#And clothing as a metaphor for being stipped of your personhood

[backpackingspace]

In the odyssey, Penelope gave a test to all the travelers and beggers who claimed to carry news of her husband. She asked them everytime to describe his clothes. Because she had clothed him herself the morning he had left.

Odysseus is one of the few who pass it, describing a purple himation and the pin she had used.

Now picture, odysseus refuses to take this himation off. He doesn't care that it's getting increasingly tattered and stained /his wife put this on him/ and he will kill anyone who tries to take it off him. He looses everything he has over and over again. Except for this himation. He manages to hang on to it for the entire war and journey. Only to wake up on calypso's island and it's/gone./

When he begs the goddess for it's return she laughs an angry laugh. Saying "that old thing? I threw that away first. It was ruined beyond repair. You dont need a himation anyway but if you ask me nicely enough I'll make you a new one."

That's the first day odysseus spends all day weeping at the beach. But it certainly won't be the last.