Son of Polypheides in the Melampodid line — a fugitive seer who joined Telemachus at Pylos, read the omen of the hawk at sea, and in Ithaca prophesied Odysseus' return to Penelope and the doom shrouding the suitors.1
When Telemachus poured libations and prayed beside his swift black ship at Pylos, Theoclymenus stood by him — a stranger who had fled horse-pasturing Argos after slaying a kinsman, with many brethren of the slain ruling the Achaeans there. He asked leave to sail, and Telemachus welcomed him aboard.2
At sea a hawk flew on their right with a dove in his talons, plucking her and shedding feathers down between ship and shore. Theoclymenus clasped Telemachus' hand and read the omen: no godless bird had flown forth on their right — Odysseus would return and wreak vengeance on the suitors, and not one of the wooers would escape death and fate.3
In the hall of Odysseus he told Penelope that her lord was already present or close at hand, devising evil for the suitors — and when the wooers' feast turned to blood in their eyes and the walls ran red, Theoclymenus alone saw the shroud of night upon them and prophesied their immediate destruction.4
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story