Tiresias Sightings
- The Odyssey by Homer 801BC - 601BC
Odysseus makes a pit-stop in the Underworld to get some travel advice from the ghost of everybody's favorite blind seer in this most epic of epic poems.
- Antigone by Sophocles 441BC
In this tragedy, King Creon decides to not listen when Tiresias tells him to let Antigone bury her brother Polyneices. (Spoiler alert: this does not go well for Creon.)
- Oedipus the King by Sophocles 431BC
King Oedipus gets majorly ticked off when Tiresias tells him he's the cause of all his own problems in this tragedy. It isn't a happy ending, to say the least.
- The Phoenician Women by Euripides 412BC - 410BC
In this tragedy, Tiresias tells Creon that he has to sacrifice his son, Menoeceus, in order to save Thebes. Creon is more than a little unhappy about this.
- The Bacchae by Euripides 406BC
Tiresias and Cadmus dress up like ladies and go party at a Bacchanal of Dionysus in this tragedy.
- Oedipus by Seneca 1BC - 99
The big deal Roman playwright puts his spin on Oedipus' story—Tiresias included. It doesn't get any happier, that's for sure.
- The Metamorphoses by Ovid 2
Ovid gives you all the steamy details on how Tiresias went from man to woman and back again in this famous collection of mythological poems.
- The Inferno by Dante 1308 - 1321
According to Dante, Tiresias is trapped in Hell with his head spun around backwards. Ouch.
- "The Waste Land" by T.S. Eliot 1922
Tiresias is the main narrator of this crazy famous modern poem. Let's just hope this poem doesn't predict the future.
- Oedipus el Rey by Luis Alfaro 2010
This modern Chicano riff on Oedipus is set in a LA barrio and comes complete with a Chicano version of the blind prophet.
- These Seven Sicknesses by Sean Graney 2012
Tiresias appears as blind woman in a wheelchair in this modernized marathon of all of Sophocles' extant plays.