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

HANNA M. ROISMAN, TEIRESIAS, THE SEER OF OEDIPUS THE KING
At two points in the scene Teiresias offers explanations for his recalcitrance.
The first explanation is that: ‘Of themselves things will come’ (¼xei g¦r aÙt£,
341).The second is that ‘It is not destiny that you should fall by me, since Apollo,
whose task it is to work this out, is sufficient’ (oÙ g£r se mo‹ra prÒj g' moà
pese‹n, peˆ / ƒkanÕj 'ApÒllwn ú t£d' kpr©xai mšlei, 376f.). These
assertions convey his reluctance to be the bearer of bad news, but they are not
really very informative. Even if they make sense to the outer audience—I will
return to their sense shortly—the inner audience can hardly be expected to
understand them. To them, Teiresias’ unwillingness to make a full and
straightforward disclosure of what he knows must be incomprehensible, and he
comes across as recalcitrant, egotistical, and unwilling to help his community out
of its dire straits. 6
Why this characterization? To my knowledge, nowhere else in Greek
literature is Teiresias depicted as so irritating and provocative a figure or presented
in such a negative light. I would like to suggest that this depiction enables
Sophocles to use Teiresias to fulfil important dramatic and thematic functions in
the play.
There are two key dramatic functions. One is to create dramatic conflict.
Teiresias’ entrance on stage in line 300 ushers in the first conflict in the play. Up
until then, Oedipus had spoken to the Priest, the Chorus, and Creon. His speeches
to the first two have the quality of soliloquies rather than exchanges. His dialogue
with Creon, with whom he will exchange harsh words later in the play, is
businesslike and unemotional, despite its being laden with unconscious irony. But
Teiresias’ reply to Oedipus’ heartfelt supplication with what, to all appearances, is
egotistical irritation, his gallingly protracted and opaque release of information,
and his own bad temper, which he demonstrates several times in the course of the
scene, set in motion a mounting clash between the two strong-minded figures,
which intensifies as the scene proceeds. This clash creates the dramatic tension
that holds the audience’s interest.
Creating dramatic tension in this manner is a stroke of theatrical genius. The
plot of Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, which traces the course by which Oedipus
discovers what everyone in the outer audience knows, is potentially soporific.
That audiences do not fall asleep and that the play still rivets the attention of
audiences some two and a half thousand years after it was written is a credit to the
way in which Sophocles develops situations so as to pit characters against one
another, even where one would not expect a clash, as one would not between a
that keeps the outer audience, especially the ancient audience that knew the basic story, on their
toes: ‘The truth is trembling on the brink of being told. But for those who know a secret there is a
greater excitement than to see the ignorant just missing hearing it. You can bring the thing closer to
them than that: by showing the ignorant actually hearing it in circumstances that cause them to
disbelieve it, so that they hear it and miss hearing it at the same time; that is the height of this kind
of excitement ... This is a triumph of dramatic understanding.’ See also the discussion by Gould
(1988) 149-53. For Oedipus’ anger and the possibility that Teiresias intentionally elicits Oedipus’
anger and intentionally is unclear in his words see Ahl (1991) 75-102.
6 It is therefore unclear why Webster (1969) 79, maintains that it is the care for the city that makes
Teiresias speak. For Teiresias’ dereliction of his duty to the community see Gould (1988) 149.
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