Teiresias???

As I was reading “Oedipus the King” by Sophocles, Teiresias’ character came about. Teiresias? The blind prophet? It was like déjà vu. Isn’t he one of the Greek myths? Suddenly it rang a bell. I remember Teiresias being in Homer's Odyssey, where he was pictured in the underworld, with his golden staff, and having the power of prophecy; where Circe advised Odysseus to go to the entrance to the underworld evoke the “shade” of Teiresias so that he might tell Odysseus how to find his way home; Teiresias told Odysseus that his homecoming would be laden with hardships but that he would eventually overcome the wrath of Poseidon and return to his home on the island of Ithaca. That was the Teiresias I remembered. Teiresias in Oedipus the King? Is Homer’s and Sophocles’ Teiresias the same person, or is it different? I left it there and accepted that, ok Teiresias is just a random character. Somehow when I continue reading the play and we discussed the dialogue exchange between Oedipus and Teiresias in class, I realized that Teiresias’ character is significant in the play. Teiresias is worth to be checked out!

When I Googled Teiresias, there were lost of information about him, and different version of stories of his blindness.

In Greek mythology, Teiresias was a blind prophet, the son of the shepherd Everes and the nymph Chariclo. Teiresias was a prophet of Zeus. According to the mythographic compendium Bibliotheke, different stories were told of the cause of his blindness, the most direct being that he was simply blinded by the gods for revealing their secrets. An alternate story told by the poet Pherecydes was followed in Callimachus' poem "The Bathing of Pallas"; in it, Teiresias was blinded by Athena after he stumbled onto her bathing naked. His mother, Chariclo, a nymph of Athena, begged her to undo her curse, but Athena could not; instead, she cleaned his ears, giving him the ability to understand birdsong, thus the gift of augury.

On Mount Cyllene in the Peloponnese, as Teiresias came upon a pair of copulating snakes, he hit the pair a smart blow with his stick. Hera was not pleased, and she punished Teiresias by transforming him into a woman. As a woman, Teiresias became a priestess of Hera, married and had children, including Manto, who also possessed the gift of prophecy. According to some versions of the tale, Lady Teiresias was a prostitute of great renown. After seven years as a woman, Teiresias again found mating snakes; depending on the myth, either she made sure to leave the snakes alone this time, or, according to Hyginus, trampled on them. As a result, Teiresias was released from his sentence and permitted to regain his masculinity. This ancient story is recorded in lost lines of Hesiod.

In a separate episode, Teiresias was drawn into an argument between Hera and her husband Zeus, on the theme of who has more pleasure in sex: the man, as Hera claimed; or, as Zeus claimed, the woman, as Teiresias had experienced both. Teiresias revealed woman's greatest secret: that she receives the greater pleasure: "Of ten parts a man enjoys one only." Hera instantly struck him blind for his impiety. Zeus could do nothing to stop her, but he did give Teiresias the gift of foresight and a lifespan of seven lives.

Stripped of its narrative, anecdotal and causal connections, the mythic figure of Teiresias combines several archaic elements: the blind seer; the impious interruption of a natural rite (whether of a bathing goddess or coupling serpents); serpents and staff (Caduceus); a holy man's double gender (shaman); and competition between deities.

According to Sostratus, author of an elegiac poem called Teiresias, he was originally a girl, but had been changed into a boy by Apollo at the of seven; after undergoing several more transformations from one sex to the other, she (for the final sex was feminine) was turned into a mouse and her lover Arachnus into a weasel Eustathius on Odyssey. Teiresias died after drinking the water from the spring Tilphussa, where he was struck by an arrow of Apollo. Teiresias' grave was at the Tilphusian spring; but there was a cenotaph of him at Thebes, and also in later times his "observatory," or place for watching for omens from birds.

In the play “Oedipus the King”, by Sophocles, Oedipus calls upon Teiresias to aid in the investigation of the killing of Laios. Teiresias refuses to give a direct answer and instead hints that the killer is someone Oedipus really does not wish to find. After Oedipus blinds himself and wanders, Teiresias appears in Antigone, also by Sophocles. King Creon of Thebes refused to allow Polynices to be buried. His sister, Antigone, defied the order and was caught; Creon decreed that she was to be buried alive. The gods expressed their disapproval of Creon's decision through Teiresias. However, Antigone had already hanged herself rather than be buried alive. When Creon arrived at the tomb where she was to be interred, his son, Haemon, attacked him and then killed himself. When Creon's wife, Eurydice, was informed of their death she, too, takes her own life.

Teiresias is certainly an interesting character to be discovered in whole, and I am certainly glad that Dr.Edwin made us all to look deeper into Teiresias' character beyond “Oedipus the King”.