"Cock of the walk, did someone beat your brains out?
Why not go bed down at the blacksmith’s cozy forge?
Or a public place where tramps collect? Why here –
blithering on, nonstop, bold as brass, in the face of all these lords?
No fear in your heart? Wine got to your wits?
Or do you always play the fool and babble nonsense?"
– Homer
The Odyssey, Book 18, lines 370-376. Melantho, palace servant and lover of suitor Eurymachus, mocks Odysseus and targets him with of a stream of invective. The sister of goatherd Melanthius, she is a nasty piece of work, like her treacherous brother. She is Penelope’s maid, but her loyalty is to the suitors rather than to the queen. The insolent Melantho resents that a beggar has the cheek to speak to the suitors and lords gathered at the palace. She is unaware that the "beggar" is her master and king, an example of dramatic irony.