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Tiresias
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You might easily mistake him for a crazy dude spouting gibberish on the corner, but Tiresias was totally legit. This old, blind man was a priest of Apollo and one of the most famous seers of all time. He could hear the future in the songs of birds (a little trick called augury), and he also received visions sent to him by the gods. Tiresias used his powers to advise seven generations of kings in his hometown of Thebes, though they had a tendency not to listen to what he had to say until it was too late. (We're looking at you, Oedipus and Creon.)
Even after Tiresias died by drinking from the poisoned water of Tilphussa, he had tons of power. Odysseus himself made a pit stop in the Underworld to get some travel advice from Tiresias, without which the O-man never would've made it home. Tiresias may have been a rough looking dude with a tendency to speak in cryptic riddles, but in the end, he was totally worth listening to.
Basic Information
Name Tiresias
Nickname The Blind Seer
Mr. Know-It-AllSex Male (but spent seven years as a female)
Current city Asphodel Fields on the outskirts of the Underworld
Work & Education
Occupation Seer
Priest of ApolloEducation Apollo's School of Prophecy
Beliefs
Political views It all seems so trivial when you know what's going to happen anyway.
Family & Friends (& Enemies)
Parents Everes (Dad)
Chariclo (Mom)Children Manto (who turned into a pretty awesome prophetess herself)
Friends Apollo (a great god to serve)
Enemies Hera (who struck me blind)
Athena (who may also have struck me blind, unclear)Relationships
Relationship status Very single
Interested in Nobody, really. I can see that it's just never going to work out.
Favorites
TV Shows Quotations "The fact of having been born is a bad augury for immortality"
– George Santayana
"Take a little trip back with father Tiresias,
Listen to the old one speak of all he has lived through.
I have crossed between the poles; for me there's no mystery.
Once a man, like the sea I raged,
Once a woman, like the earth I gave.
But there is in fact more earth than sea."
– from "The Cinema Show" by Genesis
"Blackbird singing in the dead of night,
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see.
All your life, You were only waiting for this moment to be free."
– from "Blackbird" by the Beatles
"My darkness has been filled with the light of intelligence, and behold, the outer day-lit world was stumbling and groping in social blindness"
– Helen Keller
"Rise up this mornin',
Smiled with the risin' sun,
Three little birds
Pitch by my doorstep
Singin' sweet songs
Of melodies pure and true,
Sayin', ('This is my message to you-ou-ou:')
Singin': 'Don't worry 'bout a thing,
'Cause every little thing gonna be all right.'"
– "Three Little Birds" by Bob Marley
(I actually only like this quote because it makes me laugh. Everything is definitely not going to be all right.)Books Orlando by Virginia Woolf (A great book about gender shifting.)
"The Waste Land" by T.S. Eliot (I kind of narrate this, which may explain why it's so darn cryptic.)
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
"Death, be not proud (Holy Sonnet 10)" by John Donne (Too true.)
The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
Oedipus the King by Sophocles
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
"When I Consider How My Light is Spent (On His Blindness)" by John Milton
"Meditation at Lagunitas" by Robert Hass
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullersMusic Lights by Ellie Goulding (I may be an old blind seer, but I'm killer on the dance floor.)
Blinded by the Light by Manfred Mann
The Cinema Show by Genesis (I get a great shout out in the chorus of this song.)
Back in Time by Pitbull
Blackbird by The Beatles
The Wind by the Zac Brown Band
Karma Chameleon by Culture Club
Three Little Birds by Bob Marley
Cabin by the Sea by the Dirty Heads (I just like to chill to this.)Movies Winged Migration (You can a learn a lot from the birds.)
The Matrix
Transamerica
Tiresia
Hedwig and the Angry Inch
The Miracle Worker (You go, Helen Keller.)
The Birds
Scent of a Woman
BraveActivities & Interests
Likes Bird watching... well, better make that bird listening
Fortune cookies
The future Blind seersInterests Augury
Astrology
Fortune TellingGroups Seers
Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund
League of Prophets
Bird Lovers
Spotter's Guide
If you want to have a chat with Tiresias, you'll have to truck it down to the Underworld, where he hangs out in the Asphodel Meadows. He'll be the bearded ghost who looks mega-old (even for a ghost). From what we hear, he's still just as blind as he was in life, so he'll be tapping around the flowery field with his trusty staff. A word of warning, though: be careful what you ask Tiresias; sometimes we're better off not knowing what lies ahead.
Sex: Male (but spent seven years as a female)
Age: Super old
Build: Scrawny
Complexion: Withered
Hair Color: White
Facial Hair: Long, white beard
Scars/marks/tattoos: Blind
Jewelry and accessories: Staff
Clothing: Robes
Armor: None
Type of Weapon: Ability to see the futureTypical Companions:
The Kings of Thebes (though most of them unwisely decided not to listen to him)
Known Hangouts:
Thebes
Sightings
Dec 20, 2019 - Dec 20, 2019
The Odyssey by Homer
Odysseus makes a pit-stop in the Underworld to get some travel advice from the ghost of everybody's favorite blind seer in this most epic of epic poems.
Dec 20, 2019
Antigone by Sophocles
In this tragedy, King Creon decides to not listen when Tiresias tells him to let Antigone bury her brother Polyneices. (Spoiler alert: this does not go well for Creon.)
Dec 20, 2019
Oedipus the King by Sophocles
King Oedipus gets majorly ticked off when Tiresias tells him he's the cause of all his own problems in this tragedy. It isn't a happy ending, to say the least.
Dec 20, 2019 - Dec 20, 2019
The Phoenician Women by Euripides
In this tragedy, Tiresias tells Creon that he has to sacrifice his son, Menoeceus, in order to save Thebes. Creon is more than a little unhappy about this.
Dec 20, 2019
The Bacchae by Euripides
Tiresias and Cadmus dress up like ladies and go party at a Bacchanal of Dionysus in this tragedy.
Dec 20, 2019 - Dec 20, 0099
Oedipus by Seneca
The big deal Roman playwright puts his spin on Oedipus' story—Tiresias included. It doesn't get any happier, that's for sure.
Dec 20, 2019
The Metamorphoses by Ovid
Ovid gives you all the steamy details on how Tiresias went from man to woman and back again in this famous collection of mythological poems.
Dec 20, 2019 - Dec 20, 2019
The Inferno by Dante
According to Dante, Tiresias is trapped in Hell with his head spun around backwards. Ouch.
Dec 20, 2019
"The Waste Land" by T.S. Eliot
Tiresias is the main narrator of this crazy famous modern poem. Let's just hope this poem doesn't predict the future.
Dec 20, 2019
Oedipus el Rey by Luis Alfaro
This modern Chicano riff on Oedipus is set in a LA barrio and comes complete with a Chicano version of the blind prophet.
Dec 20, 2019
These Seven Sicknesses by Sean Graney
Tiresias appears as blind woman in a wheelchair in this modernized marathon of all of Sophocles' extant plays.