At her last words Telemachus shook with a lusty sneeze
like a thunderclap resounding up and down the halls.
The queen was seized with laughter, calling out
to Eumaeus winged words: "Quickly, go!
Bring me this stranger now, face-to-face!
You hear how my son sealed all I said with a sneeze?
So let death come down with grim finality on these suitors –
one and all – not a single man escape his sudden doom!"
– Homer
The Odyssey, Book 17, lines 602-612. Telemachus responds to Penelope’s prayer that Odysseus might return and put things right with the suitors. In a simile, we are told that he sneezes "like a thunderclap." The is an omen that what Penelope prays for will happen, because the god of lightning Zeus is known to send thundercaps as devine signs. There is an example of irony when Penelope asks Eumeaus to fetch the stranger, who happens to be her husband. There is also foreshadowing when she talks about the death and doom of the suitors.