Anticlea

Anticlea is presented in the Homeric genealogical framework as daughter of Autolycus and Amphithea, wife of Laërtes, and mother of Odysseus (though some later accounts give Sisyphus as Odysseus’ father in alternate genealogies). Her primary mythic appearance is posthumous: she is encountered as a shade when Odysseus journeys to the realm of the dead in the Odyssey (Book XI). Later and variant traditions recorded by subsequent authors and summaries attribute differing causes for her death — chiefly grief and longing for her son, and in some accounts suicide after hearing a false report from Nauplius — but these are variants on the Homeric core rather than separate origin narratives.

As a living figure she is named as queen of Ithaca, wife of Laërtes, and mother of Odysseus and Ctimene; classical summaries give no detailed physical portrait. In the Odyssey (Book XI) she appears as an incorporeal shade: Odysseus attempts to embrace her three times but his arms pass through her, and she explains that this intangibility is the condition of all ghosts.

Anticlea does not possess independent supernatural powers in the sources beyond those typical of Homeric shades: when Odysseus performs the necessary ritualized katabasis she is able to converse with him and report news of the household and the cause of her own death. She cannot be physically touched by the living (Odysseus’ embraces fail) and the provided sources do not attribute agency to her to affect the living outside spoken communication during the ritual encounter.