In the Greek Mythology, Tirésias (in Greek old Τειρεσίας / Teiresías ) is a blind soothsayer of Thèbes. Wire of Évère, itself wire of the Sparte Udée, and of the nymph Chariclo, Tirésias has two girls, Manto and Daphné. It is with Calchas, one of the two most famous soothsayers of the Greek Mythologie.

Origins of the gift of prophecy

Tirésias is not born soothsayer and blind man. Its capacity and its blindness result from its meeting with the gods. There exist various versions of this myth.

The bath of Athéna

According to the version of Phérécyde of Athens which one finds in the Bibliothèque of Apollodore, Tirésias, teenager, surprised Athéna bathing naked in the fountain Hippocrène on the Mont Hélicon. The goddess, whose chastity is absolute, saw like an attack with her decency this indiscretion of Tirésias. “Athéna then put the hands to him on the eyes and blind man returned it” (Apollodore III, 6,7).

Like the Chariclo nymph, mother of Tirésias, fact part of the divine procession, it begs Athéna to return the sight to her son. The goddess refuses but agree to reduce her sentence. “It purified the ears to him, and that enabled him to include/understand the language of the birds perfectly; then it gave him a stick of dogwood, thanks to which it went as people who see” (Apollodore III, 6,7). Athéna also conceded a life longer to him than the common run of people and the capacity to keep its gifts with the Enfers.

This version is also present in the work of Callimaque (Anthem V, For the bath of Pallas , 120-130) and in that of Nonnos de Panopolis ( Dionysiaques , V, 337).

The metamorphosis of Tirésias

The second version on the origin of the gifts of Tirésias comes us from Ovide. Whereas Tirésias walked in forest, it disturbed of its stick the coupling of two snakes. At once, it was transformed into woman. Tirésias remained under this appearance during 7 years. The eighth year, he revives the same snakes to couple himself. “So when you are wounded, says it, your capacity is enough large to change the nature of your enemy, I will strike you one second time. ” ( Metamorphoses , III, 316-338). And, thus, Tirésias became again a man.

When Zeus claimed that the woman took more pleasure than the man with the sex act and than his wife Héra the opposite claimed, the gods asked for the opinion of Tirésias which had experience of the two sexes. Tirésias lined up opinion of Zeus. And Héra, “more offended than it was not appropriate to be it for such a light subject, condemned the eyes of its judge to eternal darkness” ( the Metamorphoses , III, 316-338). Zeus could not go against the decision of Héra, then, to compensate for its blindness, it offered to Tirésias the gift of divination and a long life of seven generations.

The Library of Apollodore, according to Hésiode, brings back a similar account.

The young girl and Apollo

The last version is brought back by the bishop of the 12th century Eustathe de Thessalonique: in its comment of the Odyssey , it brings back an account allotted to Sostratos. This account, which would have its origin in a hellenistic elegy, tells that Tirésias was born from female sex.

Any young girl, it caused the desire of Apollon, and the god, in exchange of his favors, taught the music to him. However, become adult, Tirésias refused in Apollon. This one then metamorphosed it as a man so that in its turn it feels the influence of Eros.

From this first metamorphosis and after having been the adverse referee of the quarrel Zeus with Héra on the question of the pleasure in the sex act, Tirésias does not undergo less than six passages from one sex to another.

Biography

Predictions for Héraclès

The birth of Tirésias binds it in an intimate way to the ground of Béotie, like with the foundation of the town of Thèbes, where it will pass the majority of its life. Pausanias thus describes the various places which preserve its memory at 2nd century a. J. - C. (cf Book IX Béotie , for example in 16,1; 18,4; 19,3). Apollodore (II, 61,8-9) as for him reports that Amphitryon consulted the soothsayer to bore the mystery of the “impostor” who had shared the bed of his wife during his absence, by taking his appearance. In addition, two large poets, Pindare and Théocrite, treated this reason for the birth of Héraclès: their respective works mention intervention different from the Tirésias soothsayer at the time of the birth of the hero.

The first Néméenne of Pindare was intended for the celebration of the winner of a race of tanks to these plays: its qualities and its wisdom are thus compared with those of Héraclès, whose poet undertakes to sing the extraordinary destiny. After the first exploits of the newborn, which terrace the snakes sent by vindicatory Héra, Host, the mortal father-in-law of Alcide, at the same time astonished and saddened by its force and its courage except standards, consults its famous neighbor: the soothsayer thus will be made the interpreter of the destiny of the demigod, of his future exploits, as of the immortality which is promised to him, near his father ( Néméenne I, v. 65-72).

Théocrite, in its twenty-fourth Idylle , after having told, in an account which begins ex abrupto , the first exploit of the young hero, brings back the prediction, by the Tirésias soothsayer, of his future glory. The end of the poem describes the extraordinary education of the son of Zeus ( Idylle XXIV, cf in particular the v. 63-102).

The official soothsayer of Thèbes

The Greek Tragédie puts in scene various episodes of the biography of Tirésias; all however belong to the period when the soothsayer exerts official functions in the town of Thèbes. Chronologically the first episode of this period put in scene in the tragedy is by Euripide in Bacchantes. The part has as a context the violent introduction of the worship of Dionysos in Thèbes: the soothsayer is one of the rare VIP to take party in favor of the new god (v. 170-369). This episode is also told by Nonnos de Panopolis in its Dionysiaques in Ve century after J. - C. (song XLV, v. 52-218).

