Calchas

After the Trojan War he is said to have died of mortification when he found that there was a better seer than himself in Mopsus.
— Betty Radice
Calchas, it's just an expression we use:
"to die of embarrassment'—
why did you have to go and do it?
Just because Mopsus said there were
ten thousand and one figs on the tree,
and there were, or because he said
a sow would give birth to nine piglets,
all male, at 6 a.m. the next day, and she did …
I mean, pigs, figs, what does it matter?
You were a prophet without gift
but good enough to know your day was over.
A younger, fitter man outguessed you—
surely a moment to cover your tracks
with a few guru-type sayings like:
"Let us eat the figs, not count them' or
"Predict the litter; turn the sow's milk sour'.
You could have sown confusion and saved face,
Calchas … Then, retirement at a seaside town,
funded by a lifetime of rigged predictions.
And there you'd have been — watching the tide
drain out each day, ignoring the waves'
dazzle, the silver flight-lines of the gulls,
and seeking, until your light winked out,
the alchemy of dropped change.