TIRESIAS

THE BLIND PROPHET

By: John Mark Strader
Period:6
 Family Tree
 Grandparents: Unknown
 Parents : Everes and Chariclo
 Tiresias was the offspring of Everes and
Chariclo
 Tiresias’ mates are unknown
 Tiresias’ children were Manto, Historis, and
Daphne
 Overview of Tiresias
 There are many different stories of how Tiresias became
blind.
 One is that he “creeped” on Athena and saw her bathing
and she blinded him. After she felt bad about doing this
she gave him the power of seeing the future.
 Another myth is that Hera blinded him for saying that
women loved sex more than men. Zeus repaid him with
a long life and the gift of seeing the future.
 Another is that he disclosed the secrets of the gods to the
people so they blinded him
 Tiresias has also been believed to undergo a sex-change
at some point in his life therefore he was transsexual.
 Overview of Tiresias
 Tiresias was turned into a woman at one point
according to Myth.
 He came upon some mating snakes and hit them
with his stick and Hera wasn’t pleased with him
for this so she transformed him into a woman.
 While being a woman Tiresias was married and
had a child and according to some myths was a
prostitute. After 7 years of being a woman he
passed a pair of snakes this time and did nothing
to them. After this he was granted his gender
back.
 Overview of Tiresias
 Tiresias is in many Greek Stories and tragedies and he has no
major role in any of these stories.
 His biggest role is in “The Odyssey” and he is mentioned in many
other Greek tales.
 Tiresias dresses as a woman to go worship Dionsyus up on a
mountain with a Theban woman in “The Bacchae” by Euripides.
 Also in the story Oedipus the King By: Sophocles‘ Tiresias is
chosen to investigate the murder of the former King of the
Thebes. Tiresias never gave a direct answer until people accused
him of being involved in the murder. He then revealed that the
King himself was the portrayer in the death.
 Tiresias died after drinking water from the tainted spring and
then he got shot by an arrow of Apollo. He then went to the
underworld and lived.
 Illustration of Tiresias
 This is Tiresias speaking to Odysseus in the
story “The Odyssey”
 Work Cited Strader 1

 Morford, Mark and Robert Lenardon, Classical Mythology 8th

Edition. Oxford. Oxford Press. (Print)
 Edith Hamilton’s Mythology. Copyright 1942 renewed in 1969.
Little, Brown and Co., 1942 (Pg. 69-70,380,391)
 http://www.maicar.com/GML/Tiresias.html (web)
Copyright 1997 Greek Mythology Link, Carlos Parada
 http://www.xtec.es/ies-joan-coromines/angles/odyssey/images
/tiresias.gif
(web)(picture no info)
 Tiresias." The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2008.
Encyclopedia.com. 2 May. 2010
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiresias (web)
E. Di Rocco, Roma, 2007