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Tiresias
In Greek mythology, Tiresias (/taɪˈriːsiəs/; Ancient Greek: Τειρεσίας, romanized: Teiresías) was a blind prophet of Apollo in Thebes, famous for clairvoyance and for being transformed into a woman for seven years. He was the son of the shepherd Everes and the nymph Chariclo. Tiresias participated fully in seven generations in Thebes, beginning as advisor to Cadmus, the founder of Thebes.
Eighteen allusions to mythic Tiresias, noted by Luc Brisson, fall into three groups: the first recounts Tiresias' sex-change episode and later his encounter with Zeus and Hera; the second group recounts his blinding by Athena; the third, all but lost, seems to have recounted the misadventures of Tiresias.
On Mount Cyllene in the Peloponnese, Tiresias came upon a pair of copulating snakes and hit them with his stick, which displeased goddess Hera who punished Tiresias by transforming him into a woman. As a woman, Tiresias became a priestess of Hera, married, and had children, including his daughter Manto who also possessed the gift of prophecy.[citation needed] Afterwards, as told by Phlegon, god of prophecy Apollo informed Tiresias: if she spots copulating snakes and similarly harms them, she will return to her previous form. After seven years as a woman, Tiresias found mating snakes; depending on the myth, she either made sure to leave the snakes alone this time, or, according to Hyginus and Phlegon, trampled them. In both outcomes, Tiresias was released from the sentence and changed back to a man.
According to Eustathius, Tiresias was originally a woman who promised Apollo her favours in exchange for musical lessons, only to reject him afterwards. She was turned by Apollo into a man, then again a woman under unclear circumstances, then a man by the offended Hera, then into a woman by Zeus. She became a man once again after an encounter with the Muses, until finally Aphrodite turned him into a woman again and then into a mouse.
The mythographic compendium Bibliotheke, lists different stories about the possible cause of Tiresias' blindness. One legend says he was "blinded by the gods because he revealed their secrets to men". While Pherecydes and Callimachus' fifth hymn, The Baths of Pallas, provided a different story—"the youthful Tiresias" was blinded by Athena after he came to sate his thirst at the bubbling spring, where Athena and her favourite attendant, the nymph Chariclo (mother of Tiresias) were enjoying a "cool plunge in the fair-flowing spring of Hippocrene on Mount Helicon". Pherecydes, in particular, finishes the story with Tiresias' mother Chariclo begging Athena to undo the curse, but she "could not do so". Instead, Athena "cleansed his ears", giving him the ability to understand birdsong (gift of augury), and granted him a staff of cornel-wood, "wherewith he walked like those who see". In the version retold by Callimachus, Athena cried out in anger at the sight of Tiresias, and his eyes were "quenched in darkness". After Chariclo "reproached the goddess with blinding her son, Athena explained that she had not done so, but that the laws of the gods inflicted the penalty of blindness on anyone who beheld an immortal without his or her consent." To give Tiresias solace in his grief, Athena "promised to bestow on him the gifts of prophecy and divination, long life, and after death the retention of his mental powers undimmed" by the underworld.
On another account behind Tiresias' blindness and his gift, he was drawn into an argument between goddess Hera and her husband Zeus, arguing whether "the pleasures of love are felt more by women or by men", with Hera taking the side of men, Zeus putting himself in opposition, and Tiresias making the final judgement as someone who had experienced both pleasures. Tiresias said, "Of ten parts a man enjoys one only; But a woman enjoys the full ten parts in her heart". Hera struck him blind, but Zeus, in recompense, gave Tiresias the gift of foresight and a lifespan of "seven ordinary lives".
Like other oracles, the circumstances in which Tiresias received his prophecies varied. Sometimes he would receive visions, listen for the songs of birds, or burn offerings or entrails, interpreting prophecies through pictures that appeared in the smoke. Pliny the Elder credited Tiresias with the invention of augury. Journalist William Godwin highlighted the communications with the dead as his most valuable way to tell a prophecy, constraining the dead "to appear and answer his inquiries".
In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Tiresias' "fame of prophecy was spread through all the cities of Aonia", and nymph Liriope was the first to request his prophecy, asking him about the future of her son Narcissus. Tiresias predicted that the boy would live a long life only if he never "came to know himself".
