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

Leeds International Classical Studies 2.5 (2003)
ISSN 1477-3643 (http://www.leeds.ac.uk/classics/lics/)
© Hanna M. Roisman
Teiresias, the seer of Oedipus the King:
Sophocles’ and Seneca’s versions
HANNA M. ROISMAN (COLBY COLLEGE)
ABSTRACT: This paper examines the different treatments of Teiresias in
Sophocles’ and Seneca’s Oedipus the King. Sophocles fashions his Teiresias as a
grumpy curmudgeon, gallingly reluctant to share his knowledge, as is expected
of a seer. His unseerlike behavior serves two key functions. On the dramatic
plane, it creates and sustains the dramatic conflict in a plot in which nothing
much happens until the very end. Thematically, it highlights the limitations of
human knowledge, which cannot alleviate suffering in a world in which destiny
is in the hands of the gods. Seneca’s Teiresias is a much reduced figure, without
a ‘character’, in the sense of a consistent set of traits or behaviors. Rather he
appears in three unconnected depictions, in each of which he is differently
presented. In his main depiction, in the divination scene, he is a mild-mannered,
unimposing seer, eager to do his job but lacking the full knowledge attributed to
his Sophoclean precursor. His function is to serve as master of the rite, who
directs the divination and makes it dramatically compelling. In both plays,
Teiresias may be seen as a representative of the gods. Sophocles’ depiction
highlights and protests the cruelty of the gods, Seneca’s projects a more resigned
and accepting attitude.
Sophocles’ inclusion of Teiresias in Oedipus the King is intriguing because, as
far as we know, Teiresias did not figure in the original myth. Other than
Sophocles’ play, very few extant Greek texts tie Teiresias to the story of Oedipus’
self-blinding and exile. At most, he is tied only to subsequent events in the house
of Labdacus. 1 So it is obvious that Sophocles made a deliberate choice to write
Teiresias into his play—but why he chose to do so is less obvious. It was certainly
not because Teiresias was needed to further the action. Although Sophocles makes
Teiresias the first to tell Oedipus that he was the murderer of Laius, and thereby
the one who set him on the road to self-discovery that the play charts, the duties of
plot facilitator could just as well have been assigned to someone who was part of
the original myth. 2 Creon, who had already brought Oedipus the oracle’s message
(95-9) that Laius’ murderer would have to be driven from the land, was certainly a
possibility.
1 Peisander (sch. Eur. Phoen.1760) claims that Teiresias, knowing that Laius was hated by the
gods, had tried to dissuade him from going to the oracle; Hyginus (Fab. 67) connects Teiresias
with the plague, but not with the revelation of Oedipus’ origins. For other possible sources see
Edmunds (1985) 14f.
2 Regarding the scene between Teiresias and Oedipus, Segal (2001) 78 observes: ‘Strictly
speaking, the scene is not necessary for the plot, but it serves a number of purposes: it creates
suspense, shows us a less self-controlled Oedipus, awakens the anxieties that come to dominate the
mood of the second half of the play, and, most important, suggests the workings of supernatural
powers.’
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In a previous paper (1999) I suggested that Sophocles included Teiresias in
the play in order to protest the cruelty of the gods who were allowing the Athens
of Sophocles’ day to suffer from the plague. While I still hold to this view, I have
come to feel that it does not do full justice to the pivotal role that Teiresias
performs in the play. This paper, which covers not only Sophocles’ Teiresias but
also the very different seer of Seneca’s Oedipus, presents the development of my
thinking on the sage. Since one can never answer with certainty the question
‘why’ an author did what he or she did, I will shift focus here to the interrelated
matters of Teiresias’ characterization and functions in the two plays.
1. Sophocles’ Teiresias
I start with Sophocles’ characterization of Teiresias, for this is crucial to both
his dramatic and thematic functions in the play. Teiresias comes on stage a
walking disappointment. The Chorus advise Oedipus of Teiresias’ access to
Apollo’s thoughts and suggest that he may find out the murderer’s identity from
the god: ‘I know that lord Teiresias sees things in the same way as Lord Apollo,
from whom anyone examining these things might learn most clearly’, they say
(¥nakt' ¥nakti taÜq' Ðrînt' p…stamai / m£lista Fo…bJ Teires…an, par' oá
tij ¨n / skopîn t£d', ðnax, km£qoi safšstata, 284-6). 3 When they see
Teiresias approaching, they speak of him as a ‘godly prophet, in whom alone of
all men truth lives by nature’ (tÕn qe‹on ½dh m£ntin ïd' ¥gousin, ú / t¢lhqj
mpšfuken ¢nqrèpwn mÒnJ, 298f.). Oedipus, for his part, greets Teiresias as one
who, ‘grasps everything, things that can be taught, and things that are
unspeakable, things that are in heaven, and things that walk the earth’ (ð p£nta
nwmîn Teires…a, didakt£ te / ¥rrht£ t' oÙr£ni£ te kaˆ cqonostibÁ, 300f.). 4
Listening closely, one may detect a certain tentativeness in these lines. The
Chorus says that one ‘might learn’ the murder’s identity from Teiresias, using the
optative form km£qoi, not that one will learn it. Oedipus observes that some of
what Teiresias knows is unspeakable. Nonetheless, their expectations are of an allknowing
seer who will unravel the mystery of the pollution that has been
afflicting their city—a seer who knows the truth and will reveal it.
The seer of their expectations is much the same venerable and prescient seer
who, in Homer, had informed Odysseus, from the depths of the Otherworld, how
to return home to Ithaca, what would await him there and how he would end his
days, and who had advised him on the pitfalls to avoid—namely the island of
Thrinacia and the cattle of Helios—and on the rituals to perform. The Homeric
Teiresias is a seer who warns and informs. In this respect, he serves Sophocles as
a model for the Teiresias of the Antigone, who urges Creon to retract his refusal to
allow the burial of Polynices and warns him of the consequences of his obstinacy,
3 I follow Jebb, on line 284, in reading taÜq' Ðrînt' as ‘seeing in the same manner’.
4 Champlin (1969) 339 comments: ‘Was Teiresias, as an exponent of truth, on the general level of
an Old Testament prophet? Sophocles speaks of him as cognizant of ineffable heavenly matters.
