Padraic Colum,
The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy
“ As Eumæus and Odysseus were resting at the spring, a servant from Odysseus' house came along. He was a goatherd, and Melanthius was his name. He was leading a flock of goats for the wooers to kill, and when he saw the swineherd with the seeming beggar he cried out:'Now we see the vile leading the vile. Say, swineherd, whither art thou leading this wretch? It is easy to see the sort of fellow he is! ”
Homer,
The Odyssey of Homer — Notes
(1791)
“ Note IV. Bk. xxii. l. 139-162 (Hom. xxii. l. 126-143) .—How Melanthius got out of the hall remains a puzzle. Cowper assumes a second postern, but there is no evidence for this, and l. 139 ff. (l. 126 ff. in the Greek) suggest rather strongly that there was only one. Unfortunately, the crucial word ῥῶγες which occurs in the line describing Melanthius’ exit is not found elsewhere. “He went up,” the poet says, “through the ῥῶγες of the hall.” Merry suggests that “he scrambled up to the loopholes that were pierced in the wall.” ”
Julius Rosenbaum, The Plague of Lust, Vol. 2 (of 2…
“ Galen, De puls. diff., IV. 1. The transition of mentagra into psora has been already mentioned.188 Aristophanes, Birds 151. makes Euelpides say: βδελλύττομαι τὸν Λέπρεον ἀπὸ Μελανθίου (I detest the “Leprean” of Melanthius) , on which the Scholiast remarks: Μελάνθιος ὁ τραγικός· κωμωδεῖται γὰρ εἰς μαλακίαν καὶ ὀψοφαγίαν. Πλάτων δὲ αὐτὸν ἐν Σκύθαις ὡς λάλον σκώπτει· εἶχε δὲ Μελάνθιος λέπραν. (Melanthius the Tragedian; for he is derided on account of his luxurious living and gluttony. But Plato laughs at him in the “Scythians” as a garrulous person; now Melanthius had leprosy) . ”
