Teiresias

Teiresias was, perhaps, the most famous of all ancient Greek seers. Son of Eueres (also spelled Everes) and the nymph Chariclo, he was a Theban prophet who, in one tradition, lived through seven generations, from the days of Cadmus to the time of Oedipus’ sons Eteocles and Polyneices, and who died when Thebes fell to the Epigoni. He was blinded either by Athena or by Hera, for having seen the first one naked or for taking Zeus’ side in a quarrel with the latter. His punishment came with rewards: foresight and a very long life. He was also the only one who kept his mind in the Underworld, where Odysseus consulted him (Homer, Odyssey 10.490–495).

Teiresias’ Family

Apollodorus calls Teiresias the son of Eueres and the nymph Chariclo, of the race of Udaeus, one of the five sown men of Thebes (the Spartoi) (Apollodorus, Library 3.6.7). Callimachus, in his fifth hymn, calls Chariclo the nymph whom Athena loved most among her companions: she “was never apart from her”, and Athena would set her on her chariot when she drove through Boeotia to Thespiae, Coroneia or Haliartus (Callimachus, Hymn 5.57–67). Athena addresses Teiresias in the same poem as “son of Eueres” (Hymn 5.81, 5.106).

His daughter was Manto, also a prophetess. After the Epigoni took Thebes, the Argives sent her to Apollo at Delphi as a share of the spoil (Apollodorus, Library 3.7.4); according to Pausanias she later crossed to the Colophonian land in Ionia and married the Cretan Rhacius (Pausanias 9.33.2). In Euripides’ version, as Apollodorus reports it, Alcmaeon had two children by her, Amphilochus and Tisiphone (Apollodorus, Library 3.7.7).

The Origin of Teiresias’ Blindness and His Prophetic Gifts

The ancient sources do not agree. Apollodorus lists the accounts: some said he was blinded by the gods because he told men what they wished to hide; Pherecydes said that Athena blinded him; and Hesiod told the story of the snakes and of Zeus and Hera (Apollodorus, Library 3.6.7).

Teiresias, the Accidental Voyeur · Athena

According to Pherecydes, as Apollodorus gives it, Chariclo was a friend of Athena, and Teiresias saw the goddess naked; Athena covered his eyes with her hands and blinded him. When Chariclo begged her to give him back his sight, Athena could not, but she cleansed his ears so that he could understand the speech of every bird, and gave him a staff of cornel wood with which he walked as surely as the sighted (Apollodorus, Library 3.6.7).

Callimachus tells the story at greater length (Hymn 5.57–136). On a noon of great stillness, Athena and Chariclo undid their robes and bathed in the Horse’s Spring (Hippocrene) on Helicon. Only Teiresias, whose beard was just darkening, was out hunting with his dogs on the holy ground. Wild with thirst, he came to the spring and, against his will, saw what is not lawful to be seen. Athena asked what god had led him on that hard road, and told him he would never take his eyes back. Chariclo cried out to the goddess, asking what she had done to her boy and calling it a heavy price for a small fault. Athena answered that it was not she who had done it but the laws of Cronus: whoever sees an immortal, unless the god chooses it, pays for the sight dearly. She told Chariclo that a mother should not grieve, and as a comparison she spoke of Actaeon, whom his own dogs would devour after he saw Artemis bathing, while his mother gathered his bones and would call Chariclo happy for having received her son home, though blind.

As compensation, Athena promised that Teiresias would be a prophet sung of by later men, better than any other. He would know the birds, which are of good omen and which are not, and would give many oracles to the Boeotians, to Cadmus and later to the sons of Labdacus. She would give him a great staff to guide his steps, a long term of life, and the honour that, when he died, he alone would walk among the dead with understanding (Callimachus, Hymn 5.121–130).

Teiresias and His Sex Change · Zeus and Hera

Another story links his prophetic powers to a change of sex. Hesiod, Apollodorus says, told how Teiresias saw two snakes mating on Mount Cyllene and wounded them; he was turned from a man into a woman. When he watched the same snakes mating again, he became a man once more (Apollodorus, Library 3.6.7). Hyginus agrees about Cyllene and says that Teiresias struck the snakes with his staff, or in another account trampled them, and that he was changed back after an oracle advised him to do the same thing at the same place (Hyginus, Fabulae 75). A scholiast on the Odyssey, quoting the Hesiodic Melampodia, places the snakes on Cithaeron instead: when Teiresias killed the female he became a woman, and when he killed the male he took back his own nature (scholiast on Odyssey 10.494). Ovid says that Teiresias struck the two great snakes with a blow of his staff, lived as a woman for seven years, and in the eighth saw them again (Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.324–331).

