Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Tiresias.
The gallery
Teiresias Foretells the Future to Odysseus
Henry Fuseli, 1780–1785
Fuseli's Nekyia: the blind Theban seer rises among the shades to speak to Odysseus — the underworld oracle of the Odyssey rendered in Romantic storm-light.
Tiresias Transformed into a Woman
Pietro della Vecchia, c. 1650
A Venetian Baroque reading of the metamorphosis: Tiresias, having struck the coupling snakes, stands changed — the prophet who would know both sexes before Hera struck him blind.
Odysseus Takes Counsel with Teiresias
Nicolai Abildgaard, c. 1780–1785
Abildgaard's Copenhagen canvas from Homer's Nekyia: Odysseus leans toward the blind prophet among the dead — the road home spoken in the dark of Hades.
Odysseus and Teiresias
Gerrit Pietersz Sweelinck, c. 1600
A Dutch Mannerist sheet now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington: Odysseus consults the shade of Tiresias — the Homeric interview distilled to two figures and a prophetic staff.
Manto and Tiresias
Henry Singleton, c. 1792
Singleton's National Gallery canvas: the blind seer guided by his daughter Manto — prophecy as a family craft, sightless father and seeing child on the road from Thebes.
On screen
Oedipus the King
Philip Saville
Orson Welles' Tiresias is the blind seer who will not speak until forced — the prophet who already knows the king's crime.
The Odyssey
Andrei Konchalovsky
Konchalovsky keeps Tiresias in the underworld Nekyia — the Theban seer who tells Odysseus how to get home, still blind, still certain.