The strictures of the play demanded only that he possess a full awareness of past and future human
affairs.’ Owen (1968) 33, describes Teiresias as one ‘whose name stands in story as synonymous
with true prophecy.’ For the suggestion that Teiresias might not speak what scholars assume to be
the ‘truth’ see Ahl (1991) 88f.
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HANNA M. ROISMAN, TEIRESIAS, THE SEER OF OEDIPUS THE KING
as well as for the prophet Calchas in the Ajax, who sends word to Teucer to keep
Ajax in his tent for the day on which Athena will come to avenge his failure to
honor her properly. That the warning in Antigone falls on deaf ears and arrives too
late in Ajax is the fault of flawed men, not of the seers themselves. They do their
job. They do their best to avert catastrophe by sharing their knowledge with those
who should benefit from it.
This is the type of seer that the Chorus, Oedipus, and, most likely, the
audience all expect. This is not the seer they get. Teiresias comes on stage a
grumpy old curmudgeon, most reluctant to share his knowledge. Oedipus,
distraught by the plague that has infected the city, greets him with respect and
implores his assistance:
sÝ d' oân fqon»saj m»t' ¢p' o„wnîn f£tin,
m»t' e‡ tin' ¥llhn mantikÁj œceij ÐdÒn,
·àsai seautÕn kaˆ pÒlin, ·àsai d' mš.
·àsai d p©n m…asma toà teqnhkÒtoj.
n soˆ g£r smen: ¥ndra d' çfele‹n ¢f' ïn
œcoi te kaˆ dÚnaito k£llistoj pÒnwn. (310-5)
Do not grudge now any voice from birds
nor any other road of prophecy that you have,
save yourself and the city, and save me,
save us from all the defilement of the dead.
For we are in your hands, and it is the noblest of labors
for a man to help as he is able and has power to.
Teiresias’ response to this moving—and humble—supplication sounds like a selfcentered
moan: ‘How dreadful to have wisdom when it brings no profit to the man
that is wise!’ (feà feà, frone‹n æj deinÕn œnqa m¾ tšlh / lÚV fronoànti,
316f.). Teiresias makes it clear that he came against his will and better judgment.
Initially, he refuses outright to divulge what he knows. Then he reveals it bit by
bit, in a gallingly opaque manner. He first tells Oedipus that he is the one who is
polluting the country (353), then some nine lines later that he is the murderer he is
seeking (362), and another four lines later that he is living in shame with those he
most loves (366f.). To the inner audience, unfamiliar with the myth, these
disclosures, extracted from Teiresias against his will, are so unintelligible that they
leave the Chorus bewildered (404f., 483f.), and their telling is so protracted and
lacking in supportive evidence that they leave Oedipus disbelieving and
increasingly angry. 5
5 Easterling (1979) 125 summarizes Tycho von Wilamowitz’s view: ‘The dramatic power ... is in
the contrast between the knowing seer and the unsuspecting Oedipus, with Oedipus forcing the full
revelation of his guilt out of Teiresias. The characters understand only what is necessary for the
action and do not hear the rest.’ Gellie (1972) 85f. notes: ‘it is not only that the wording is often
cloudy and cryptic; the key link in Teiresias’s chain of argument is omitted. The argument has
three steps: Oedipus killed Laius, Oedipus was son of Laius, Oedipus is now living in incest.
Teiresias never states the second of these acts, and therefore the third, the taunt of incest, comes
out unattached, seemingly only a wild and brutal slur. It is not given the chance to make rational
contact with Oedipus’s mind.’ For a discussion of the order of revelation and its impact on
Oedipus’ lack of immediate understanding of his situation see Bain (1979). Owen (1968) 33 sees
in Oedipus’ lack of understanding of Teiresias’ replies, which reveal everything, a dramatic device
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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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HANNA M. ROISMAN, TEIRESIAS, THE SEER OF OEDIPUS THE KING
king intent on saving his people and a seer esteemed in the tradition for his
instructions and warnings. We may recall, as Sophocles’ audience certainly did,
that Homer’s Teiresias had warned Odysseus not to harm the cattle of Helios, and
thus saved him from the death suffered by his men after they slaughtered the
sacred animals.
The second dramatic function that is served by the depiction of Teiresias as an
irascible old grump who refuses to divulge what he knows is to enable the
revelation of aspects of Oedipus’ character that have not yet been revealed to the
audience. 7 Up until his clash with Teiresias, Oedipus comes across as an
exemplary individual and king. He is shown at the opening of the play as a
compassionate and devoted ruler who fully identifies with the sufferings of his
people and who is prepared to take any and every measure to put an end to the
plague that is devastating the city. He demonstrates initiative in setting the
investigation of the plague in motion and, once he learns the cause, shows the
necessary determination to uncover the identity of Laius’ murderer. He is also
shown to be a liberal and democratic king, who allows the Chorus to speak their
minds freely and offers immunity from punishment to anyone who comes forth
with information about Laius’ murderer. For the first 300 lines of the play, before
Teiresias appears on stage and enigmatically refuses to tell what he knows,
Oedipus speaks to all and sundry—the Priest, Creon, the Chorus, the populace—
in a dignified and respectful manner. Initially, he even addresses Teiresias with the
humility and respect due to a seer of his stature.
