"Poor men, what terror is this that overwhelms you so?
Night shrouds your heads, your faces, down to your knees –
cries of mourning are bursting into fire – cheeks rivering tears –
the walls and the handsome crossbeams dripping dank with blood!
Ghosts, look, thronging the entrance, thronging the court,
go trooping down to the world of death and darkness!
The sun is blotted out of the sky – look there –
a lethal mist spreads all across the earth!"
At that
they all broke into peals of laughter aimed at the seer.
– Homer
The Odyssey, Book 20, lines 391-399. The seer Theoclymenus gives an ominous warning to the suitors. He points to bad omens, foreshadowing the suitors’ deaths: walls dripping with blood, ghosts at the door, a lethal mist blocking out the sun. But the prideful suitors arrogantly dismiss his warning and respond with derisive laughter.