.

Thankyou again to those responsible for the daily deviation on this, and to all of you lovely people who have been so thoughtful and kind to leave comments and favourite it. I've just started a module at uni called The Poem, so all of this feedback is amazingly helpful!