What does Penelope mean when she refers to her “stiff heart”?

Question

What does Penelope mean when she refers to her “stiff heart”?

Answer 1

Penelope means that she does not bend easily, is not easily swayed. This inflexibility of emotion is a necessary condition for Penelope to remain true to Odysseus for the suitors have been courting her for twenty or so years. She gave herself once; she has not altered.

Moreover, since she is at last yielding to her husband at this point, having tried to deny him even when she knows that it is he--twenty years of holding out will stiffen anyone's heart, even against one's own love--her admission that her heart is stiff is an acknowledgment of her travails and her willingness to change at that moment. She is therefore, stiff heart notwithstanding, in a more pliable condition than she has been throughout the previous 22 books of _The Odyssey._