All entities

Character · Individual

Laertes’ wife

Published entity metadata

Read-only identity and editorial metadata.

Canonical name
Laertes’ wife
Disambiguator
None
Kind
Character
Scope
Individual
Editorial note
The current source identifies this stable individual only by her relationship to Laertes.

Aliases

1

Ulysses’ mother

Descriptive reference · Reported

Location presence

Phase 6 currently covers 24 processed books.

1
house of Hades1 observation
·Remembered

Ulysses remembered seeing his mother in the house of Hades.

See evidence text
He began with his victory over the Cicons, and how he thence reached the fertile land of the Lotus-eaters. He told her all about the Cyclops and how he had punished him for having so ruthlessly eaten his brave comrades; how he then went on to Aeolus, who received him hospitably and furthered him on his way, but even so he was not to reach home, for to his great grief a hurricane carried him out to sea again; how he went on to the Laestrygonian city Telepylos, where the people destroyed all his ships with their crews, save himself and his own ship only. Then he told of cunning Circe and her craft, and how he sailed to the chill house of Hades, to consult the ghost of the Theban prophet Teiresias, and how he saw his old comrades in arms, and his mother who bore him and brought him up when he was a child; how he then heard the wondrous singing of the Sirens, and went on to the wandering rocks and terrible Charybdis and to Scylla, whom no man had ever yet passed in safety; how his men then ate the cattle of the sun-god, and how Jove therefore struck the ship with his thunderbolts, so that all his men perished together, himself alone being left alive; how at last he reached the Ogygian island and the nymph Calypso, who kept him there in a cave, and fed him, and wanted him to marry her, in which case she intended making him immortal so that he should never grow old, but she could not persuade him to let her do so; and how after much suffering he had found his way to the Phaeacians, who had treated him as though he had been a god, and sent him back in a ship to his own country after having given him gold, bronze, and raiment in great abundance. This was the last thing about which he told her, for here a deep sleep took hold upon him and eased the burden of his sorrows.

Claims

4
·Direct

Laertes’ wife’s anticipated resentment kept him from taking Euryclea to his bed.

See evidence text
he did not take her to his bed for he feared his wife’s resentment
·Remembered

Laertes’s wife dies unhappily from sorrow for her absent son.

See evidence text
She came to an unhappy end {133} through sorrow for her son
·Remembered

Ulysses remembers instructing Penelope to care for his mother during his absence.

See evidence text
Take care of my father and mother as at present, and even more so during my absence
·Remembered

Ulysses remembers seeing in Hades his mother, who bore and raised him as a child.

See evidence text
how he saw his old comrades in arms, and his mother who bore him and brought him up when he was a child

Additional evidence

Evidence records not already represented by a claim.

4
·Direct
Laertes had bought her with his own money when she was quite young; he gave the worth of twenty oxen for her, and shewed as much respect to her in his household as he did to his own wedded wife
·Reported
tell me about Ulysses’ mother, and his father
·Remembered
his mother who bore him and brought him up when he was a child
·Remembered
You and my mother had sent me to Autolycus

Passage preview

Book 1 · Passage 32

The suitors then returned to their singing and dancing until the evening; but when night fell upon their pleasuring they went home to bed each in his own abode. {12} Telemachus’s room was high up in a tower {13} that looked on to the outer court; hither, then, he hied, brooding and full of thought. A good old woman, Euryclea, daughter of Ops, the son of Pisenor, went before him with a couple of blazing torches. Laertes had bought her with his own money when she was quite young; he gave the worth of twenty oxen for her, and shewed as much respect to her in his household as he did to his own wedded wife, but he did not take her to his bed for he feared his wife’s resentment. {14} She it was who now lighted Telemachus to his room, and she loved him better than any of the other women in the house did, for she had nursed him when he was a baby. He opened the door of his bed room and sat down upon the bed; as he took off his shirt {15} he gave it to the good old woman, who folded it tidily up, and hung it for him over a peg by his bed side, after which she went out, pulled the door to by a silver catch, and drew the bolt home by means of the strap. {16} But Telemachus as he lay covered with a woollen fleece kept thinking all night through of his intended voyage and of the counsel that Minerva had given him.