This is a poem about la la la love. Or lack of it. Mainly referencing Penelope, who was of course, the wife of Odysseus/ Ulysses, waited for him for twenty years while he was off sailing, fighting monsters, getting it on with sorceresses called Circe. He finally comes home and she's like this epitome of fidelity and faith but now she's too old. I hate men.

HOWEVER when her mean old husband dies Penelope goes and gets herself a toy boy in the form of Odysseus's' son by Circe, Telegonus, who's name literally translates as, "Born Afar".

Other details, a few water/sailing things in there are explicable I think but the weaving thing, Penelope warded off these other suitors by promising to marry when she'd finished weaving a burial shroud, and unpicking it when everyone slept. Also, when her husband returned from the sea, she knew it was him because he strung his own bow- it was a moment of like mindedness.