Odyssey 2.151 · Book 2, lines 151–156
The eagles' omen, and the town that cannot read it
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ἔνθʼ ἐπιδινηθέντε τιναξάσθην πτερὰ πυκνά, ἐς δʼ ἰδέτην πάντων κεφαλάς, ὄσσοντο δʼ ὄλεθρον· δρυψαμένω δʼ ὀνύχεσσι παρειὰς ἀμφί τε δειρὰς δεξιὼ ἤιξαν διά τʼ οἰκία καὶ πόλιν αὐτῶν. θάμβησαν δʼ ὄρνιθας ἐπεὶ ἴδον ὀφθαλμοῖσιν· ὥρμηναν δʼ ἀνὰ θυμὸν ἅ περ τελέεσθαι ἔμελλον.
There, wheeling round, the two eagles shook their thick wings, and looked upon the heads of all, foreboding death; having torn with their talons cheeks and necks all round, to the right they darted through the houses and their city. And they marveled at the birds when they saw them with their own eyes; and they pondered in their hearts what was destined to come to pass.
Word by word
The setting
Zeus has just sent two eagles gliding over the assembly on Ithaca. Now the birds complete the omen and the watching people try to read it — just before the old seer Halitherses rises to interpret.
A note on this passage
The two eagles Zeus sent finish the sign. They wheel overhead, look down on the crowd, rake their own cheeks and necks bloody with their talons, and shoot off to the right across the town. The people stare and turn over in their minds what it can mean.
The omen is already legible before anyone reads it. Flight to the right is the favorable quarter; the birds tearing themselves enacts the suitors' self-destruction; and ὄσσοντο δʼ ὄλεθρον, ‘they foreboded death,’ puts the doom in the birds' own eyes, not the watchers'. The sign is the whole prophecy Halitherses is about to spell out — Homer shows it, then has it explained, and still it will not be believed.
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