Tiresias, the Ancient Greek prophet of god Apollo who could foresee the future, was transformed to a woman by goddess Hera and lived as a woman for seven years.
The legendary blind, bearded old man from Thebes has become a timeless symbol of the prophet, embodying wisdom, spiritual insight, and a connection to the divine. He was stern and never hesitated to speak the truth. It is said that he lived for seven generations, which would be approximately 175 to 210 years.
He appears in several mythological works such as Homer’s Odyssey, where Odysseus consults him, and is mentioned by authors of antiquity Sophocles, Euripides, Pindar, Ovid and others.
Tiresias was the son of a shepherd named Everes and a nymph named Chariclo. He lived in Thebes and was the advisor to the founder of the city, Cadmus.
The Ancient Greek prophet had the ability to move between humans and gods, male and female, the present and the future, and this world and the underworld. He could predict the future and communicate with the dead, balancing between this world and theirs.
It is said that he could predict the future in many different ways. He would receive visions, listen to and interpret the songs of birds, or interpret prophecies that appeared as pictures in the smoke after burning offerings or entrails.
Hera turns him into a woman
Legend has it that at some point Tiresias was transformed into a woman by goddess Hera. When he was a young man, the Ancient Greek prophet was walking on Mount Cyllene when he came upon two snakes that were mating. For some reason, he struck the snakes with his walking stick and killed either both or one them, depending on the version of the myth.
Hera was infuriated for his actions and turned him into a woman. After the transformation, the female Tiresias served as a priestess for Hera. The punishment lasted for seven years during which Tiresias married and had children.
After seven years had passed, the woman Tiresias came across another pair of snakes that were mating. Remembering the action that had caused her current fate, she left the snakes alone. This reversed Hera’s curse, and Tiresias was turned into a man again.
Tiresias’ blindness
Likewise, Tiresias’ blindness was not a birth defect but another divine reaction. It is said that one time he accidentally stumbled upon the goddess Athena while she was bathing in a lake. He found himself unable to turn away from her nakedness. As punishment for his discourtesy, the goddess blinded him.
Tiresias’ mother begged the goddess to reverse the curse, and after lengthy persuasion, Athena agreed to give his sight back. But when she tried to do it, she found that she was unable to. To make amends for what she had done to Tiresias, she gave him the gift of prophecy. This would point his life in a new direction.
Tiresias claims women feel more pleasure during physical connection
There is an alternative story regarding the events that caused the ancient Greek prophet’s blindness. The second version says that Zeus and Hera were having a discussion about whether males or females experienced more pleasure during sex. Hera said that it was the male, while Zeus said it was the female.
The two gods drew the prophet into their dispute, for he had already experienced life as both a man and a woman, gaining insight into both the male and female perspectives of intimacy.
Tiresias replied with authority: “of ten parts, a man enjoys one only” (Apollodorus, Library 3.6.7), meaning that women experience much more pleasure. Offended by this conclusion, Hera struck Tiresias blind for his impiety. To compensate, Zeus granted Tiresias the gift of foresight and a lifespan of seven generations.
Tiresias in Thebes
Many of Tiresias’ prophetic tales surround him and those around him in the great city of Thebes. It was Tiresias who told Amphytrion the truth about his wife Alcmene, who gave birth to twin sons, Iphicles and Heracles. It was only Iphicles who was the son of Amphitryon because Heracles was the son of Zeus, who had seduced Alcmene during Amphitryon’s absence.
Tiresias is also involved in the Narcissus tale for telling his mother that the boy will thrive as long as he never knows himself. Narcissus, though, saw his own reflection in the water and fell deeply in love with it, not realizing it was merely an image. The allure of his reflection in the pool made him develop an unrequited love that could never be reciprocated by any other. Than made Narcissus so sad that he lost his will to live and committed suicide. In some versions of the myth, Narcissus stared into his reflection until he withered away.
In The Bacchae by Euripides, Tiresias appears with Cadmus, the founder and first king of Thebes, to warn the current king Pentheus against denouncing Dionysus as a god. Cadmus and Tiresias dress as worshipers of Dionysus and go up the mountain to honor the new god with the Theban women in their Bacchic revels. Pentheus scolds the two old men and orders his soldiers to arrest anyone engaging in Dionysian worship. Enraged, Dionysus destroys Pentheus for his impiety.
In Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, Oedipus, the king of Thebes, calls upon the great prophet to ask him who killed the previous King Laius. At first, Tiresias refuses to give a direct answer and instead hints that the killer is someone Oedipus really does not wish to find. An angered Oedipus first challenges Tiresias that he has no foresight and then accuses Tiresias of having a hand in the murder. The prophet finally reveals that, in fact, it is Oedipus himself who has unwittingly committed the crime of killing his own father. Outraged, Oedipus throws Tiresias out of the palace. Later, to his horror, Oedipus realizes the truth.
Tiresias also appears in Sophocles’ Antigone. After the two brothers die in the war between them, their uncle Creon becomes king of Thebes. The new king refuses to allow Antigone’s brother, Polynices, to be buried. Antigone defies the order and is caught. Creon decrees that she be buried alive. The gods express their disapproval of Creon’s decision to not bury the dead through Tiresias, who tells Creon that: “the city is sick through your fault.” Antigone, instead of being buried alive, takes her own life by hanging herself. When Creon arrives at her tomb, his son, Haemon who loves Antigone, attacks Creon for his decision and kills himself. When Creon’s wife, Eurydice, is informed of her son and Antigone’s deaths, she too takes her own life.
Death of Tiresias
Thebes was attacked again, this time by the Epigoni, the sons of the original invaders, the Seven Against Thebes. They took over the city and burned it. The Thebans had to flee and Tiresias was among them. On his journey, he eventually stopped at the spring Telphusa near Haliartus, and drank from its infected waters. It was the last thing he did on Earth. In another tale, Apollo killed Tiresias with an arrow dipped in the tainted spring. His soul immediately entered the first level of Hades.
However, Athena had promised to his mother Chariclo that he would keep his prophetic powers even after his death. In the Odyssey, following the advice of Circe, Odysseus sacrifices a ram and a black ewe and thus summons the shade of Tiresias in the Underworld. After drinking the blood of the animals, the prophet warns Odysseus not to harm the cattle of Helios, foretells his future wanderings and his eventual victory over his wife’s suitors in Ithaca. He finally consoles him that he will die “a gentle, painless death far from the sea . . . in ripe old age.”
Symbols and depictions
Through the years, Tiresias became the archetypal blind prophet. Humbled by his condition, he is not arrogant of his ability to foretell events. He speaks the truth of his vision of future events and does not fight those who doubt his abilities. Characteristically, he doesn’t fight with Oedipus when Oedipus says that he doesn’t speak the “truth.”
Tiresias as once a man who could see, represents the blindness of those who can see but refuse to see and accept the truth.
The blind Ancient Greek prophet has often been depicted in art. His representations vary as some artists have visualized Tiresias as a he and others as a she. Also, some present him as a blind man and others as one who can see. He often appears with a white beard, foreseeing the future.
Several artists include in their work the snakes that he killed, which led Hera to transform him into a woman. The cane he carries in some artworks symbolizes his old age but also his authority.
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