Another episode of the life of Tirésias is put in scene in Oedipus king of Sophocle: compared to the Bacchantes , we thus advance of four generations in mythological time. The plague fell down on Thèbes: Créon, the brother-in-law of Oedipus, bringing the reply of the Oracle de Delphes, reveals that it is necessary to purify the country of the stain produced by the murder of the former king Laïos. Tirésias is then mandé by the king so that he denounces the murderer. The soothsayer however will answer the pressing requests of the king by a systematic refusal. The violent argument which will follow will however push it to reveal, in a veiled way, the real origins of the stain of Thèbes as well as the heavy threats which weigh on Oedipus (v. 297-462).

According to the mythical chronology, they are Phéniciennes of Euripide which makes immediately following Oedipus king . Once deposed Oedipus of the throne, his sons Étéocle and Polynice decide to share the capacity, each one agreeing to reign on Thèbes alternatively during a year. The curse of Oedipus weighs however on them: their father cursed indeed them and dedicated to entretuer, after they had sequestered it in the palate. Thus, the conflict bursts as of the first year: Étéocle, tyrant avid of being able, refuses to return the throne. Polynice, with the assistance of the Seven chiefs, besieges his own city. Thébains will however gain the war thanks to prophecies of Tirésias, which will reveal the need for offering in sacrifice the son of Créon, Ménécée (v.  834-959).

The victory however was acquired only at the price of a fratricidal duel, that of two wire of Oedipus. Créon, new king de Thèbes, then decides to make solemn funeral with Étéocle, but prohibited give to burial with the “traitor” Polynice, in accordance with the orders given by Étéocle before dying. Antigone, heroin of the part of Sophocle of the same name, by respect for the crowned honors due to deaths, faces the interdict by recovering the ground corpse and by achieving the funeral rites. When Tirésias enters in scene, it is to make respect by Créon the immutable divine laws: it thus fully reveals its role of political adviser assisting the Head of the State. However, vis-a-vis the revelations of Tirésias, the coleric and authoritative nature of the tyrant quickly will take again the top. That which tries to reason it and to show to him the threats which weigh on its head, Créon answers by insults. The soothsayer thus withdraws himself, announcing the imminent punishments of the gods (v. 988-1098).

Its death?

The version of the myth of Callimaque taught us that Tirésias had obtained from Athéna supernatural faculty to preserve its spirit after death. It is indeed equipped with this gift that it makes its appearance in the Nekuia, an episode of the Odyssée : Ulysses the fact of coming from the kingdom of deaths, an oracle of the soothsayer being, for the son of Laërte, the only means of knowing how to return at his place. The hero, on the councils of Circé, achieves the drinkings and sacrifices of use necessary to come into contact with the hearts of the late ones: the blood of the sacrificed victims, running in the pit, makes assemble Hadès the hearts of dead which wish to be watered some: it is only after having drunk some that they will be able to converse with Ulysses. The shade of Tirésias must however drink the first, as if it still had a certain preeminence in Hadès: it is indeed presented by Circé like “the blind man, who did not lose anything of his spirit” (X, 492), while the other hearts are regarded as the “heads without force of dead” (XI, 29). Lastly, Tirésias is described like “holding a gold sceptre” (XI, 90), a such symbol of the capacity which was recognized to him.

Thus profiting from this exceptional favor, it can still say what solved the gods and to predict in Ulysses all the obstacles which will await it for its return. After having explained the cause of the hatred of the god of the seas Poséidon, who pursues Ulysses and his companions to have plugged his son the Cyclops, the soothsayer lavishes his councils of which that to respect at all costs the herds of the Sun. In addition, he announces to the hero that the massacre applicants, who dishonoured his house, will not be for him the ultimate adventure: Ulysses will have still to set out again until it meets a tribe being unaware of the sea, and to make a sacrifice with Poséidon. However, in spite of the assistance of Circé and Tirésias, Ulysses will not manage to avoid the island of Photogravure, where his/her companions will definitively compromise their chance of return to Ithaque. Seul Ulysses will return in his island, at Pénélope, to which it will tell his strange meeting with the “dead” soothsayer (XXIII, 323).

If the “spiritual” death of the soothsayer is not, in fact, not attested, its “physical” death, as for it, knows several versions. All the authors agree however to say that it took place during the catch of Thèbes by the Epigones, the wire of the Seven chiefs who had taken part in the first forwarding against the city béotienne. Apollodore (III, 84) claims that the soothsayer flees out of the city with the survivors thébains, and made halt in their company close to the source Tilphoussa: the old man dies there to have drunk the too cold water of the source. Pausanias (IX, 33,1) declares that the soothsayer, like his daughter Manto, remained inside the city, are made prisoners by Argiens who decide to send them to Delphes, to be devoted to Apollon there: the great age of Tirésias does not enable him however to achieve the totality of the way, and he dies close to the Tilphoussa source. Lastly, a passage of the Mélampodie transmitted the ultimate prayer to us which the soothsayer addressed to Zeus: it particularly evoked there its knowledge and its life extending on seven generations, thus specifying the gift that the poem of Callimaque charged to Athéna.

Artistic evocations

Sources

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  • (III, 317).
  • ( Néméennes ).
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  • Théocrite, Idylles (24).

See too

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