To the end of home as Odyssey, a newly returned Odysseus dines in secret in his own home,

surrounded by the suitors. A group of vulgar men, who for the past decade, had been trying

to steal his life. Disguised as a beggar, Odysseus watches with disgust as the men shamelessly

stuffed themselves on meat and wine, blissfully unaware of the true identity of the stranger

who sits among them and what he plans to do to them. When suddenly the prophet Theocliminus

interrupts the banquet to deliver his fateful words to the unsuspecting suitors. There is

a shroud of darkness drawn over you from head to foot. Your cheeks are wet with tears.

The air is alive with wailing voices. The walls and roof beams drip blood. And the gate

of the cloisters and the court beyond are full of ghosts, trooping down into the night of hell.

And with that their fates were sealed in what is perhaps one of literature's most famous

and brutal premonitions. Though the idea of prophecy was common among many ancient cultures

throughout the world, home as use of it in Odyssey produced sometime around 800 BCE is

one of the first times such an act had been written about. Traditionally, supposed prophets

and seers are individuals believed to have been gifted with the unique connection to the

divine, individuals that can communicate with the gods or tap into nature's hidden frequencies

in order to deliver portentious visions of the future. Sometimes the apparent visions

arrive instantaneously, delivered as if by lightning fully formed into the seers mind's eye.

Other times, divination might be employed. The prophecies carefully deciphered from the

scattering of bones or runes. Or sometimes, a message might merely be read in the language

of the world around them. An eagle tearing a pigeon apart, as in the case of home as Odyssey,

for example, becoming the omen of a god's will. All such methods, aside from contradicting

all scientifically accepted laws of the universe, would require a level of skill or understanding

...