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Tiresias
In Greek mythology, Tiresias (/taɪˈriːsiəs/; Ancient Greek: Τειρεσίας, romanized: Teiresías) was a blind prophet of Apollo in Thebes, famous for clairvoyance and for being transformed into a woman for seven years. He was the son of the shepherd Everes and the nymph Chariclo. Tiresias participated fully in seven generations in Thebes, beginning as advisor to Cadmus, the founder of Thebes.
Eighteen allusions to mythic Tiresias, noted by Luc Brisson, fall into three groups: the first recounts Tiresias' sex-change episode and later his encounter with Zeus and Hera; the second group recounts his blinding by Athena; the third, all but lost, seems to have recounted the misadventures of Tiresias.
On Mount Cyllene in the Peloponnese, Tiresias came upon a pair of copulating snakes and hit them with his stick, which displeased goddess Hera who punished Tiresias by transforming him into a woman. As a woman, Tiresias became a priestess of Hera, married, and had children, including his daughter Manto who also possessed the gift of prophecy.[citation needed] Afterwards, as told by Phlegon, god of prophecy Apollo informed Tiresias: if she spots copulating snakes and similarly harms them, she will return to her previous form. After seven years as a woman, Tiresias found mating snakes; depending on the myth, she either made sure to leave the snakes alone this time, or, according to Hyginus and Phlegon, trampled them. In both outcomes, Tiresias was released from the sentence and changed back to a man.
According to Eustathius, Tiresias was originally a woman who promised Apollo her favours in exchange for musical lessons, only to reject him afterwards. She was turned by Apollo into a man, then again a woman under unclear circumstances, then a man by the offended Hera, then into a woman by Zeus. She became a man once again after an encounter with the Muses, until finally Aphrodite turned him into a woman again and then into a mouse.
The mythographic compendium Bibliotheke, lists different stories about the possible cause of Tiresias' blindness. One legend says he was "blinded by the gods because he revealed their secrets to men". While Pherecydes and Callimachus' fifth hymn, The Baths of Pallas, provided a different story—"the youthful Tiresias" was blinded by Athena after he came to sate his thirst at the bubbling spring, where Athena and her favourite attendant, the nymph Chariclo (mother of Tiresias) were enjoying a "cool plunge in the fair-flowing spring of Hippocrene on Mount Helicon". Pherecydes, in particular, finishes the story with Tiresias' mother Chariclo begging Athena to undo the curse, but she "could not do so". Instead, Athena "cleansed his ears", giving him the ability to understand birdsong (gift of augury), and granted him a staff of cornel-wood, "wherewith he walked like those who see". In the version retold by Callimachus, Athena cried out in anger at the sight of Tiresias, and his eyes were "quenched in darkness". After Chariclo "reproached the goddess with blinding her son, Athena explained that she had not done so, but that the laws of the gods inflicted the penalty of blindness on anyone who beheld an immortal without his or her consent." To give Tiresias solace in his grief, Athena "promised to bestow on him the gifts of prophecy and divination, long life, and after death the retention of his mental powers undimmed" by the underworld.
On another account behind Tiresias' blindness and his gift, he was drawn into an argument between goddess Hera and her husband Zeus, arguing whether "the pleasures of love are felt more by women or by men", with Hera taking the side of men, Zeus putting himself in opposition, and Tiresias making the final judgement as someone who had experienced both pleasures. Tiresias said, "Of ten parts a man enjoys one only; But a woman enjoys the full ten parts in her heart". Hera struck him blind, but Zeus, in recompense, gave Tiresias the gift of foresight and a lifespan of "seven ordinary lives".
Like other oracles, the circumstances in which Tiresias received his prophecies varied. Sometimes he would receive visions, listen for the songs of birds, or burn offerings or entrails, interpreting prophecies through pictures that appeared in the smoke. Pliny the Elder credited Tiresias with the invention of augury. Journalist William Godwin highlighted the communications with the dead as his most valuable way to tell a prophecy, constraining the dead "to appear and answer his inquiries".
In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Tiresias' "fame of prophecy was spread through all the cities of Aonia", and nymph Liriope was the first to request his prophecy, asking him about the future of her son Narcissus. Tiresias predicted that the boy would live a long life only if he never "came to know himself".