Teiresias is a soothsayer or prophet of Greece and was born in Thebes. Teiresias is a famous charcter because he appears in many stories and Greek tragedies concerning the legendary history of Thebes. The stories include Oedipus Rex, Odyssey, Seven Against Thebes, Antigone and Epigoni. Teiresias is a blind prophet and there are different reasons from different traditions that talk about the reason of his blindness: God blinded him because Teiresias at age seven revealed certain things which men ought not to know, he saw goddess Athena taking a bath and thus the goddess threw water at his eyes and blinded him and he was blinded by goddess Hera during Hera’s argument with Zeus. Teiresias was on Zeus side and this causes Hera’s anger and blinded him.
Although Teiresias was blind, he was given the gift of prophecy by God. He can be said as a person who is blind at the physical but have sight in the internal self. In different stories, the prophecy said by Teiresias came true. For instance, in Oedipus Rex, Teiresias revealed to Oedipus that Oedipus was King LaŃ—os, his father’s murderer. Oedipus denied it with anger and quarreled with Teiresias. After some time, it was revealed that indeed he was the murderer. In Seven Against Thebes, Teiresias told Eteocles and Creon that Thebes could only win the war if they sacrifice Menoeceus to the war god Ares. Menoeceus was the son of Creon. Creon refused, but Menoeceus heard of seer's prophecy, sacrificed himself on Ares' altar. Finally, Thebes was saved in the war.
Teiresias is seen as a great prophet because he can prophesy incidents that will happen in the future and has become many people’s references in different tragedy stories which involve death. Teiresias was given the gift of prophecy since young because he has many encounters with different Gods according to different traditional believes. He is an extraordinary person because he is a messenger and mouth piece of God to the people in the nation.
