Fair-cheeked daughter of Dolius whom Penelope reared and cherished as her own child — yet she loved Eurymachus, lay with him, and twice rated the disguised Odysseus with shameful words when he moved through the halls by night.1
Homer names her lineage at once: Melantho whom Dolius begot, but Penelope had reared her and given her playthings to her heart's desire. Even so she had no sorrow for her mistress — she loved Eurymachus and was wont to lie with him. When the beggar said he could endure much, the maids laughed; Melantho rated him shamefully before them all.2
By night, when Penelope questioned the stranger and fresh logs burned on the braziers, Melantho began again: would he still plague them through the house and spy upon the women? She bade him get forth and sleep where the beggars gathered — not knowing the man she reviled was her master returned.3
Pausanias cites her very speech as proof that in Homer's day many cities had common meeting-places and smithies where men might sleep — the line in which she tells the stranger he will not go to the smith's house nor to the place of talk.4
When the suitors lay dead, Eurycleia named the faithless women among the fifty housemaids — twelve who had dishonored Penelope and consorted with the wooers. Melantho was among them: they were led out to the courtyard, nooses laid round their necks, and they died most piteously — swept away with Melanthius in the hour of vengeance.5
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story