Sonnet XXIII. Penelope, for her Ulysses’ sake

Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599)

PENELOPE, for her Ulysses’ sake,

Devis’d a web her wooers to deceive;

In which the work that she all day did make,

The same at night she did again unreave:

Such subtle craft my damsel doth conceive,

Th’ importune suit of my desire to shun:

For all that I in many days do weave,

In one short hour I find by her undone.

So, when I think to end that I begun,

I must begin and never bring to end:

For with one look she spills that long I spun;

And with one word my whole year’s work doth rend.

Such labour like the spider’s web I find,

Whose fruitless work is broken with least wind.