From this week’s New Yorker:
The Eight Serious Relationships of Hercules
BY YONI BRENNER
PENELOPE
In his eighteenth year, Hercules, son of Zeus, went forth from Thebes to seek fame and glory. He was welcomed by the King of Thespiae, who had heard of Hercules’ great strength, and hoped that the youthful hero would ignite the fancy of his eldest daughter, who had exclusively been dating jagoffs. And Hercules saw that Penelope was quite attractive, and, to the King’s delight, a great passion was born. But, as the months passed and the King continued to hover, Hercules started to grasp the inky depths of Penelope’s daddy issues, and at times he could not tell if he was her boyfriend or some kind of peculiar erotic proxy. And so Hercules was distressed but not altogether surprised when he returned one day from the hunt only to find that Penelope was gone—fled to Ithaca with one of the aforementioned jagoffs.