Later Athena felt sorry for Tiresias but could not restore his sight. Instead, she gave him the gift of prophecy and the ability to understand the language of the birds. In another myth, Tiresias came across two snakes mating. He killed the female snake and was transformed into a woman.
Seven years later, he again saw two mating snakes; this time he killed the male snake and became a man. But to compensate for it, Zeus gave Tiresias the gift of foresight, so Tiresias became a seer, who could see the future. Zeus also, in some versions, gave Tiresias long life — seven times the normal human lifespan.
These — the snake-hitting story and the Hera-Zeus disagreement — are the two main stories involving Tiresias. But the Hera story is the more commonly told. His role and significance in much classical literature and myth is to foretell, prophesy, and warn, using his powers of prophecy to avert disaster or to attempt to avert it and to reveal the truth to others. In the Odyssey , Odysseus travels down to the Underworld to seek Tiresias, so that the seer can tell our plucky hero how he will fare on his voyage home.
By this point, of course, Tiresias is long dead, but he retains his gift of prophecy, even in Hades. Tiresias warns Odysseus that he will lose all of his companions. In Oedipus Rex , Tiresias is still alive, and it is Tiresias who reveals to Oedipus the truth about who he is, and that he has inadvertently fulfilled the prophecy which warned that he would kill his father and marry his mother.
Oedipus asked Tiresias who had killed Laius, the former King of Thebes, but Tiresias — reluctant to tell the truth to his king, since that would involve calling Oedipus a murderer — equivocated, but this led Oedipus to suspect that Tiresias had plotted to murder Laius.
His physical description includes a long beard and lifeless eyes, representing his blindness. The prophet is usually associated with snakes, as they were what changed his future. He is also linked to his gift of prophecy and extended lifespan. He is pictured often with a cane, which is symbolic of both his blindness and power.
He is featured in The Waste Land, a poem by T. Another novel, Orlando , by Virginia Woolf is similar in nature. Sign in. Log into your account. Sign up. Password recovery.
You May Also Like:. Kali Prof. Geller - December 30, 2. Minos Prof. Geller - March 26, 0. Xibalba Prof. Geller - October 9, 1. Thetis Prof. Geller - December 29, 0. Nereid Prof. What prophecy for Oedipus does he reiterate? Tiresias predicts that Oedipus will be physically blind as well, referring to how he will gouge his eyes out before he is exiled from Thebes.
In the version of Sophocles, when his city was struck by a plague, Oedipus learned that it was divine punishment for his patricide and incest. Hearing this news, Jocasta hanged herself. The king sends for the one guy who is said to have survived the attack to find out he truth.
Meanwhile, a messenger shows up from Corinth to let Oedipus know that Polybus has died. At first, Oedipus is relieved because he thinks this means he'll never fulfill the prophecy that he'll kill his father. Oedipus is the son of Laius and Jocasta, the king and queen of Thebes. The misfortunes of his house are the result of a curse laid upon his father for violating the sacred laws of hospitality. At the end of the play, when Oedipus sees that he has murdered his father and had children with his mother, he cannot bear to see the reality of what he has done and blinds himself : "Why should I have eyes?
Why, when nothing I saw was worth seeing"? However, when the truth is revealed about Jocasta, and Oedipus requests to be exiled, it is Creon who grants his wish and takes the throne in his stead.
He was the son of the shepherd Everes and the nymph Chariclo. When they consulted Tiresias , he asserted that women had greater pleasure than men, and Hera thereupon struck him blind.
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