For how many years does Penelope weave and unravel her work?

Penelope weaves and unravels her work for three years in Homer's Odyssey. She tells the suitors that she will choose a new husband after finishing a funeral shroud for Laertes, Odysseus's elderly father.

Each day, Penelope works at the loom in public; each night, she secretly undoes the day's progress. The scheme allows her to postpone remarriage while she waits for news of Odysseus, who has been absent since the Trojan War.

The deception ends when one of her maidservants reveals it to the suitors. Melantho is the servant most closely associated with exposing the trick, telling her lover Eurymachus about Penelope's nightly unraveling. The suitors then pressure Penelope to proceed with the marriage decision.

A common mix-up is confusing the three years of weaving with Odysseus's much longer absence. In the epic's broader timeline, he is away for ten years fighting at Troy and another ten years during his journey home.