Mortal · Character in Homer’s Odyssey
Theoclymenus
Fugitive seer aboard the ship
Reads the omens exactly right and is laughed out of the hall.
A seer of the line of Melampus, on the run from a blood-feud in Argos, who begs a place aboard at Pylos and is taken without questions. In the palace the sight comes on him: he sees the suitors' knees and faces shrouded in night, blood on the walls, the porch crowded with ghosts — and walks out of the doomed hall when they laugh.
Bonds
- Theoclymenus guest of Telemachus — taken aboard at Pylos
- Theoclymenus warns The Suitors — sees them shrouded in night
- Piraeus host of Theoclymenus — lodges the fugitive seer
Appears in
- Book XV Return of Telemachus
- Book XVII Return of Odysseus to His Palace
- Book XX The Last Banquet of the Suitors
Scenes
- Theoclymenus Taken Aboard — Book XV. Fugitive Theoclymenus begs passage aboard
- Lodging for the Seer — Book XV. Telemachus names suitor Eurymachus as host
- Falcon Omen — Book XV. Falcon kills dove, a kingly omen
- Marketplace and Piraeus — Book XVII. Telemachus meets Piraeus, Theoclymenus
- Theoclymenus’s Prophecy — Book XVII. Theoclymenus swears Odysseus is home
- Mad laughter, grim vision — Book XX. Theoclymenus sees blood on the walls
- Eurymachus mocks, seer departs — Book XX. Eurymachus scoffs, Theoclymenus leaves