Melantho

Melantho was the daughter of Dolios, a slave who served Penelope. When Penelope married Odysseus and moved to Ithaca, her father Icarius gave Dolios to her as part of her dowry. Dolios worked as a gardener and later tended to Laertes, Odysseus's aging father. Melantho's brother was Melanthius, a goatherd on Ithaca. Penelope raised Melantho with exceptional kindness, treating her like her own child and giving her toys and gifts as she grew up. Despite this privileged upbringing, Melantho became light-headed and vain, ultimately betraying the household that had shown her such generosity. [edit]

Melantho is characterized by her sharp tongue and ill-mannered behavior. She is vain, ungrateful, and disloyal, showing no appreciation for Penelope's kindness. Her motivations are driven by self-interest and romantic attachment to Eurymachus, one of the suitors. She is quick to insult and mock those she perceives as beneath her, including the disguised Odysseus. Her actions reveal a petty and spiteful nature, willing to betray her queen for personal gain. [edit]

Melantho appears only in Homer's Odyssey, where her role is brief but thematically significant. She becomes the mistress of Eurymachus, a leading suitor, and sleeps with him. She reveals Penelope's ruse of weaving and unweaving a shroud to delay remarriage. When Odysseus returns disguised as a beggar, Melantho treats him with contempt, urging him to leave. After Odysseus reveals himself and kills the suitors, Melantho is among the disloyal servants forced to clean the hall. It is strongly implied that she is hanged by Telemachus on Odysseus's orders, though the text is ambiguous. Her arc is a negative one, from a privileged servant to a punished traitor, serving as a moral lesson about loyalty.[edit]

Melantho ranks 1,821 in overall popularity with a score of 2.58, and 252 by character type. She is widely regarded as a minor, one-dimensional character embodying the 'disloyal slave' archetype. In literary analysis, she functions as a foil to Penelope, highlighting the queen's faithfulness through contrast. Her story raises questions about class, power, and the treatment of enslaved women in ancient Greek society, themes explored in Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad.[edit]