Because of this experience, Zeus and Hera chose him as judge of an argument over whether men or women enjoy love more. His answer, as Apollodorus gives it from Hesiod, was that of ten parts a man enjoys one only, while a woman enjoys all ten (Apollodorus, Library 3.6.7). In Ovid, Zeus (Jupiter) had said that women’s pleasure was greater, and Teiresias supported him. Hera was angry out of all proportion, and condemned his eyes to eternal night; but because no god may undo what another god has done, Zeus gave him knowledge of the future and a long life in return (Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.316–338). In Apollodorus too, Hera blinded him and Zeus gave him the art of prophecy, and he became very long-lived.

Teiresias’ Prophecies

Teiresias lived through seven different generations: in the Hesiodic Melampodia he complains to Zeus that he was given a long span of life, to live through seven generations of mortal men, though others said nine (Tzetzes on Lycophron 682, quoting the Melampodia). Many great Thebans consulted him; unfortunately, not all of them believed or took him seriously.

Teiresias’ Early Prophecies · Narcissus and Amphytrion

Ovid presents Narcissus as the first test of Teiresias’ reputation. When the nymph Liriope asked whether her son would live to a ripe old age, the seer answered: “if he does not come to know himself”. The reply seemed empty for a long time, until Narcissus saw his own reflection and the manner of his death confirmed it (Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.339–350). The fame of this prediction, Ovid adds, spread through the cities of Greece.

When Amphitryon returned to Thebes from the war against the Teleboans and found that Alcmene did not welcome him, because she said he had already come the night before and slept with her, he learned from Teiresias that it was Zeus who had lain with her (Apollodorus, Library 2.4.8). Pindar also has Amphitryon call on Teiresias, whom he names the unerring prophet of Zeus, to reveal what fortunes awaited the infant Heracles; the seer foretold the labours of the hero and his final reward among the gods (Pindar, Nemean 1.60–72).

Teiresias’ Late Prophecies · Oedipus and Creon

In Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, Oedipus sends for Teiresias, whom the chorus calls the divine seer in whom alone, of all men, the truth is inborn (lines 284–299). The seer at first refuses to speak, and when Oedipus accuses him, he tells the king that he himself is the unholy defiler of the land (lines 350–353) and that he lives in shameful intimacy with those closest to him without seeing it (lines 366–367). Oedipus mocks him as blind in ears, mind and eyes (line 371). Teiresias answers that Oedipus has sight yet does not see the evil he is in, and that a curse will one day drive him from the land, seeing clearly now but in darkness later (lines 412–419). Oedipus, too angry to listen, learned the truth too late, and blinded himself with the brooches of Jocasta’s dress (Oedipus the King 1268–1279).

In Sophocles’ Antigone, Teiresias comes to Creon, now king, led by a boy because he is blind. He tells how his birds and altar fires have given terrible signs because Polyneices’ body lies unburied (Antigone 988–1022), and warns Creon that before many days he will give one of his own children as a corpse in return for the corpses he has wronged, one for having buried a living girl in a tomb, the other for keeping a dead man unburied (Antigone 1064–1076). Creon at last gives way and goes to free Antigone, but it is too late: she has hanged herself, his son Haemon kills himself, and Creon’s wife Eurydice does the same (Antigone 1099–1112, 1220–1222, 1175–1177, 1301–1305).

Teiresias also appears in two plays of Euripides. In the Bacchae, he and the old Cadmus go to worship Dionysus, and he warns Pentheus not to resist the god (Bacchae 170–369). Ovid has Teiresias foretell Pentheus’ fate in similar terms, saying that Pentheus would wish he were blind rather than see the rites of Bacchus (Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.511–527). In the Phoenician Women, when Thebes is besieged by the Seven, Teiresias tells Creon that the city can be saved only if he sacrifices his son Menoeceus (Euripides, Phoenician Women 834–959); Apollodorus and Hyginus also report that Teiresias made this demand (Apollodorus, Library 3.6.7; Hyginus, Fabulae 68).

Teiresias’ Death

When the Epigoni, the sons of the Seven, marched on Thebes, the Thebans were defeated in battle and retreated behind their walls. In Apollodorus, Teiresias advised them to send a herald to the Argives to treat for peace and, at the same time, to flee the city by night. When they came to the spring called Tilphussa, Teiresias drank from it and died (Apollodorus, Library 3.7.3). Pausanias reports a different tradition: Teiresias was among the spoil that the Argives and the sons of Polyneices were bringing to Delphi when, thirsty, he drank from the Tilphusa and died on the spot; his tomb is beside the spring, which lies about fifty stades from Haliartus (Pausanias 9.33.1). As Athena had promised Chariclo, he kept his understanding among the dead (Homer, Odyssey 10.493–495).

