This song is based around The Shroud of Laertes (Penelope's web), a Greek myth. Penelope waited for twenty years for her husband Odysseus to return from the Trojan war. During this time she had many male suitors and she made the decision that she would marry one of them once she had completed the Shroud of Laertes. However, she would weave it by day and unpick it by night, therefore never completing it.
The Web is about a man who knows that he needs to move on after the breakup of a relationship but makes excuses forbidding him to do so: his own web or shroud.
I can toitally relate to this song. How many times have we clung on to the hope that our love would return and putting off the time when we have to accept that it's time to let go and move on?
But the song does end on an optimistic note as the narrator burns his shroud, he conquers his fears and moves on.
One of my favourite early Marillion songs... all the more poignant now as I am currently going through this period of my life... ;)
Ghostlighton August 21, 2005 Link
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