But Teiresias’ incomprehensible refusal to share his knowledge when the city
is in dire straits brings out Oedipus’ fiery temper. In the course of the scene,
Oedipus becomes increasingly angry as Teiresias digs in his heels. Teiresias, for
his part, points up the king’s temper, as he snaps at him: ‘You blame my temper
but you do not see your own that lives within you’ (Ñrg¾n mšmyw t¾n m»n, t¾n
s¾n d' Ðmoà / na…ousan oÙ kate‹dej, ¢ll' m yšgeij, 337f.). It is a rebuke he
repeats several times (344, 364). Oedipus’ anger is presented as entirely
understandable, and not inappropriate, in the context of events. With the plague
raging around him and his city dying, Teiresias’ opaquely explained refusal to
share the information that would put an end to the suffering can only seem ill
intended and provocative to Oedipus. At the same time, in having Teiresias
provoke Oedipus’ anger, Sophocles enables both the inner and the outer audience
to see his temper and to accept that the much admired and in many ways
admirable king killed a man and all his five retainers at an isolated crossroads, and
was so unconcerned with the act that he never bothered to mention it afterward.
Without the display of temper that Teiresias provokes, and points up so that the
7 See also Webster (1969) 87, who maintains that Sophocles’ minor characters are foils to the
major ones: ‘The minor character has its own individuality, but that individuality contains one
essential quality which is either the opposite of some important trait in the major character and
therefore throws that trait into relief, or is a quality possessed and valued by the major character
and therefore makes a bond of sympathy between the two.’ Reinhardt (1979) 105 says aptly that
both Oedipus and Teiresias are ‘carried along into new extremes by the other’.
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HANNA M. ROISMAN, TEIRESIAS, THE SEER OF OEDIPUS THE KING
audiences will register it, the murder would probably have come across as totally
inconsistent and out of character. 8
The consistency of character thus attained is also evidence of Sophocles’
theatrical genius, especially since it is not attained at the price of onedimensionality—that
is, at the price of depicting Oedipus as a ruler who is either
impulsive, violent, or cruel. It is not only that Sophocles depicts Oedipus as a
concerned and devoted ruler at the beginning of the play, as noted above. He
continues to show him in a positive light later in the play, after the scene with
Teiresias. He shows Oedipus as unflinchingly pursuing the truth of his identity,
even when it becomes clear that this truth could harm him, and as demonstrating
extraordinary magnanimity in refraining from harming Teiresias and Creon once
he becomes convinced, albeit mistakenly, that they have plotted to depose him.
The temper that he has Teiresias bring out is shown at one and the same time to be
a character flaw that has disastrous consequences and of a piece with the king’s
great dedication and concern for his people.
Theoretically, Sophocles could have used Creon to show up Oedipus’ temper,
just as he could have had him serve as plot facilitator. But in giving Teiresias these
functions, along with a temper of his own, Sophocles endows him with dramatic
weight and presence far beyond the single scene in which he appears. That is, he
makes Teiresias an important character, whom the audience remembers. This, in
turn, enables him to use Teiresias to elaborate what is one of the play’s major
themes: the theme of knowledge. 9
A great deal has been written about the matter of knowledge in this play,
especially about the irony of Oedipus being clever enough to solve the riddle of
the Sphinx yet being utterly devoid of self-knowledge. 10 The play turns on this
irony. The Priest commends Oedipus for having saved the city from the Sphinx
(35-9). Oedipus reproaches Teiresias with not having done so, while he himself
had, ‘by my wit alone’ (gnèmV kur»saj, 398) as he puts it (391-8). Teiresias, for
his part, derides Oedipus for being strong at riddle answering (440). After the
scene with Teiresias, the Chorus sing their refusal to fault Oedipus because he
saved the city from the Sphinx (505-11). And at the close of the play they describe
him as the man ‘who knew the famous riddles’ (Öj t¦ kle…n' a„n…gmat' Édei,
1525). No one in the play repeats the riddle, but the audience could doubtless have
been relied on to recall what it was. To refresh our memories, the Sphinx asked:
What walks first on four legs, then on two, and then on three? Oedipus’ reply,
8
For the importance of consistency of character, see, for example, Aristotle Poetics 15, 1454a26-
36; Horace AP 127.
9
The theme of knowledge is reflected even in the name Oedipus, cf. Knox (1957) 127, (1986) 96-
111; Segal (1995) 141. Champlin (1969) maintains that knowledge in Oedipus the King, which is
connected with the senses, is invalid, and that Sophocles might have been influenced by the
Parmenidean doctrine that denied testimony based on the senses as a basis of true knowledge and
constructed a world of truth completely apart from the realm of sense; cf. Reinhardt (1979) 98-
107. Segal (1995) 149f. sees in Teiresias the incarnation of mysterious knowledge, and in the
Messenger the incarnation of incidental knowledge; Segal (2001) 80-4, discusses the scene in
terms of a clash between human and divine or mysterious knowledge.
10
E.g. Champlin (1969) 338; most recently, Segal (1995) 138-60, 176-9 and bibliography.
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‘man’, marks him as one who understands the nature of man in general—that is as
a man who has understanding of the world. 11
This discrepancy between the two types of knowledge—knowledge of the
world versus knowledge of the self—is usually treated in connection with
Oedipus’ character, with what many scholars see as his arrogance in thinking that
he knows so much while really knowing so little of what is essential. 12 I will
return to this point in a little while. Here my concern, however, is with Sophocles’
use of Teiresias to grapple with issues of knowledge on a thematic level, a
philosophical level. Let us return to Teiresias’ opening complaint, which is worth
quoting again: ‘... how terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the man that
is wise!’ (316f.). On the dramatic plane, the complaint seems to reveal Teiresias’
self-concern and unwillingness to risk his own welfare for the good of the state.
Thematically, however, the complaint raises the question of the value of
knowledge: not only to the wise individual, but to persons all and sundry. 13
This question of what value knowledge has arises naturally from the world
view of the play. The world of Oedipus is a world ruled by incontrovertible
destiny. 14 Sophocles emphasizes this point in words and in action. He arranges for
the idea that no one can avoid fate to be reiterated several times in the course of
the play (341, 376f., 433f., 449-62, 463-82, 747f.). And he takes pains to show
that all the efforts, whether by Oedipus or his parents, to circumvent his fate were
doomed from the start (709f., 723f., 848-58, 964-72).
