The Challenge Lyrics – Epic: The Musical

Song Overview

Personal Review

The Challenge unfurls like an arrow leaving Odysseus’s bow: taut, soaring, inevitable. Harp glissandi lace orchestral strings, while Penelope’s voice—equal parts steel and silk—threads hope through deception. The lyrics pulse with quiet defiance: she weaves by day, unravels by night, and finally dares the suitors to string the legendary bow. One snapshot: torches hiss in Ithaca’s hall as axes line up—a corridor of destiny only one true king can pierce.

Song Meaning and Annotations

Penelope opens in hushed resignation—

“I’m supposed to choose a suitor to wear the crown …”

The pre-chorus pivots on a distant storm reference—Odysseus’s blockade—hinting that fate itself might be steering events toward Ithaca. A subtle Lydian raise on the word “Unless” lights the harmonic horizon.

When Penelope proclaims the contest—string the bow, shoot through twelve axe-heads—the arrangement blooms: brass stabs, snare drum ruffs, and a choir echoing “Time is fleeting.” Each suitor’s chant hovers in a lower register, an ominous Greek chorus that threatens to drown her plea.

Symbolically, the bow embodies marital fidelity: only Odysseus, bound by memory and muscle, can bend it. Penelope weaponises that truth to stall the crown-hungry mob, buying the man she loves one last breath of time.

Verse Highlights

Verse 1

Soft strings trace Penelope’s secrecy; each line ends with a falling third, mirroring the nightly unravelling of the shroud.

Chorus

“Whoever can string my husband’s old bow / And shoot through twelve axes cleanly …”

Here, horns surge a fifth upward, illustrating the near-impossible arc of the arrow she imagines.

Detailed Annotations

The Challenge opens on a hush of viola—the timbre we now instinctively associate with Ithaca’s queen—and Penelope steps forward to address both her suitors and the absent king who still owns her heart. For twenty years she has out-witted obligation with loom and thread; tonight she pivots to an audacious endgame. What follows stitches deceit, faith, and quiet defiance into one poised aria.

Overview

I’m supposed to choose a suitor to wear the crown.
I said I would choose as soon as I weave this shroud.

Homer’s famous ruse appears intact: by day Penelope weaves a funeral cloth for Laertes; by moonlight she unravels it, resetting the hourglass and buying Odysseus more time. The song’s very first couplet acknowledges the lie—“’Cause I’d rather lie / Than allow them to think they’ve won”—yet frames deceit as filial piety rather than moral failure. That hesitation captures Penelope’s core: cunning in strategy, scrupulous in soul.

The Storm as Harbinger

Since we saw that storm …
Though it was so close to our kingdom, it was far from the norm.

The “storm” is no generic squall; listeners fresh from Six Hundred Strike recognize Poseidon’s cyclone—the one Odysseus unleashed by ripping open Hermes’ wind-bag. Its proximity signals more than danger: to Penelope it feels like augury, the cosmos hinting her vigil may soon end. Hence the whispered pivot,

Unless…
Oh, could it be some kind of sign 
That my world is all about to change?

In that inhale the orchestration brightens; a celeste twinkle evokes fate clicking into place.

Designing the Trial

Whoever can string my husband’s old bow
And shoot through twelve axes cleanly
Will be the new king…

Only two beings have ever strung Odysseus’ palíntonos bow: its owner and his son. Penelope’s wording—“my husband’s old bow,” not “my old husband’s bow”—reasserts marital certainty. By adding “cleanly,” she installs a semantic escape hatch: any suitor might complain the shot was nearly true; she alone will rule final judgment. Layered violas accent the line, underscoring who retains agency in this patriarchal chamber.

Musical Techniques

• Instrument Signatures. Viola (Penelope), electric guitar (Odysseus), and flute (wind-bag motif) intertwine. When she sings “Let the arrow fly”, a muted guitar arpeggio sneaks beneath the viola, as if Odysseus’ spirit is already in the hall.
• Vowel Linking. Penelope’s “buying you time” overlaps seamlessly with the suitors’ chant “Time is fleeting”, a compositional device Rivera-Herrans used in “Suffering” and “Love in Paradise” to sonically entangle adversaries.
• Motif Echo. Her closing mantra, “Waiting, waiting,” slows Anticlea’s lament from The Underworld, aligning mother-in-law and daughter-in-law in shared endurance.

Character Insight

Penelope’s language toggles between public performance and private confession. Addressing the suitors she promises crowns and thrones; in sotto voce she assures Odysseus,

Just know I’ll be here, buying you time.

Unlike Odysseus—who has gradually embraced ruthlessness—Penelope retains moral guardrails; she will trick, stall, perhaps even risk death (“I’d rather die / Than grow old without the best of you”), but she refuses bloodshed. Her endurance therefore operates as the narrative counter-weight to her husband’s bloody evolution.