Teiresias in the Odyssey

Why Odysseus Needed Teiresias

In the Odyssey, Circe tells Odysseus that he must first make another journey, to the house of Hades and Persephone, to consult the spirit of Theban Teiresias, the blind seer, whose mind is unshaken; Persephone gave him, even in death, the wits to be the only one who understands, while the others flit as shadows (Homer, Odyssey 10.487–495). Instead of sailing straight to Ithaca, Odysseus must go beyond the normal world and seek advice from a dead prophet.

The Journey to the Underworld

Odysseus and his crew reach the edge of Oceanus, the land of the Cimmerians, who live shrouded in mist and cloud, where the sun never looks on them (Odyssey 11.13–19). There Odysseus digs a pit about a cubit long on each side and pours libations to all the dead; he sacrifices a ram and a black ewe, and their blood runs into the pit (Odyssey 11.23–36). The spirits gather out of Erebus, and Odysseus keeps them off with his sword until Teiresias has drunk.

Waiting for Teiresias

The first spirit to come is that of his companion Elpenor, and next the spirit of his mother Anticleia, who had been alive when he left for Troy. Odysseus weeps when he sees her, but even so does not let her approach the blood before he has questioned Teiresias (Odyssey 11.84–89).

The Golden Staff

Teiresias then comes holding a golden staff (Odyssey 11.90). He knows Odysseus at once and asks why he has left the light of the sun to see the dead and the joyless place. He tells him to move back from the pit and put away his sword, so that he may drink the blood and speak the truth; after drinking the dark blood, he speaks (Odyssey 11.91–99).

The Prophecy to Odysseus

Poseidon’s Anger

Teiresias first tells Odysseus that he seeks a honey-sweet homecoming, but that the god will make it hard: the earth-shaker has not forgotten his anger, since Odysseus blinded his son (Odyssey 11.100–103). The son is Polyphemus; this explains why the journey is shaped by divine anger.

The Warning About Helios’ Cattle

Teiresias warns Odysseus about the island of Thrinacia, where the cattle and sheep of Helios graze, Helios who sees and hears everything. If Odysseus and his men leave them unharmed and think of their homecoming, they may still reach Ithaca, though in hardship (Odyssey 11.104–111).

The Loss of the Crew

If the animals are harmed, Teiresias foresees destruction for the ship and the crew. If Odysseus himself escapes, he will come home late and in misery, having lost all his companions, on another man’s ship (Odyssey 11.112–115). This is fulfilled when the men kill the cattle of Helios, Zeus destroys the ship, and Odysseus alone survives; Odysseus himself recalls the warnings of Teiresias and Circe as he nears the island (Odyssey 12.265–269).

The Suitors in Ithaca

Teiresias also tells Odysseus that he will find troubles in his house: overbearing men eating his wealth and courting his wife with gifts. He will take vengeance on them by force; and when he has killed the suitors in his halls, whether by guile or openly with the sword, he must make a journey (Odyssey 11.115–120).

The Inland Journey with the Oar

Odysseus must take a well-made oar and walk until he reaches men who do not know the sea and eat food unmixed with salt, men who know nothing of red-cheeked ships or of oars, which are the wings of ships. The sign will be that another traveller meets him and says he carries a winnowing fan on his shoulder (Odyssey 11.121–128).

The Sacrifice to Poseidon

There he must fix the oar in the earth and offer Poseidon a ram, a bull and a boar, then go home and sacrifice sacred hecatombs to all the immortal gods in turn (Odyssey 11.129–134). Odysseus later tells Penelope the whole prophecy (Odyssey 23.248–284).

The Final Death of Odysseus

Teiresias ends with Odysseus’ death. Death will come to him “ex halos”, a gentle death, when he is worn out by sleek old age, with his people prosperous around him (Odyssey 11.134–137). The phrase can be read “away from the sea” or “out of the sea”. In another version, the lost Telegony, read as the fulfilment of the prophecy, Odysseus is killed by his son Telegonus, born to Circe, who wounds him with a spear barbed with the spine of a sting-ray (Apollodorus, Epitome 7.36).

