Teiresias, the seer of Oedipus the King - Leeds International ...

HANNA M. ROISMAN, TEIRESIAS, THE SEER OF OEDIPUS THE KING
In a previous paper (1999) I suggested that Sophocles included Teiresias in
the play in order to protest the cruelty of the gods who were allowing the Athens
of Sophocles’ day to suffer from the plague. While I still hold to this view, I have
come to feel that it does not do full justice to the pivotal role that Teiresias
performs in the play. This paper, which covers not only Sophocles’ Teiresias but
also the very different seer of Seneca’s Oedipus, presents the development of my
thinking on the sage. Since one can never answer with certainty the question
‘why’ an author did what he or she did, I will shift focus here to the interrelated
matters of Teiresias’ characterization and functions in the two plays.
1. Sophocles’ Teiresias
I start with Sophocles’ characterization of Teiresias, for this is crucial to both
his dramatic and thematic functions in the play. Teiresias comes on stage a
walking disappointment. The Chorus advise Oedipus of Teiresias’ access to
Apollo’s thoughts and suggest that he may find out the murderer’s identity from
the god: ‘I know that lord Teiresias sees things in the same way as Lord Apollo,
from whom anyone examining these things might learn most clearly’, they say
(¥nakt' ¥nakti taÜq' Ðrînt' p…stamai / m£lista Fo…bJ Teires…an, par' oá
tij ¨n / skopîn t£d', ðnax, km£qoi safšstata, 284-6). 3 When they see
Teiresias approaching, they speak of him as a ‘godly prophet, in whom alone of
all men truth lives by nature’ (tÕn qe‹on ½dh m£ntin ïd' ¥gousin, ú / t¢lhqj
mpšfuken ¢nqrèpwn mÒnJ, 298f.). Oedipus, for his part, greets Teiresias as one
who, ‘grasps everything, things that can be taught, and things that are
unspeakable, things that are in heaven, and things that walk the earth’ (ð p£nta
nwmîn Teires…a, didakt£ te / ¥rrht£ t' oÙr£ni£ te kaˆ cqonostibÁ, 300f.). 4
Listening closely, one may detect a certain tentativeness in these lines. The
Chorus says that one ‘might learn’ the murder’s identity from Teiresias, using the
optative form km£qoi, not that one will learn it. Oedipus observes that some of
what Teiresias knows is unspeakable. Nonetheless, their expectations are of an allknowing
seer who will unravel the mystery of the pollution that has been
afflicting their city—a seer who knows the truth and will reveal it.
The seer of their expectations is much the same venerable and prescient seer
who, in Homer, had informed Odysseus, from the depths of the Otherworld, how
to return home to Ithaca, what would await him there and how he would end his
days, and who had advised him on the pitfalls to avoid—namely the island of
Thrinacia and the cattle of Helios—and on the rituals to perform. The Homeric
Teiresias is a seer who warns and informs. In this respect, he serves Sophocles as
a model for the Teiresias of the Antigone, who urges Creon to retract his refusal to
allow the burial of Polynices and warns him of the consequences of his obstinacy,
3 I follow Jebb, on line 284, in reading taÜq' Ðrînt' as ‘seeing in the same manner’.
4 Champlin (1969) 339 comments: ‘Was Teiresias, as an exponent of truth, on the general level of
an Old Testament prophet? Sophocles speaks of him as cognizant of ineffable heavenly matters.
The strictures of the play demanded only that he possess a full awareness of past and future human
affairs.’ Owen (1968) 33, describes Teiresias as one ‘whose name stands in story as synonymous
with true prophecy.’ For the suggestion that Teiresias might not speak what scholars assume to be
the ‘truth’ see Ahl (1991) 88f.
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