Thematic Elements

• Time. The word recurs—buying time, wasting time, time running out. In Man of the House (a cut song the suitors quote), “time” once threatened Odysseus’ dying father; now it harasses Penelope’s agency. Time is the invisible villain each spouse must outwit on opposite shores.
• Faith vs. Agency. Penelope confesses she “never thought” deceit or final-hour contests would be required. Yet she acts anyway, proving faith need not be passive. Where Odysseus weaponizes violence, she weaponizes expectation.
• Gendered Power. The challenge ostensibly selects a king, yet its very design—an impossible feat tied to Odysseus—ensures male contestants will fail. In effect Penelope exercises sovereign veto while pretending to surrender it, reflecting ancient Greek ideals of metis (clever intelligence) over brute kratos.

Historical References

Homer places the axe trial in Book 21, calling Odysseus’ bow a gift from Iphitus. Rivera-Herrans condenses context but preserves core mechanics: twelve axe-helve sockets aligned so a single arrow can pass through—all but impossible without superhuman draw weight and flawless release.

Closing Cadence

Waiting, waiting—Penelope.

The repetition of her own name—first by suitors, then softly echoed by Odysseus’ unseen voice in the background vocal stack—foreshadows their imminent recognition scene. Yet her final “Oh” trails into unresolved harmony, reminding us the arrow has not yet flown, the loom is not yet cut free, and hope still teeters between string and target.

Thus The Challenge portrays not a damsel stalling for rescue but a strategist choreographing her husband’s victory lap. Where Odysseus has crossed oceans to reclaim his throne, Penelope bends social ritual into shield and sword, proving that on Ithaca the loom is as mighty as the bow.

Song Credits

• Featured: Jorge Rivera-Herrans, Anna Lea & Cast of EPIC: The Musical
• Producer / Composer / Lyricist: Jorge Rivera-Herrans
• Release Date: December 25, 2024
• Genre: Pop, Orchestral, Musical
• Instruments: Piano, harp, strings, brass, snare drum, choir
• Label: Winion Entertainment LLC
• Mood: Resolute, Anticipatory
• Length: 3 min 06 sec
• Track #: 36 on EPIC: The Ithaca Saga
• Time Signature: 4?4
• Key: E-flat major
• Poetic Meter: Predominantly iambic with trochaic emphasis on imperatives
• Copyright © ? 2024 Winion Entertainment LLC

Songs Exploring Tests of Devotion

“Hopelessly Devoted to You” (Grease) captures patient yearning, though Sandy’s soft rock ballad trades Penelope’s covert cunning for open-heart vulnerability.

“All I Ask of You” (Phantom of the Opera) offers a duet promise of safety; Penelope, alone, weaves that same promise into silk and strategy.

“Ring the Bells” by Sam Ryder frames a climactic vow amid orchestral swells; Rivera-Herrans mirrors that grandeur but laces it with wily suspense—an arrow held, not yet loosed.

Questions and Answers

How many streams does “The Challenge” have?

The track surpassed 28 million Spotify plays by July 2025.

What inspired the bow-and-axes test?

Rivera-Herrans lifted the challenge directly from Book 21 of The Odyssey, condensing Homer’s scene into a three-minute musical gauntlet.

Who voices Penelope?

Anna Lea (Anna Lea Casey) provides Penelope’s crystalline soprano.

Did the Ithaca Saga chart?

On its release day the EP debuted at #15 on the US iTunes album chart and peaked at #5 three days later.

Why was the song released on December 25?

Rivera-Herrans revealed on TikTok that Christmas “felt poetic—hope arriving overnight for Penelope.”

Awards and Chart Positions

EPIC: The Ithaca Saga entered the Billboard 200 at #150 the week of January 11, 2025 and spent seven days on the chart.

The EP topped the US iTunes soundtrack chart on December 28 2024.

How to Sing?

Range: Penelope A3 – E5. Breathwork: inhale before “Whoever can string” to glide through the 14-syllable line. Tempo: 92 BPM—keep a gentle pulse like a rocking loom. Diction: clip consonants on “string” and “shoot” to sharpen the challenge. Dynamics: start mezzo-piano; bloom to forte on “Let the arrow fly,” then taper to pianissimo on the closing “Waiting.”

Fan and Media Reactions

“Penelope weaponising her patience? Peak queen energy.”

“3.4 million views and counting—this is the lullaby of lethal love.”

“The key change on ‘Unless’ gives me literal butterflies.”

“I can practically see the arrow piercing the axes—cinematic!”

“EPIC just made the Odyssey’s quietest hero the loudest voice in musical theatre.”