Odyssey 4.696 · Book 4, lines 696–699
Medon: a worse evil is brewing
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τὴν δʼ αὖτε προσέειπε Μέδων πεπνυμένα εἰδώς·
Medon — αἲ γὰρ δή, βασίλεια, τόδε πλεῖστον κακὸν εἴη. ἀλλὰ πολὺ μεῖζόν τε καὶ ἀργαλεώτερον ἄλλο μνηστῆρες φράζονται, ὃ μὴ τελέσειε Κρονίων·
Then in turn Medon, who knew wise counsel, answered her: Would that this, my queen, were the greatest evil! But the suitors are plotting another thing far greater and more grievous — which may the son of Cronos never bring to pass:
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The setting
Penelope has finished her rebuke. Medon, the herald of the house, now answers the queen — and what he tells her is worse than anything she has charged the suitors with.
A note on this passage
Medon, the herald, answers with a wish that only deepens the dread: would that the ruin she names — the devoured estate — were the worst of it. But a far heavier thing is afoot. The suitors are plotting, and he prays that Zeus will never let it come to pass.
Medon is a servant of the house, and here he quietly takes its side against the men he waits on at table. His prayer names the son of Cronos as the one power that could stop them — the same Zeus whose court, back in Book 1, opened by brooding on exactly this kind of crime. The machinery of justice is being invoked before the crime is even spoken aloud.
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