A delaying maneuver run for three years. The suitors pressed her to remarry; she said yes, when I have woven a shroud for Laertes — old men deserve to be buried properly. She wove all day. Every night she pulled the threads back out. The shroud never finished and the suitors never got their answer. It is metis in domestic clothing. Patience as a weapon. The trick fails when one of the handmaidens betrays the secret to the suitors, and after that the loom can’t buy her any more time. She switches strategies. The shroud is the proof that the cunning in this house was never only the king’s.
The Shroud Trick
Penelope's three-year stall. Weave Laertes's burial shroud by day, unravel it by night. Choose a husband when it's done. It is never done.