"Make no mistake, you brazen, shameless bitch,
none of your ugly work escapes me either –
you will pay for it with your life, you will!
How well you knew – you heard from my own lips –
that I meant to probe this stranger in our house
and ask about my husband…my heart breaks for him."
– Homer
The Odyssey, Book 19, lines 99-104. Penelope scolds her disloyal slave Melantho, whom she has raised like she her own daughter. Melantho has been sleeping with one of the suitors and has been abusing Odysseus-the-beggar. Penelope is fuming with anger over how Melantho has mistreated the beggar, as she is anxious to hear news of her husband from him. Ever loyal to Odysseus, she confesses that her heart is breaking without him. This passage shows the disrespect the servants have shown in the absence of their master. It also foreshadows death.