Odyssey 2.177 · Book 2, lines 177–180
Eurymachus mocks the seer
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τὸν δʼ αὖτʼ Εὐρύμαχος Πολύβου πάϊς ἀντίον ηὔδα·
Eurymachus — ὦ γέρον, εἰ δʼ ἄγε νῦν μαντεύεο σοῖσι τέκεσσιν οἴκαδʼ ἰών, μή πού τι κακὸν πάσχωσιν ὀπίσσω· ταῦτα δʼ ἐγὼ σέο πολλὸν ἀμείνων μαντεύεσθαι.
But in turn Eurymachus, son of Polybus, answered to his face: “O old man, come now, prophesy to your children, going home, lest they suffer some evil hereafter; but at this I am far better than you at prophesying.”
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The setting
The suitors' answer. Eurymachus, son of Polybus and one of the two ringleaders, dismisses Halitherses with contempt.
A note on this passage
The suitors respond, and it is scorn. Eurymachus tells the old seer to go home and prophesy to his own children — he is no use here — and claims that he himself is the better prophet. It is a flat refusal of a warning that was, we know, entirely true.
The mockery is the trap closing. Halitherses spoke exact truth; Eurymachus answers not with argument but with derision, and boasts of a gift he plainly lacks. Homer lets the doomed man convict himself out of his own mouth: the reader, who knows Odysseus is already back on the island, hears ‘I am the better prophet’ as an epitaph the speaker is writing for himself.
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