Tiresias (mythology)
Tiresias is a significant figure in ancient Greek mythology, renowned as a blind oracle who resided near Thebes. Born to a mortal father, Everes, and a nymph mother, Chariclo, he was marked for a unique destiny. As an oracle of Apollo, Tiresias possessed the ability to foresee the future, drawing on experiences that spanned the equivalent of seven human lifetimes. Notably, he underwent a transformative experience in which he lived as a woman for seven years, further enriching his understanding of human nature from both masculine and feminine perspectives. His prophetic insights are woven into the fabric of classical tragedies by playwrights such as Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Euripides, where he often delivers critical revelations that shape the narratives. Tiresias's blindness is attributed to divine retribution from Hera, the goddess of marriage, and he is also known for his ability to interpret birdsong, a gift granted by Athena. Despite his extraordinary abilities and longevity, he ultimately met his demise after drinking from a poisoned spring. His legacy continues to resonate, influencing various literary works across centuries, where he symbolizes the complex interplay of knowledge, fate, and the human condition.
Tiresias (mythology)
God or goddess information
- Country or culture: Ancient Greek
- Mother: Chariclo
- Father: Everes
- Children: Manto; Historis
In ancient Greek myth, Tiresias was a blind oracle who lived near Thebes, a city in central Greece. His father was Everes, a citizen of Thebes, but his mother, Chariclo, was a nymph of the goddess Athena (and therefore a semidivine spirit of nature).Thus, Tiresias was marked out as special from birth. He became an oracle of Apollo, the god of knowledge, truth, art, music, and prophecy. Tiresias was reputed to have the ability to see into the future, to have lived for the equivalent of seven human lifetimes, and to have been transformed into a woman for seven years. As an oracle, Tiresias appears in key roles in dramas by the three principal tragic playwrights of ancient Greece: Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. His myth was later embellished by the Romans: Tiresias foretold how Narcissus would die in the Echo and Narcissus story related by the poet Ovid in Metamorphoses (first century CE). Tiresias's unique combination of gifts—psychic vision, extreme longevity, and the perspectives of both sexes—granted him an unparalleled insight into human motivation, and guaranteed him a central place in mythology.
In Mythology
Mythic accounts of Tiresias's life focus on two main elements: his years lived as a woman and his blindness. According to the Bibliotheke of Pseudo-Apollodorus (a compendium of mythological stories compiled in the first-second centuries CE), Tiresias was out walking when he found a pair of mating snakes and struck them with a stick. This infuriated Hera (goddess of women, marriage, and childbirth), who turned him into a female. In this form, Tiresias became a priestess of Hera, married, and gave birth to children, including Manto (named Daphne in some accounts), who inherited the gift of clairvoyance. Later authors, from the first two centuries BCE and the Roman era (such as Ptolemaeus Chennus), told a series of seven tales about the oracle's seven eventful years as a woman. In these narratives Tiresias was, for example, a prostitute and a mediator between the gods and mortals. After seven years Tiresias came across another pair of snakes, but this time (in most versions of the tale) she ignored them—and for this self-restraint, Tiresias was transformed by Hera back into a male.
The Bibliotheke describes Tiresias's blindness as a divine punishment; either for betraying the secrets of the gods, or for seeing Athena bathing. In a variant story by Callimachus (third century BCE), Tiresias's mother pleaded with Athena to restore his sight: this was beyond her powers, but she did grant him the ability to understand birdsong. The Bibliotheke also includes a much-repeated tale of Tiresias's arbitration in a quarrel between Zeus and Hera, principal god and goddess in the Greek pantheon. Siding with Zeus, Tiresias was blinded by Hera: a fate which even Zeus could not overturn.
Tiresias lived in a secluded hideaway near Thebes. Accordingly, his prophecies were woven into a number of classical tragedies telling the mythic history of that city. In the Bacchae of Euripides, Tiresias urged the Theban king, Pentheus, to mend his ways and honor the god Dionysus. Pentheus ignored him and was torn to pieces as a result. In Oedipus the King (c. 430 BCE), by Sophocles, Tiresias was summoned to identify the murderer of Oedipus's father. Tiresias's reluctant revelation that Oedipus himself was his father's assassin directly prompts the drama's bloody outcome. The oracle's ability to not only see into human affairs but also channel the messages of the gods was clearly demonstrated in Sophocles's Antigone (c. 442 BCE). King Creon of Thebes had forbidden the burial of the former Theban leader, Polynices, but Polynices's sister Antigone defied the prohibition and was sentenced to death. The gods voiced their displeasure through Tiresias, accusing Creon of infecting Thebes with sickness.
Despite living for seven ordinary lifespans, Tiresias was vulnerable to the same risks as ordinary mortals, and eventually he perished after drinking water from the poison spring known as Tilphussa. Nevertheless, he retained his gifts even in the afterlife. The Odyssey of the poet Homer (sevent-eighth centuries BCE) describes Odysseus visiting the spirit of Tiresias in the Underworld. There, Tiresias accurately predicted the dangers that Odysseus would face on his journey to Ithaca and advised him how to manage them.
Origins & Cults
The name Tiresias (alternatively Teiresias) was sometimes used generically to describe a seer, or prophet, in the ancient Greek world. However, there is a sufficient body of overlapping stories about one particular Tiresias—an oracle of the god Apollo with striking and unique attributes—to accord this individual soothsayer (truth-teller) a special status in myth. Tiresias was a prominent figure in the Greek mythological system, and he performed his prophetic work in a number of ways. On occasion he would experience dreamlike visions, at other times he would translate birdsong, ask his questioners what they saw in patterns formed from smoke, or decipher the messages of the dead concerning future events. He would then formulate a statement, always in a riddle. When a communication of this kind was delivered in Greek mythology, it was usually Tiresias who conveyed it. As such, he was useful to the gods as well as mortals, possibly accounting for the gift of his long life, which in some variants of his story was bestowed by Zeus. Tiresias was often hesitant to uncover the full truth of a situation. As the messenger of fate, what he had to say was frequently unwelcome, and he was therefore feared and respected in equal measure. The postclassical world has maintained the ancient fascination with Tiresias and the psychological complexity he represents. Tiresias plays an important part in poems by Alfred Tennyson (nineteenth century), and T. S. Eliot (The Waste Land, 1922), and in novels by the twentieth-century authors Virginia Woolf and Angela Carter.
Bibliography
Flower, Michael A. The Seer in Ancient Greece. U of California P, 2009.
Graves, Robert. The Greek Myths: The Complete and Definitive Edition. New ed., Penguin Books, 2011.
Lefkowitz, Mary. Greek Gods, Human Lives: What We Can Learn From Myths. Yale UP, 2005.
Loraux, Nicole. The Experiences of Tiresias: The Feminine and the Greek Man. Translated by Paula Wissing, new ed., Princeton UP, 2014.
McCoppin, Rachel S. The Lessons of Nature in Mythology. J. McFarland & Co., 2015.
Westheimer, Ruth K., and Jerome E. Singerman. Myths of Love: Echoes of Ancient Mythology in the Modern Romantic Imagination. Quill Driver Books, 2014.