Book XX · Episode 5 of 5
Prophecy of blood
Theoclymenus foresees suitors’ doom
Scenes
- Agelaus urges remarriage — Agelaus urges remarriage, Telemachus assents
- Hall falls silent, Agelaus speaks
- Urges an end to insulting servants
- Suggests she wed the richest suitor
- Won’t hinder his mother’s new choice
- Swears he won’t drive her out
- Mad laughter, grim vision — Theoclymenus sees blood on the walls
- Suitors burst into uncontrollable laughter
- Eyes fill with tears as minds wander
- Meat seems smeared with blood
- Shadows swarm the portico toward Erebus
- The sun itself has vanished
- Eurymachus mocks, seer departs — Eurymachus scoffs, Theoclymenus leaves
- Suitors roar with mocking laughter
- Calls him a babbling foreign stranger
- Trusts his own eyes, ears, feet, mind
- Foresees an evil none escape
- Finds welcome in Piraeus’s house
- Suitors mock the guests — Suitor proposes selling Odysseus and seer
- Mocks the beggar as a useless drain
- Sneers at the guest’s prophecy
- Telemachus watches, awaiting his father
- Penelope takes in every word spoken
- A far bitterer feast awaits them