Editing Tiresias (section)

=== Blindness and gift of prophecy ===
The mythographic compendium ''[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Bibliotheke]]'', lists different stories about the possible cause of Tiresias' blindness. One legend says he was "blinded by the gods because he revealed their secrets to men". While [[Pherecydes of Athens|Pherecydes]] and [[Callimachus]]' fifth hymn, ''The Baths of Pallas'', provided a different story—"the youthful Tiresias" was blinded by [[Athena]] after he came to sate his thirst at the bubbling spring, where Athena and her favourite attendant, the nymph [[Chariclo]] (mother of Tiresias) were enjoying a "cool plunge in the fair-flowing spring of [[Hippocrene]] on [[Mount Helicon]]". Pherecydes, in particular, finishes the story with Tiresias' mother Chariclo begging Athena to undo the curse, but she "could not do so". Instead, Athena "cleansed his ears", giving him the ability to understand birdsong (gift of [[augury]]), and granted him a staff of cornel-wood, "wherewith he walked like those who see".<ref name="Bibliotheke III.6.7">{{cite book|title=[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Apollodorus]] in 2 Volumes|translator=Sir [[James George Frazer]]|publisher=Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921|section=Chapter III, sections 6.7. and 7}}</ref>{{refn|group=note|The latter version, readable as a doublet of the [[Actaeon]] [[mytheme]], was preferred by the English poets [[Alfred, Lord Tennyson|Tennyson]] and even [[Algernon Charles Swinburne|Swinburne]].{{citation needed|date=December 2024}}}} In the version retold by [[Callimachus]], Athena cried out in anger at the sight of Tiresias, and his eyes were "quenched in darkness". After Chariclo "reproached the goddess with blinding her son, Athena explained that she had not done so, but that the laws of the gods inflicted the penalty of blindness on anyone who beheld an immortal without his or her consent." To give Tiresias solace in his grief, Athena "promised to bestow on him the gifts of prophecy and divination, long life, and after death the retention of his mental powers undimmed" by the underworld.<ref>{{cite book|author=[[Callimachus]]|url=https://www.theoi.com/Text/CallimachusHymns2.html#5|title=The Baths of Pallas|section=Hymn V, 57—133}}</ref>{{refn|group=note|[[James George Frazer]] remarks that Callimachus' account "probably followed Pherecydes".}}

On another account behind Tiresias' blindness and his gift,{{refn|group=note|This account has been briefly mentioned by Hyginus, ''Fabula'' 75; [[Ovid]] treated it at length in ''[[Metamorphoses (poem)|Metamorphoses]]'' III.}} he was drawn into an argument between goddess [[Hera]] and her husband [[Zeus]], arguing whether "the pleasures of love are felt more by women or by men", with Hera taking the side of men, Zeus putting himself in opposition, and Tiresias making the final judgement as someone who had experienced both pleasures. Tiresias said, "Of ten parts a man enjoys one only; But a woman enjoys the full ten parts in her heart". Hera struck him blind, but Zeus, in recompense, gave Tiresias the gift of [[second sight|foresight]]{{refn|group=note|The blind prophet with inner sight as recompense for blindness is a familiar [[mytheme]].}} and a lifespan of "seven ordinary lives".<ref name="Bibliotheke III.6.7"/>

Like other [[oracle]]s, the circumstances in which Tiresias received his prophecies varied. Sometimes he would receive visions, listen for the songs of birds, or burn offerings or entrails, interpreting prophecies through pictures that appeared in the smoke. [[Pliny the Elder]] credited Tiresias with the invention of [[auspicy|augury]].<ref name ="Pliny">{{cite book|author=[[Pliny the Elder]]|translator1=John Bostock|translator2=[[Henry Thomas Riley]]|publisher=Henry G. Bohn|date=1855|title=The Natural History|section=7.12.3}}</ref> Journalist [[William Godwin]] highlighted the communications with the dead as his most valuable way to tell a prophecy, constraining the dead "to appear and answer his inquiries".<ref>{{cite book|title=[[Lives of the Necromancers]]|author=[[William Godwin]]|year=1876|pages=46–47}}</ref>{{refn|group=note|Godwin referenced [[Statius]]' poem ''[[Thebaid (Latin poem)|Thebaid]]''.|isbn=1153638215}}