"I myself
am no stranger to prophecy – I can see it now!
Odysseus…all is working out for him, I say,
just as I said it would that day the Argives sailed
for Troy and the mastermind of battle boarded with them.
I said then: after many blows, and all his shipmates lost,
after twenty years had wheeled by, he would come home,
unrecognized by all…
and now, look, it all comes to pass!"
– Homer
The Odyssey, Book 2, lines 190-198. Ithacan prophet Halitherses predicts that Odysseus will come home after twenty years with all shipmates lost and nobody will recognize him. Odysseus’ incognito return is foreshadowed.