THE BLIND PROPHET IN OEDIPUS FULL

However, it was the communications of the dead he relied on the most, menacing them when they were late to attend him. He is said to have understood the language of birds and could divine the future from indications in a fire, or smoke. Zeus could do nothing to stop her or reverse her curse, but in recompense he did give Tiresias the gift of foresight and a lifespan of seven lives. As Tiresias had experienced both, Tiresias replied, 'Of ten parts a man enjoys one only.' Hera instantly struck him blind for his impiety. In a separate episode, Tiresias 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. His mother, Chariclo, a nymph of Athena, begged Athena to undo her curse, but the goddess could not instead, she cleaned his ears, giving him the ability to understand birdsong, thus the gift of augury. An alternative story told by Pherecydes was followed in Callimachus' poem 'The Bathing of Pallas' in it, Tiresias was blinded by Athena after he stumbled onto her bathing naked. Īccording 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. Tiresias is presented as a complexly liminal figure, mediating between humankind and the gods, male and female, blind and seeing, present and future, this world and the Underworld. In Hellenistic and Roman times Tiresias' sex-change was embellished and expanded into seven episodes, with appropriate amours in each, probably written by the Alexandrian Ptolemaeus Chennus, but attributed by Eustathius to Sostratus of Phanagoria's lost elegiac Tiresias. This ancient story was recorded in lost lines of Hesiod. Either way, as a result, Tiresias was released from his sentence and permitted to regain his masculinity. After seven years as a woman, Tiresias 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 woman, Tiresias became a priestess of Hera, married and had children, including Manto, who also possessed the gift of prophecy. Hera was displeased, and she punished Tiresias by transforming him into a woman. On Mount Cyllene in the Peloponnese, as Tiresias came upon a pair of copulating snakes, he hit the pair with his stick. Pliny the Elder credits Tiresias with the invention of augury. Like other oracles, how Tiresias obtained his information varied: sometimes, he would receive visions other times he would listen for the songs of birds, or ask for a description of visions and pictures appearing within the smoke of burnt offerings or entrails, and so interpret them. Taken from Die Verwandlungen des Ovidii (The Metamorphoses of Ovid). All of these reinforce Sophocles' ideas about truth being a matter of perception.Tiresias strikes two snakes with a stick, and is transformed into a woman by Hera.

The play is full of references to sight and blindness, to light and dark imagery.

When Oedipus discovers the awful truths, he gouges out his eyes, thus physically blinding himself to the reality around him he cannot bear to look at the children he has sired, knowing they are his half-siblings. He also knows the truth about Oedipus' identity, but the old seer doesn't want to reveal this painful reality. Tiresias, on the other hand, is physically blind, but he has the ability to 'see' metaphorically he can make predictions.

He is also unaware that he has indeed fulfilled another part of the prophecy he tried to escape: married his mother. Although Oedipus, who has the physical ability to see, believes that he can discover the truth about the identity of King Laios' murderer, he is blind to the fact that he himself is guilty.

One way to approach answering this question is to look at Oedipus and Tiresias, the blind prophet.

THE BLIND PROPHET IN OEDIPUS FULL

The blind prophet in oedipus