Teiresias highlights this problem in the statement he makes right after his
opening complaint. In response to Oedipus’ observation that he looks sad,
Teiresias asks to be allowed to go home, on the grounds that, ‘More easily you
will bear your burden, and I mine’ (·©sta g¦r tÕ sÒn te sÝ / k¢gë dio…sw
toÙmÒn, 320f.). His advice is that Oedipus drop his inquiry. His rationale, at
which he only hints at this point and which Oedipus shows no sign of
understanding, is that a person’s destiny is fixed and that no one—neither seer nor
king, neither the man of knowledge nor the man of power—can do anything to
11
Cf. Knox (1986) 97f. Hoey (1969) 296 finds a parallel between the three ages contained in the
riddle: ‘The phases of infancy, adulthood and old age are marked in Oedipus more conspicuously
than in other people’; cf. Lattimore (1968) 47.
12
E.g. Winnington-Ingram (1980) 203 and n.71. For Oedipus and self-knowledge see Segal (1995)
141-2.
13
Cf. Lattimore (1975) 106f.
14
For the frequently advanced claim that while the oracle announced Oedipus’ destiny, Oedipus
acted it out freely, e.g. Dodds (1966); Bain (1979) 132f.; Reinhardt (1979) 98: ‘For Sophocles, as
for the Greeks of an earlier age, fate is in no circumstances the same as predetermination, but it is a
spontaneous unfolding of daimonic power, even when the fate has been foretold, and even when it
is brought about by means of an order immanent in events and in the way the world goes ... there
is no place in the Oedipus for the concept “even if it were possible, I could no longer do what I
wished.”’ For the contrast between inevitability/destiny and free will in Sophoclean tragedy see
Winnington-Ingram (1980) esp. 159f., 174. I agree with Pucci (1992) 1: ‘Recent critics generally
agree that the oracle does not constitute a predestination, and that Oedipus has always been free.
This conclusion is a neat resolution of a vexing age-old question, but elegant as it is, it risks
leaving the oracle and its effect dangling nowhere, as if they did not really count.’ One should note
that Oedipus’ transgressions are only those that the oracle has announced; he has done nothing else
wrong.
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change it. Much the same rationale inheres in Teiresias’ subsequent explanations
of why he will not reveal all that he knows. I quote them again: ‘Of themselves
things will come’ (341) and, ‘It is not destined that you should fall by me, since
Apollo ... is sufficient’ (376f.). 15 The first says that there is no point in making
painful disclosures when the truth will emerge in due course—a rather strange
claim for a seer whose trade is in knowledge, but otherwise not unreasonable. The
second expands on the first with the claim that revelation is pointless because it
can do nothing to change fate.
In other words, Teiresias splits knowledge from revelation and highlights the
pointlessness of telling what he knows. This unseerlike conduct raises the
question of what value knowledge has in a world in which destiny is inexorable—
in a world where knowledge cannot change the course of events or even alleviate
suffering. 16 This inherent contradiction between a fixed and irrevocable destiny
and the idea of knowledge as a value seems to have exercised Sophocles and his
audience in much the same way that generations of Christian philosophers would
subsequently be wracked by the inherent contradiction between the omniscient
and omnipotent Christian God and man’s free will. 17
The play leaves the question deliberately unresolved. Knowledge is treated in
the play as a most ambiguous good. 18 Oedipus’ knowledge of the world,
exemplified in his solving the riddle of the Sphinx, saves Thebes from siege and
death, so it is clearly of benefit. Yet this same knowledge also leads directly to his
election as king and, with that, to his incestuous marriage with his mother, the
Theban queen, and all the terrible devastation that follows. Oedipus’ belatedly
acquired self-knowledge, his learning that he is the source of the plague in
Thebes, enables him to remove himself and thus put an end to his people’s
suffering. But it also leads to his self-blinding and the destruction of the House of
Labdacus. 19
The commonplace scholarly wisdom is that Oedipus’ self-knowledge came
too late and that his knowledge of the world was insufficient without self-
15 It is therefore no surprise that Oedipus declares at the end that ‘it was Apollo, friends, Apollo’
(1329), who caused his blinding. He was told by Teiresias that Apollo would be his ultimate bane.
See Parker (1999) 16f., who maintains that such attributions of divine involvement occur
especially in situations of extreme emotion, usually of anguish. He does not connect Oedipus’
exclamation with Teiresias’ statements but with the fact that ‘as no one could deny, what Apollo
had decreed had come to pass’. Winnington-Ingram (1980) 176-8 discusses the question: ‘Why
does Oedipus attribute the accomplishments of his evils including ... his own act of self-blinding to
Apollo?’ (178).
16 Lattimore (1975) 108f.: ‘It is not that the gods will not help or inform Oedipus—they cannot;
their knowledge and very existence are too alien from his ... Teiresias represents the gods of the
Oedipus Tyrannus and dramatizes this alienation.’
17 Cf. Winnington-Ingram (1980) 153f.
18 Cf. Socrates’ remark in the Apology that all ‘human knowledge is of little or no value’
(¢nqrwp…nh sof…a Ñl…gou tinÕj ¢x…a stˆn kaˆ oÙdenÒj, 23a). The idea that human
knowledge is imperfect was common in Greek thought long before Plato wrote down Socrates’
expression of it.
19 Cf. Hoey (1969) 298: ‘It seems to emerge that in the Oedipus Rex the two great annihilative
agencies are knowledge and generation.’
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HANNA M. ROISMAN, TEIRESIAS, THE SEER OF OEDIPUS THE KING
knowledge. Indeed Teiresias repeatedly points to Oedipus’ figurative ‘blindness’
(366f.) and deficiency in the basic knowledge of who he is:
sÝ kaˆ dšdorkaj koÙ blšpeij †n' e kakoà,
oÙd' œnqa na…eij, oÙd' Ótwn o„ke‹j mšta.
