An Ancient Gesture by Edna St. Vincent Millay

I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:

Penelope did this too. And more than once: you can't keep weaving all day

And undoing it all through the night; Your arms get tired, and the back of your neck gets tight;

And along towards morning, when you think it will never be / light,

And your husband has been gone, and you don't know where, / for years,

Suddenly you burst into tears; There is simply nothing else to do.

And I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:

This is an ancient gesture, authentic, antique, / In the very best tradition, classic, Greek; Ulysses did this too. But only as a gesture,-a gesture which implied

To the assembled throng that he was much too moved to speak.

He learned it from Penelope. Penelope, who really cried.