Odysseus and the Blind Seer

Indeed, Tiresias predicts a second voyage of Odysseus, this one a journey he will make alone, without his band of warriors, a solitary journey into the interior, carrying an oar on his shoulder, until he is finally asked by a stranger who has never seen the sea, “What is that winnowing fan on your shoulder?” A winnowing fan was used in the ancient world to separate wheat from chaff, a symbol here of wise discernment, of a wisdom Odysseus will only come to long after his odyssey is at an end, his wife’s suitors destroyed, and his realm restored. This inward journey of his later years is forecast by the blind seer and is never mentioned by Homer again. According to Helen Luke, who dared to write the story Homer never told, it presages the journey of old age, toward wisdom and inner peace, and a reconciliation with the gods, who are offended by our own blindness and hubris.