«r' osq' ¢f' ïn e; (413-5)
You have sight, but you do not see the trouble you are in,
nor where you are living, nor with whom.
Do you know of whom you are begotten?
But how are these lines to be understood? The rebuke is accurate—Oedipus,
indeed, does not know the sin he is committing, the full identity of those he is
living with, or his own parentage. It is spoken with great vehemence. And it
comes from a seer renowned for his knowledge of the truth. These features invest
it with great authority and have led scholars to read it as the play’s indictment of
Oedipus as a ‘blind’ and arrogant individual who brings about his own fall—even
though Oedipus conducts himself, in most respects, including in his confrontation
with Teiresias, as one of the most commendable rulers in all of Greek tragedy.
I think that the rebuke must be understood within its dramatic context, and
thus not solely with respect to the person it refers to, but also with respect to the
person who makes it. Is there no irony in Teiresias charging Oedipus with being
blind to himself in the very scene where Oedipus is seeking knowledge, with a
mind open to what he might learn, but Teiresias himself refuses to enlighten him?
Isn’t there something just a bit perverse here? I am suggesting that the rebuke
should not be taken as an authoritative statement about Oedipus’ character,
however accurately it describes his situation. Rather it should be understood as
something that Teiresias, angered by Oedipus—by the king’s pressing him for
information that he does not want to divulge and by the accusations of
treachery—says to the king in the heat of the argument.
Within the context of the argument, the rebuke contains two implications with
regard to knowledge: one, that Oedipus’ self-knowledge would have been
efficacious and, two, that Oedipus should—and could—have attained it. These
implications enable the angry seer to put the onus of guilt for the tragic events
onto Oedipus and to release himself from any responsibility that he might bear for
them as one who, as the Chorus stated, knows the secrets of Apollo’s mind.
Within the thematic context of the play’s contemplation of knowledge, the
rebuke returns us again to the question of the value of knowledge. One should
consider: would self-knowledge have helped? Had Oedipus known his parentage,
would he have been able to avoid killing his father? The repeated assertions about
the unavertability of destiny suggest that he would not. So does the way in which
Sophocles sets up the action of the play. Sophocles makes sure that the audience
understands that Oedipus, who had been removed from home at birth, had never
seen the man he meets at the crossroads and has no way of recognizing him as his
father. Moreover, none of the descriptions of the murder contains anything that
indicates that Oedipus could have recognized Laius as the king of Thebes. Jocasta
relates that Laius traveled with only five retainers—a small number for a king
9

HANNA M. ROISMAN, TEIRESIAS, THE SEER OF OEDIPUS THE KING
(750-3). Oedipus describes him as having struck the first blow. Assuming the
description is true, this is rather unregal behavior. 20
Teiresias’ rebuke also raises another question about knowledge: that is, how
available and attainable is the self-knowledge that he extols? The Greeks greatly
valued self-knowledge. The inscription ‘know thyself’ at the Delphic oracle
expressed the value they placed on it. But I am not certain that either the
inscription or Teiresias were referring to precisely the kind of knowledge that this
injunction makes us think of today. As most of us post-Freudians probably
understand it, the injunction refers to the knowledge of the unconscious mind,
attained, if at all, by introspection and the unveiling of repressed thoughts and
urges. It probably meant this to the Greeks, too. But it also seems to have meant
something more. For tribal peoples, as the ancient Greeks were, the identity of the
individual is inextricably bound up with the identity of his or her family. Teiresias’
rebuke is not only that Oedipus is unaware of his incestuous urges. It is also the
much more concrete rebuke that he literally does not know his parentage.
But how could he know? There was no DNA testing. You knew who your
parents were because they told you and you grew up with them. Oedipus grew up
with Polybus and his wife, and they told him they were his parents. How was he
to know differently? The play tells us that he heard rumors (779-84). But how
could he have confirmed them? What was he to do after he checked them with
Merope and Polybus? How was he to know that their declaration that they were
his parents was not the whole truth? Introspection is certainly not the answer here.
What I am suggesting is that the self-knowledge that Sophocles has Teiresias taunt
Oedipus with lacking was inaccessible, not only to Oedipus, but more generally as
well. Until most recently, who could be sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that
their parents were really and truly their parents? Homer, some four centuries
earlier, had put much the same idea in the mouth of Telemachus:
m»thr mšn t' mš fhsi toà œmmenai, aÙt¦r gè ge
oÙk od': oÙ g£r pè tij ˜Õn gÒnon aÙtÕj ¢nšgnw. (Od. 1.215f.)
My mother tells me that I am his [Odysseus’] child. But I really
do not know, for never yet has anyone known for sure his begetter.
In short, Sophocles has Teiresias pronounce an ideal whose efficacy and
attainability the play questions. The idea that self-knowledge is inaccessible is
actually mimicked in the play, both in Teiresias’ fragmentary and opaque method
of revelation and in the incremental revelations of the other characters. Creon
finds out that Laius’ murderer must be expelled, but does not know who the
murderer is. Teiresias first says that Oedipus is the murderer, but does not bring
the supporting evidence that would make Oedipus believe it. The Messenger
brings the information that Oedipus is not Polybus’ son. And only then does the
Herdsman finally come on stage with the story of Oedipus’ parentage. Not only
20 For Teiresias accusing Oedipus of killing someone he knows Oedipus has never met, and whose
royal status he could hardly have discerned, see Easterling (1977) 125. She concludes: ‘... there is
nothing at all surprising in the fact that he is unable to take in the rest of the seer’s words, which
suggest even more outrageous and unthinkable guilt. No wonder, either that the Chorus are unable
to grasp their significance.’
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HANNA M. ROISMAN, TEIRESIAS, THE SEER OF OEDIPUS THE KING
Teiresias, but the entire play thus stresses the incompleteness and obscurity of
knowledge that people are able to attain.
