Book of Emblems

On the Statue of Modesty.

Penelope, once betrothed, desired to follow Ulysses,
Had not her father Icarius preferred to keep her with him.
He offers Ithaca, the other Sparta; the anxious maiden hesitates,
On one side her father, on the other the mutual love of her husband urges her.
Therefore, sitting, she veils her face, she covers her eyes:
These were the signs of modest shame.
Icarius recognized that Ulysses was preferred by her,
And in this form he established an altar to Modesty.