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Blind prophet of Apollo From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In Greek mythology, Tiresias (/taɪˈriːsiəs/; Ancient Greek: Τειρεσίας, romanized: Teiresías) was a blind prophet of Apollo in Thebes, famous for clairvoyance and for being transformed into a woman for seven years. He was the son of the shepherd Everes and the nymph Chariclo.[1] Tiresias participated fully in seven generations in Thebes, beginning as advisor to Cadmus, the founder of Thebes.
Eighteen allusions to mythic Tiresias, noted by Luc Brisson, fall into three groups: the first recounts Tiresias' sex-change episode and later his encounter with Zeus and Hera; the second group recounts his blinding by Athena; the third, all but lost, seems to have recounted the misadventures of Tiresias.[2]
On Mount Cyllene in the Peloponnese,[3][note 1] Tiresias came upon a pair of copulating snakes and hit them with his stick, which displeased goddess Hera who punished Tiresias by transforming him into a woman. As a woman, Tiresias became a priestess of Hera, married and had children, including his daughter Manto who also possessed the gift of prophecy. Afterwards, as told by Phlegon, god of prophecy Apollo informed Tiresias: if she spots copulating snakes and similarly harms them, she will return to her previous form. After seven years as a woman,[note 2] Tiresias found mating snakes; depending on the myth, she either made sure to leave the snakes alone this time, or, according Hyginus and Phlegon, trampled them. In both outcomes, Tiresias was released from the sentence and changed back to a man.[note 3][4][5][3][6]
According to Eustathius, Tiresias was originally a woman who promised Apollo her favours in exchange for musical lessons, only to reject him afterwards. She was turned by Apollo into a man, then again a woman under unclear circumstances, then a man by the offended Hera, then into a woman by Zeus. She becomes a man once again after an encounter with the Muses, until finally Aphrodite turns him into a woman again and then into a mouse.[7]
The mythographic compendium Bibliotheke, lists different stories about the possible cause of Tiresias' blindness. One legend says he was "blinded by the gods because he revealed their secrets to men". While Pherecydes and Callimachus' fifth hymn, The Baths of Pallas, provided a different story—"the youthful Tiresias" was blinded by Athena after he came to saturate his thirst at the bubbling spring, where Athena and her favourite attendant, the nymph Chariclo (mother of Tiresias) were enjoying a "cool plunge in the fair-flowing spring of Hippocrene on Mount Helicon". Pherecydes, in particular, finishes the story with Tiresias' mother Chariclo begging Athena to undo the curse, but she "could not do so". Instead, Athena "cleansed his ears", giving him the ability to understand birdsong (gift of augury), and granted him a staff of cornel-wood, "wherewith he walked like those who see".[4][note 4] In the version retold by Callimachus, Athena cried out in anger at the sight of Tiresias, and his eyes were "quenched in darkness". After Chariclo "reproached the goddess with blinding her son, Athena explained that she had not done so, but that the laws of the gods inflicted the penalty of blindness on anyone who beheld an immortal without his or her consent." To give Tiresias solace in his grief, Athena "promised to bestow on him the gifts of prophecy and divination, long life, and after death the retention of his mental powers undimmed" by the underworld.[8][note 5]
On another account behind Tiresias' blindness and his gift,[note 6] he was drawn into an argument between goddess Hera and her husband Zeus, arguing whether "the pleasures of love are felt more by women or by men", with Hera taking the side of men, Zeus putting himself in opposition, and Tiresias making the final judgement as someone who had experienced both pleasures. Tiresias said, "Of ten parts a man enjoys one only; But a woman enjoys the full ten parts in her heart". Hera struck him blind, but Zeus, in recompense, gave Tiresias the gift of foresight[note 7] and a lifespan of "seven ordinary lives".[4]
Like other oracles, the circumstances in which Tiresias received his prophecies varied. Sometimes he would receive visions, listen for the songs of birds, or burn offerings or entrails, interpreting prophecies through pictures that appeared in the smoke. Pliny the Elder credited Tiresias with the invention of augury.[9] Journalist William Godwin highlighted the communications with the dead as his most valuable way to tell a prophecy, constraining the dead "to appear and answer his inquiries".[10][note 8]
In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Tiresias' "fame of prophecy was spread through all the cities of Aonia", and nymph Liriope was the first to request his prophecy, asking him about the future of her son Narcissus. Tiresias predicted that the boy would live a long life only if he never "came to know himself".
Tiresias has been a recurring character in stories and Greek tragedies concerning the legendary history of Thebes.
Tiresias died after drinking water from the tainted spring Tilphussa, where he was impaled by an arrow of Apollo.[13][14] As claimed by Pausanias, the tomb of Tiresias was "ordinarily pointed out in the vicinity" of the Tilphusan Well near Thebes, Greece, while Pliny the Elder wrote that his burial site was located in Macedonia, marked with a monument.[9]
His shade descended to the Asphodel Meadows, the first level of Hades. Persephone allowed Tiresias to retain his powers of clairvoyance after death.[15]
After his death, the spirit of Tiresias was summoned from the underworld by Odysseus' sacrificial offering of a black ship. Tiresias told Odysseus that he may return home if he was able to stay himself and his crew from eating the sacred livestock of Helios on the island of Thrinacia and that failure to do so would result in the loss of his ship and his entire crew. Odysseus' men, however, did not follow the advice, and got killed by Zeus' thunderbolts during a storm.[16]
The souls inhabiting the underworld usually required to drink the blood to become conscious again, but Tiresias was able to see Odysseus without drinking the blood. According to historian Marina Warner, it meant Tiresias remained sentient even in death—"he comes up to Odysseus and recognizes him and calls him by name before he has drunk the black blood of the sacrifice; even Odysseus' own mother cannot accomplish this, but must drink deep before her ghost can see her son for himself."[15]
As a seer, "Tiresias" was "a common title for soothsayers throughout Greek legendary history".[17] In Greek literature, Tiresias' pronouncements are always given in short maxims which are often cryptic (gnomic), but never wrong. Often when his name is attached to a mythic prophecy, it is introduced simply to supply a personality to the generic example of a seer, not by any inherent connection of Tiresias with the myth: thus it is Tiresias who tells Amphitryon of Zeus and Alcmena and warns the mother of Narcissus that the boy will thrive as long as he never knows himself. This is his emblematic role in tragedy. Like most oracles, he is generally extremely reluctant to offer the whole of what he sees in his visions.[citation needed]
Tiresias is presented as a complex liminal figure, mediating between humankind and the gods, male and female, blind and seeing, present and future, this world and the Underworld.[note 9]
Brisson made connections between the paired serpents struck by Tiresias and the caduceus.[18]
Some theories hypothesize that Baba Yaga is a Slavic folklore version of Tiresias.[19]
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