At the end of the exchange, and well before the Messenger and Herdsman
arrive with their information, Teiresias leaves the stage with the Chorus
bewildered and Oedipus, who finally understands the meaning of his ‘riddles’, as
he describes Teiresias’ obscure and partial revelations, convinced that Teiresias
and Creon are plotting to depose him. Teiresias returns, not in body, but in soul, so
to speak, in the question that Oedipus flings at Creon as he grills him about the
events following Laius’ murder. Oedipus demands: ‘Why didn’t your wise man
say anything then?’ (pîj oân tÒq' oátoj Ð sofÕj oÙk hÜda t£de; 568). The
question can be discussed on three levels—on the level of the plot, the myth, and
the theme—on none of which is it answered.
On the level of the plot, the question is: Why didn’t Teiresias tell who
murdered Laius when the matter was first investigated? Creon replies simply, ‘I
don’t know’ (oÙk od', 569). 21 I mention in passing that Creon ignores the
somewhat aggressive challenge in the question—Oedipus’ implication is that he
cannot have murdered the king because it would have been investigated and
discovered then.
On the level of the myth, the question points the audience to other questions:
Why did Teiresias allow a patricide to become king? Why didn’t he reveal that
Oedipus was Jocasta’s son and so prevent the marriage between mother and son?
And why did he neither prevent nor put a speedier end to the plague that ensued
from the violation of the taboos against patricide and incest? These questions,
which are never made explicit, cannot be answered. Teiresias does not figure in
the original myth; and if he behaved like his Homeric namesake, there would be
no story. Like the question that Oedipus explicitly asks Creon, these questions,
which rankle beneath the surface of the text, are not raised by the myth itself, but
rather by Teiresias’ presence in the play and his splitting of knowledge from
revelation. They highlight the splitting of knowledge from act, as well.
On the level of the theme, the most important thing about the question is the
fact that it is raised and left unanswered. This unanswered question places at the
heart of the play the ambiguities of knowledge that Sophocles raises in the person
of Teiresias and explores throughout the drama.
Teiresias, as the all-knowing seer, privy to the secrets of heaven and earth, is
the ideal figure to focus the play’s doubts about the value and attainability of
knowledge. Though Creon might have served adequately in Teiresias’ place as
21 Lattimore (1968) 44f. says that ‘it was awkward for Sophocles to raise this ... question when he
would not, or could not answer’. He suggests that Teiresias did not answer it simply because ‘the
Sphinx is there for Oedipus to answer’; Segal (2001) 57 views the lack of answer in the text as: ‘...
probably Sophocles’ way of telling us to leave the matter there; the ways of prophets are obscure,
after all, and especially the ways of prophets awesome as Teiresias.’ But the fact that we are still
struggling to figure out why this question is unanswered may show equally well that Sophocles
wanted the question to pique us. Sophocles did not have to raise the question. After all, no one in
the play ever asks why Oedipus never investigated the death of the former king or why he didn’t
immediately summon the herdsman when he learned that he had seen the murder.
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HANNA M. ROISMAN, TEIRESIAS, THE SEER OF OEDIPUS THE KING
plot facilitator and Oedipus’s sparring partner, he could not have fulfilled the
seer’s role in focusing so well the doubts about knowledge that the play raises.
2. Seneca’s Teiresias
Seneca adopted various aspects of Sophocles’ plot, which I will not go into
here; but he was quite independent in his characterization. 22 His Oedipus, to take
the chief example, is a more introspective character than Sophocles’ hero and
expresses premonitions and a sense of guilt that his Sophoclean namesake did not.
His Oedipus also places greater emphasis than the Sophoclean hero on his courage
in having killed the Sphinx, and less on his capacity to know, though he mentions
that too.
The same independence applies to Seneca’s treatment of Teiresias. Seneca
inherited Teiresias as a character in the Oedipus saga from Sophocles, but very
much reduced his role and his presence. He places Teiresias on stage for only 46
lines, in contrast to the 76 lines of Sophocles’ Teiresias. He also shifts key
functions that Sophocles had given to Teiresias to Creon, making Creon the one
who argues with Oedipus to create dramatic tension and who informs Oedipus
that he was Laius’ murderer. Moreover, Seneca makes his Teiresias not only a less
contentious presence than Sophocles’ seer, but much less a presence altogether.
Seneca’s Teiresias is an ancillary figure who interacts minimally with the
other characters in the play. There is no real give and take between him and
Oedipus, or between him and any other character in the play. In the divination
rites over which he presides, he takes second place to his daughter Manto, who is
the one to perform them. He ushers in the choral paean to Bacchus, but does not
participate in it. He figures in Creon’s account of their visit to the Otherworld; but
the visit is not dramatized, so the audience does not see him summoning Laius’
ghost or conversing with him.
But this apparent reduction in role in no way means that Seneca stuck
Teiresias in his play because he had to. He did not. He could have left him out,
just as he had omitted the Athenian King Aigeus, who had appeared in Euripides’
Medea, in his own rendition of the myth. It is also possible that he removed
Teiresias and Menoeceus, who figured in Euripides’ Phoenician Women, from his
version, though one cannot be sure here because only 600 lines of the play have
come down to us.
Seneca clearly chose to include Teiresias in his Oedipus. But why? I set about
trying to answer this question by looking at his persona in much the same way as I
had at the persona of Sophocles’ Teiresias, starting with his characterization and
going on to his function. It soon became apparent, though, that the concept of
characterization is problematic here. Seneca does not really give his Teiresias a
‘character’ or ‘personality’—that is, a set of traits or behaviors with an organic
consistency and continuity. Rather, he presents his Teiresias in three distinct
depictions, which are not connected to one another in the way that various facets
22 For the recent tendency to analyze Seneca’s tragedies independently of their Greek precursors,
and the problem of the identity of Seneca the tragedian, see most recently Kohn (2003).