Why Teiresias Matters in the Odyssey

The Dead Prophet Who Guides the Living

Teiresias is the only dead person Odysseus must consult before going home, and the only shade who keeps his mind. Circe sends Odysseus to him by name (Odyssey 10.490–495). He gives knowledge that no living person can provide.

The Shape of the Rest of the Poem

The prophecy of Teiresias gives a rough outline of the rest of the poem. It points forward to Thrinacia, the loss of the crew, the return to Ithaca, the suitors, and the journey with the oar. Circe repeats the warning about the cattle of Helios (Odyssey 12.127–141).

Warning and Responsibility

Teiresias does not simply tell Odysseus what will happen. He also tells him what must be avoided, and the warning about the cattle gives Odysseus and his men a clear choice (Odyssey 11.110–114). Odysseus passes this warning on to his men (Odyssey 12.270–276).

Teiresias’ Role and Symbolism

Blindness and Truth

Teiresias is the blind seer of Greek myth. In the sources he often sees what kings and cities cannot: in Sophocles, Oedipus has eyes but does not see his own misfortune (Oedipus the King 413).

The Voice of the Gods

Teiresias reads birds and fire for the gods’ will, and the gods themselves gave him this art (Callimachus, Hymn 5.121–130; Apollodorus, Library 3.6.7). Oedipus, Creon and Pentheus suffer when they resist what he tells them.

Truth That Hurts

The seer rarely brings comforting news: he accuses Oedipus, warns Creon of the loss of his child, and tells Creon that the city can be saved only by the death of Menoeceus. Each of these warnings is given in time to be acted on, and in the Antigone Creon yields only after the chorus urges him to (Antigone 1099–1106).

Misconceptions and Lesser-Known Facts

Teiresias and Tiresias Are the Same Figure

Teiresias and Tiresias are two spellings of the same name. Teiresias is closer to the Greek form, while Tiresias is common in English books, plays, and summaries (and in the Latin of Ovid).

Teiresias Was Not Blind From Birth

Teiresias was not always blind. Different myths explain his blindness in different ways. In one, he was blinded after seeing Athena bathing. In another, Hera blinded him after he answered a question asked by Zeus and Hera.

He Was Important Beyond the Oedipus Story

Many readers know Teiresias from the story of Oedipus, but his role is much wider. He also appears in stories of Narcissus, Amphitryon, Creon, Antigone, Pentheus, the Epigoni and Odysseus.

He Kept His Prophecy After Death

Most shades in the Underworld are weak and without understanding, but Teiresias keeps his mind (Odyssey 10.493–495). Pausanias notes that Homer represents Teiresias as the only one in Hades endowed with intelligence (Pausanias 9.33.2).

Teiresias Did Not Send Odysseus Straight Home

Teiresias does not give Odysseus an easy path back to Ithaca. Instead, he gives warnings and conditions. Odysseus must avoid Helios’ cattle, face the suitors, and later make peace with Poseidon through a strange inland journey.

Unraveling Teiresias: The Seer Who Saw Beyond Life

Teiresias was the blind seer of Thebes: a son of Eueres and Chariclo, blinded by Athena in one tradition and by Hera in another, who advised Cadmus’ descendants for generations and whose death came at the spring Tilphussa as Thebes fell to the Epigoni. In the Odyssey he gives Odysseus the outline of his future: Poseidon’s anger, the danger of Helios’ cattle, the death of the crew, the return to Ithaca, the punishment of the suitors, and the sacrifice to Poseidon far from the sea.

Teiresias Sources

Callimachus, Hymn 5 (“The Bath of Pallas”) 57–136, recounts one of the two stories of Teiresias’ blinding; the other is told by Apollodorus, Library 3.6.7 (citing Pherecydes and Hesiod), with the sequel of Manto and his death in 3.7.3–4 and 3.7.7, and in Hyginus, Fabulae 68 and 75, and Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.316–350, 3.511–527. Homer, Odyssey 10.487–495, 11.13–151, 12.127–141, 12.265–276 and 23.248–284, tell of Odysseus’ meeting with the dead seer; Apollodorus, Epitome 7.36, gives the death of Odysseus. Teiresias is also an important character in Sophocles’ Oedipus the King (284–462) and Antigone (988–1114, 1175–1305), and in Euripides’ Bacchae (170–369) and Phoenician Women (834–959). Further: the Hesiodic Melampodia (fragments quoted by Tzetzes on Lycophron 682 and by a scholiast on Odyssey 10.494); Pindar, Nemean 1.60–72; Apollodorus, Library 2.4.8; Pausanias 9.33.1–2.

See Also: Oedipus, Creon, Athena, Hera, Odysseus, Circe