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The lady Penelope called to the handmaiden and said, 'Thou, Melantho, didst hear it from mine own lips that I was minded to speak to this stranger and ask him if he had tidings of my lord.
It was then that Penelope came back to the hall to speak to the stranger. One of her handmaidens, Melantho by name, was there, and she was speaking angrily to him. Now this Melantho was proud and hard of heart because Antinous often conversed with her. As Penelope came near she was saying: 'Stranger, art thou still here, prying things out and spying on the servants?
Unhappy Melantho, true child of universal nature! grievous work we should make with most households, if all who resemble thee were treated to as rough a destiny. And there are other old friends whom it is pleasant enough to recognise at so long a distance.
Her maids placed a chair, inlaid with silver and ivory, for her near the fire, and threw a large woolly rug before it for her feet. The queen, stately as a goddess, took her seat there while her maids carried away the dishes and food left by the suitors. They heaped great logs on the fire. Then Melantho, an impudent maid, said to Odysseus: "Art thou here, thou beggar!
The insolence of the suitors was matched by the pertness of the serving maids, of whom Melantho was the most impudent. A threat from Odysseus drew down upon him the wrath of the suitors who were with difficulty persuaded by Telemachus to depart home to their beds.
Then Melantho began to revile Odysseus yet a second time, saying: 'Stranger, wilt thou still be a plague to us here, circling round the house in the night, and spying the women? Nay, get thee forth, thou wretched thing, and be thankful for thy supper, or straightway shalt thou even be smitten with a torch and so fare out of the doors.
They emptied the embers out of the braziers, and heaped much wood upon them to give both light and heat; but Melantho began to rail at Ulysses a second time and said, "Stranger, do you mean to plague us by hanging about the house all night and spying upon the women? Be off, you wretch, outside, and eat your supper there, or you shall be driven out with a firebrand."
The women laughed, and glanced at one another; and one of them, whose name was Melantho, spoke bitterly to Odysseus, and reviled him, saying: "Thou wretched old man, why goest thou not to find a bed in the smithy, or wherever else thou canst, instead of loitering here, and vexing us with thy prate? Either thou hast drunk a cup too much, or else thou art stricken in thy wits.
Nay, and among the grown ones, where time has not changed the occupation, and the forms of culture have little room to vary, we meet again with very familiar faces. There is Melantho, the not over-modest tittering waiting-maid saucy to her mistress and the old housekeeper, and always running after the handsome young princes.
For even if they are minded to wait the throned Dawn, they shall not outstay me, so long enduring am I. So he spake, but they laughed and looked one at the other. And the fair Melantho chid him shamefully, Melantho that Dolius begat, but Penelope reared, and entreated her tenderly as she had been her own child, and gave her playthings to her heart's desire.
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