The myth of Tiresias is very interesting because of its proximity to sexuality, in addition to foresight, we mean a story that also speaks of transsexuality, feminine pleasure, voyeurism, and which is closely linked to the famous Oedipus Complex.
Tiresias was the most important soothsayer of Greek mythology, appearing in many episodes, in various works, written by several authors, in fact, his figure continued to be used in later creations, some contemporary.
- Perhaps the most obvious feature of Tiresias was the fact that he was blind.
- He could see the future.
- But he did not see it.
- That is how the Greeks grasped the main meaning of the tragedy: paradoxical.
- Dead-end situations.
- In which a gift always involved punishment.
- And vice versa.
“All my foresight becomes ignorance in the process. “-July Cort-zar-
The myth of the origin of Tiresias is one that has several versions: there may be more than 15 different ones, in this article we will focus on two of the most cited.
The two agree that the soothsayer was the son of nymph Cariclo and Everes. The differences are in the reasons why he became blind and clairvoyant at the same time.
A classic version says that Cariclo, Tiresias’ mother, was one of Athena’s closest friends, the goddess of wisdom. The two went to Mount Helon to bathe naked, throwing themselves into a fountain there. One day, Tiresias went for a walk. and hunt in the woods and unknowingly saw the two.
Athena was extremely irritated and punished him immediately, depriving him of the sense of sight. Cariclo defended his son by saying that he had simply observed what he had before his eyes, without any ill intentions.
However, no mortal could see a naked god. Then Athena didn’t look back at him, but to make up for the loss, he gave him the gift of divination and assured him that he would not lose it even when he was dead.
The second of tiresias‘ best-known versions of origin says he was walking through the countryside when he saw two snakes mating, wanted to separate them and, to do so, hit them, because the female died. reason, Tiresias himself became a woman.
Seven years later something similar happened, again he caught two snakes mating and hit them with his cane, but this time he killed the male, then he became a man again.
After these incidents, the god Zeus and the goddess Hera, his wife, began a lively discussion about who felt more sexual pleasure, men or women.
Because Tiresias had both sexes, the gods called him to consult him and put an end to the controversy. When asked, Tiresias said the woman felt more pleasure.
This infuriated Hera, who felt ashamed and humiliated in front of her husband, so she punishes the mortal by taking his eyes off him, but Zeus, to make up for it, gave him the gift of divination.
Tiresias starred in many of the most important Greek stories, it was he who predicted Narcissus’s bleak future, when Narcissus’ mother asked him about his son’s fate, the fortune teller told him that he would live a long time if he did not see his own mirror image.
The clairvoyant also appears in the tragedy of King Oedipus, decides to consult him because of a plague that ravages Thebes. The king consulted the Oracle of Delphi and told him that evil was due to dishonor caused by the assassination of the previous king, Layo. If the crime was not cleaned up, the plague would continue.
Pedipo did not know that he himself had killed Laio, who was actually his father, or that he had married his own mother, so he brought Tiresias to reveal the name of Laio’s killer.
In principle he did not want to cooperate, but eventually yielded to the torture to which he was subjected, said that Pedipo himself was the murderer, Heedipo did not believe it and expelled him from the palace, but soon he understood everything and took it out of his own eyes.