Queen Penelope sat alone at her great wooden loom.

She promised the suitors she would choose a husband once the shroud was finished.

For three years she tricked them, weaving the shroud by day and unweaving it by night.

Then Athena, the goddess of wisdom, arrived disguised as Mentes, an old friend.

She whispered to Telemachus, 'Your father is alive on a distant island.'

That midnight, Telemachus sailed into the dark sea to seek his father.