"Strange woman! So hard – the gods of Olympus
made you harder than any other woman in the world!
What other wife could have a spirit so unbending?
Holding back from her husband, home at last for her
after bearing twenty years of brutal struggle.
Come, nurse, make me a bed, I’ll sleep alone.
She has a heart of iron in her breast."
– Homer
The Odyssey, Book 23, lines 186-192. Penelope is unsure whether to believe her eyes that the man before her is her husband. In this passage Odysseus becomes annoyed and agitated that he is not being welcomed back with open arms. Using a metaphor he accuses Penelope of having a heart of iron.