"What’s possessed you, woman? Why lay into me? Such abuse!
Just because I’m filthy, because I wear such rags,
roving round the country, living hand-to-mouth.
But it’s fate that drives me on:
that’s the lot of beggars, homeless drifters.
I too once lived in a lofty house that men admired;
rolling in wealth, I’d often give to a vagabond like myself,
whoever he was, whatever need had brought him to my door.
And crowds of servants I had, and lots of all it takes
to live the life of ease, to make men call you rich.
But Zeus ruined it all – god’s will, no doubt.
So beware, woman, or one day you may lose it all,
all your glitter that puts your work-mates in the shade."
– Homer
The Odyssey, Book 19, lines 77-89. Disguised beggar Odysseus tackles housemaid Melantho over her abuse of him because he is a vagabond. He says that he once was wealthy and lived in a big house, but fate and Zeus reduced him to beggary. He warns Melantho that her fortunes could be reversed one day too. Melantho’s humiliating death is foreshadowed here.