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HANNA M. ROISMAN, TEIRESIAS, THE SEER OF OEDIPUS THE KING
(even conflicting facets) of a character or personality are. 23 So, to begin with,
rather than discuss the characterization of Seneca’s Teiresias, I will discuss his
depictions in the three scenes in which he figures: the divination scene, the paean
to Bacchus, and the trip to the Otherworld. For each of these depictions, Seneca
draws on a different strand in the Greek tradition. 24
The divination scene is the only one of the three scenes in which Teiresias is
actually on stage. This scene harks back to the Sophoclean scene of the meeting
between Oedipus and the seer. In both cases Teiresias’ official reason for being on
stage is to provide the troubled king with the name of Laius’ murderer; and in both
scenes, he progresses in an incremental way to doing so, without, in the end,
providing a clear revelation. But here the similarities end. Seneca seems to have
adopted just enough of the Sophoclean background to remind his audience of the
Greek Teiresias while depicting what, to my mind, looks like a consciously un-
Sophoclean—even anti-Sophoclean—seer.
The Teiresias of the divination scene is a most mild-mannered, unimposing
seer, who speaks respectfully to the king, is eager to do his job, and makes no
bones about lacking the full knowledge that is attributed to his Sophoclean
precursor. The first the audience learns of him is through Creon’s comments that
he ‘has been pricked by Phoebus’ oracle’, that his knees are ‘palsied’, that his
steps are slow, and that he is being led by Manto (in tempore ipso sorte Phoebea
excitus / Tiresia tremulo tardu accelerat genu / comesque Manto luce viduatum
trahens, 288-90). This description, which tells us that Teiresias came of his own
volition, prompted by Apollo, highlights his eagerness to help, on the one hand,
and his weakness and limitations, on the other. The dual motifs of eagerness to
help and weakness-limitations are developed by Teiresias’ own self-presentation.
Teiresias begins by apologizing that his ‘tongue is slow to speak’ (tarda fatu est
lingua) and ‘asks for delay’ (quaerit moras 293f.). The statement simultaneously
signals that he will not be able to give a speedy reply to the question of who
Laius’ murderer is and that he would have preferred to be able to.
Teiresias further highlights his limitations in his explanation for his inability:
‘From the blind, much of the truth is hidden’ (visu carenti magna pars veri latet,
295). On the literal level, the ‘truth’ refers to the reality of the material world, and
the statement points to his physical limitations—to the fact that, being blind, he
will not be able to carry out the divination on his own, but will require his
daughter to perform the sacrifice and to describe what she sees. The figurative
23 Focusing mainly on the persona of Oedipus see Motto and Clark (1988) 154f., 159: ‘Oedipus is
not centrally directed upon action or character’; cf. Henry and Walker (1983) 128-30, Boyle
(1997) 92. Mendell (1941) 169f., who wishes to dispel the view that Seneca’s characters are stock
characters, that they are types not individuals, claims: ‘In the Oedipus, for example, it is hard to
name any stock character except the messenger. Tiresias is not the mere lay figure of a seer like
Calchas in the Troades, nor an inspired prophet of evil like Cassandra. Nor is he the mouthpiece
for the gods like the ghosts or Furies of other plays. He is perhaps more a piece of stage machinery
than he should be. His blindness is emphasized, not as bringing him nearer to the unseen, but
merely as an inconvenience. Insofar as he has an individuality it is that of a Roman priest rather
than that of a Greek seer.’
24 For a recent discussion of the reflections of Sophocles’ Oedipus the King in Seneca’s play see
Holford-Strevens (1999) 239-46; Segal (2001) 146-8.
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HANNA M. ROISMAN, TEIRESIAS, THE SEER OF OEDIPUS THE KING
meaning of the statement stems from the association between physical blindness
and spiritual sight on which Sophocles’ Teiresias had played. Sophocles had his
Teiresias maintain that his physical blindness conferred on him knowledge of
hidden truths, while Oedipus’ sight of the physical world was coupled with a basic
ignorance of those truths (OT 412-28). Seneca takes the paradox out of the
oxymoron of the ‘blind seer’ and presents the audience with a Teiresias who is not
only unable to see the world of objects, but whose ability to discern hidden truths
is limited as well. 25 At the end of the scene, Teiresias will tell his hearers that his
divining arts will not yield up the murderer’s name and that the murdered man
must be consulted for that (390-9).
The next two sentences reiterate yet again the dual motifs of Teiresias’
eagerness to help and limited ability to do so. ‘Where my country, where Phoebus
calls, I shall follow’ (sed quo vocat me patria, quo Phoebus, sequar, 296),
Teiresias assures Oedipus, but then apologizes again, stating that: ‘if my blood
were fresh and warm, I would receive the god directly in my heart’ (si foret viridis
mihi/ calidus sanguis, pectore exciperem deum, 297f.). The precise meaning of
this statement is not entirely clear. Töchterle and others have suggested that it
means that if he could, Teiresias would discern the god’s messages directly by
inspiration instead of through divination. 26 Yet whatever its precise meaning, the
statement conveys clearly enough that Teiresias’ old age is not only a source of
physical weakness but also reduces his ability to ‘see’ as a seer should.
The second scene in which we hear of Teiresias is the incantation to Bacchus.
Before leaving the stage at the end of the divination scene, Teiresias proposes that
Laius be consulted to identify his murderer and that, in the meantime, the
chorus—or ‘folk’—‘chant the praises of Bacchus’ (401f.). In having Teiresias
introduce the paean to Bacchus, Seneca draws on his role, developed in Euripides’
Bacchai, as the seer who welcomed Dionysus as a somewhat late-coming god to
the Theban pantheon. Euripides had depicted Teiresias as a worldly-wise priest,
who had the perspicacity to accept the divinity of the powerful god of the vine,
even though the ruler of Thebes, the rather dour Pentheus, had rejected him. 27 The
celebratory tone of the paean is rather disconcerting in a play that draws on the
dark themes of plague, incest, and filial murder, and scholars have long debated
Seneca’s purpose in introducing Bacchus. 28 For our understanding here, what is of
interest is that while Seneca draws on the Euripidean figure, he takes nothing from
Euripides’ characterization, for, other than making the proposal, his Teiresias
plays no role at all in the paean. 29
25
For the absence of the imagery of ‘seeing’ and ‘knowing’ in the Senecan version see also Motto
and Clark (1988) 148f.
