Teiresias-What would i say about you?

Teriesias, according to Hesiod, is a prophet who is blinded by the Goddess Athena or the Goddess Hera. He is a soothsayer of Greece who has encountered experiences of being a man to being a woman and back to being a man (after 7 years). He is born in Thebes and has served 7 generations of kingship starting Cadmus.

The story of Teriesias is blinded by the Goddess Athena begins where Teriesias accidentally sees Athena’s naked body in the bathwater. Athena takes bath. Because of that, Athena sprinkles the water to Teriesias’s eyes to make him blind. Nymph Chariclo, Teriesias’s mother, begs Athena for the curse to be cast out from her son, but Athena cannot reverse the curse so she gives Teriesias a gift of listening to prophetic bird’s songs and a staff.

Another version indicating Teiresias is when he encounters copulating snakes at the Mount Cyellene. He disturbs them by poking them with his staff. Goddess Hera does not like it, so she makes Teiresias a woman that he needs to be for seven years. Lady Teiresias is married to Manto, and has children. Lady Teiresias’s transformation of becoming a man when she encounters another copulating snakes that she must leave them alone. The curse is reversed and Lady Teiresias gains masculinity-becomes a man.

Teiresias’s blindness is told in another story where Goddess Hera and God Zeus have arguments of the power of men and women on sexual pleasure. Hera believes that man has great sexual pleasure compared to women, but Zeus believes that women are. They fight, and ask Teiresias for his prophetic opinions about the issue. Teiresias agrees Zeus’s belief. Teiresias had become a woman who had been experienced the sexual pleasure with Manto, and he felt it was the greatest pleasure he ever had. Hera is frustrated hearing it, so he makes Teiresias blind. Zeus gives him 7 life spans and foresight.

With the gifts given by the 2 goddesses and God Zeus, he is a helpful Prophet that has knowledge of all men cannot have. Oddysseus asks anything from Teiresias although Teiresias is in the Underworld. His gifts still remain with him. As for Oedipus Rex, Teiresias reveals the sin that Oedipus has done directly but Oedipus does not believe it.

Revealing the truth which Teiresias has been practicing is unacceptable among the Goddesses and Oedipus as well.

When I read the description’s of Teiresias, I was amazed to know that, though it is a myth and it might be conceptually told by the Greek grandfathers, he had been through the gender-transformed stages that no humans have ever been through. It is funny for me to relate it to Oedipus, but with certain super-worldly powers that the Gods and Goddesses have to cast upon the men (like Teiresias) it is very possible to make the plot of Oedipus Rex valid and interesting to read.

Teiresias, as for me, is only a man of knowledge. If you are being observant and can see the small details to big details, you can influence anyone with the knowledge you have got from your observations. This is not superpower but only a skill. I have to argue with Teiresias’ description as a prophet that he is not a prophet to me although Zeus, Hera and Athena had given him powers because when I read his roles played for Oedipus, I believe Teiresias knew the story of Oedipus’ faults already as he has served 7 generations staring Cadmus.

So, I think it is just ridiculous.