Tiresias

Also known as: TIRECIAS / Tirésias · Family: Thebes · Role: seer · First appears: Sophocles, Antigone — Scene 4

At Thebes in Antigone, Tiresias reveals to Creon that the city is polluted because Polynices remains unburied and Antigone is entombed alive: “And this evil state Is come upon the city from thy will.” He prophesies that Creon will soon lose a corpse from his own blood, while urging him as a mentor to admit error and repair the harm.

In King Oedipus, Tiresias acts as both mentor and enemy to Oedipus, identifying him as the murderer he seeks and revealing his unwitting incestuous union. He further discloses that Oedipus is Laius’s murderer and a true-born Theban, and foretells his parricide, blindness, exile, and destruction: “I say thou art the murderer whom thou seekest.”

In The Phœnician Virgins, Tiresias prophesies that Thebes will prevail if Menoeceus sacrifices himself, later revealing that Eteocles and Polynices are destined to die by each other’s hands and that Oedipus’s family must be excluded from citizenship and rule. He tells Creon that the sacrifice of Menoeceus is necessary to preserve the country. In The Bacchæ, Tiresias is a friend and fellow wise man to Cadmus, while advising Pentheus against boasting of sovereignty and wisdom; their relationship becomes hostile when Pentheus threatens to imprison him.