Odyssey 4.677 · Book 4, lines 677–678
Medon the herald overhears
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κῆρυξ γάρ οἱ ἔειπε Μέδων, ὃς ἐπεύθετο βουλὰς αὐλῆς ἐκτὸς ἐών· οἱ δʼ ἔνδοθι μῆτιν ὕφαινον.
for the herald Medon told her, who had learned their counsels while he was outside the court; but they within were weaving their scheme.
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The setting
How the secret reached Penelope: the herald Medon caught the suitors' words from just outside the courtyard while they schemed within.
A note on this passage
The mechanics of the leak, told simply. Medon, a herald of the household, happened to be just beyond the courtyard wall and caught what the suitors were saying; then he carried it in to Penelope. A door and a wall are all that separate the plot from its discovery.
The undercurrent is the metaphor of weaving — μῆτιν ὕφαινον, ‘they were weaving a scheme.’ Cunning as cloth-work is a favorite Odyssean image, most famously Penelope's own loom, where she unpicks by night the shroud she weaves by day to hold these very men off. The suitors weave a plot; the wife they besiege is the household's true master of the craft.
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