"But break off this song –
the unendurable song that always rends the heart inside me…
the unforgettable grief, it wounds me most of all!
How I long for my husband – alive in memory, always,
that great man."
– Homer
The Odyssey, Book 1, 391-396. Penelope asks the bard Phemius to stop singing "The Achaeans’ Journey Home from Troy" because it upsets her. The song about her husband Odysseus stirs up "unforgettable grief" about being parted from him. Even though she hasn’t seen Odysseus for twenty years, the faithful Penelope still longs for him and awaits his return. Penelope’s devotion to her husband and his memory is the most striking example of the major theme of loyalty in Homer’s epic.