26
Töchterle (1994) on line; Häuptli (1983) on line. Cf. Henry and Walker (1983) 135.
27
For a discussion of the Euripidean Teiresias see Roth (1984) and bibliography.
28
Motto and Clark (1988) 158-62 show how the ode to Bacchus ties in with the unnatural fate of
many of the Cadmean family. Dionysus along with Apollo plague the Cadmean line, cf. Henry and
Walker (1983) 137f. The underlying irony in the ode to Bacchus leads Boyle (1997) 94 to identify
Sophocles Ant. 115-54 as the ‘model’ for the Senecan choral ode.
29
Mastronarde (1970) 309-11 sees in Teiresias the reverse of Bacchus, and points out that ‘themes
of the Theban past link the necromancy and the Bacchus-ode’ (310).
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HANNA M. ROISMAN, TEIRESIAS, THE SEER OF OEDIPUS THE KING
In the third depiction, in the Otherworld meeting with Laius, Seneca harks
back to Teiresias’ Homeric role as Odysseus’ guide to Hades. Homer’s Teiresias
had enabled Odysseus to meet, first of all, with his mother. Seneca has his
Teiresias conjure up Oedipus’ father. Other than this vague connection, there
seems to be no further borrowing from Homer. What is notable is that Teiresias’
depiction here is rather different from that in the divination scene. Although
Seneca once again notes Teiresias’ old age, he now has Creon describe him as a
power in the Otherworld. Creon tells how, draped in a funeral pall, waving a
branch, and his white hair wreathed in ‘death-bringing yew’ (551-5), Teiresias
summons the shades using a magic formula and pouring libations onto a coal fire.
He describes his voice as sonorous, and his summons as effective and tells how, in
contrast to himself, whom the ‘spirit left’ (595), and Manto, who was ‘stunned’
(595f.) by the fearful sight of Dis, Teiresias remained undaunted and unfazed
(596-8).
The disconnection between the depictions of Teiresias in his upper world
mode and his Otherworld mode suggests that Seneca suited his depictions to the
‘dramatics’ of the scene. In other words, for Seneca, an old and weak seer made
for an interesting and compelling dramatic figure in the context of the upper
world, but did not fit Teiresias’ role in summoning the ghosts of the Otherworld. 30
This brings me to Teiresias’ function in Seneca’s play. As is well known,
Seneca was fond of spectacles, whether acted out or rendered through verbal
description. 31 The three scenes in which Teiresias figures, albeit rather differently
in each, are all spectacles, in the sense of extravagant and fantastic displays.
Teiresias, whose identity as a seer allowed him to preside over the divination, who
was associated with the cult of Bacchus in Thebes, and who was Odysseus’ guide
to the Otherworld, was suited by virtue of his various roles in the Greek canon to
usher in the successive spectacles.
Having stated this, I now take a closer look at Teiresias’ function in the
divination scene, the only spectacle in which he is actually on stage. Teiresias’
first acts in this scene are to order the sacrificial animals to be driven to the altar
and to direct Manto to guide him and report what she sees. In the course of the
scene, he directs her how to perform the rite, asks questions, and makes
interpretations. As Manto answers the questions, she regales the audience with
lurid descriptions of the distorted and unnatural behaviors of the flame and of the
flesh and blood of the sacrificial bull and heifer. The gory sensationalism of these
descriptions probably provided much of the drama and interest of the scene for
Seneca’s audience. 32
30 Schiesaro (1997) 93-8 sees the Senecan Teiresias in this scene as the equivalent of a vates (552),
the poet himself (the word can mean both: ‘a poet’ and ‘a prophet’): ‘The vates who through his
song can bring to life the frightening creatures buried in the Underworld is like the poet who, on
the strength of his inspiration, gives life to the characters of tragedy’ (95).
31 Dupont (1995) 189-93, who assumes that Seneca wrote his tragedies to be staged and that they
were staged, makes the point that the spectacles described and acted out had a double effect, in that
they were presented to both the inner and outer audiences.
32 For the discussion of the grotesque, the unnatural and the gory in the spectacles see Motto and
Clark (1977/78); (1988) 146-8, 152f.
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HANNA M. ROISMAN, TEIRESIAS, THE SEER OF OEDIPUS THE KING
Beyond enabling Manto to present these descriptions, Teiresias functions in
this scene as what I like to term master of the rite. Though he does not carry out
the divination himself, he sets it in motion, directs it, and, above all, makes it a
dramatically compelling ceremony. As a priest, Teiresias’ job is to interpret the
signs. As master of the rite, it is to conduct the rite and present his interpretations
in a way that interests and involves the audience. It is a dramatic function which
he carries out by inviting the audience to share his apprehensions, uncertainty, and
mounting dread, by building tension through the use of vague, suggestive
language, and not by delivering on the closure that he promises.
His first interpretation comes in response to Manto’s question about the
meaning of the first set of signs she described:
Quid fari queam
inter tumultus mentis attonitae vagus?
quidnam loquar? sunt dira, sed in alto mala;
solet ira certis numinum ostendi notis.
quid istud est quod esse prolatum volunt
iterumque nolunt et truces iras tegunt?
pudet deos nescio quid. (328-34)
What can I tell,
drifting amid the tempests of my dazed mind?
What shall I say? The evils are dire, but deeply hidden;
usually the gods’ wrath shows itself in clear signs.
What is it that they want to reveal, and then
again don’t want to? What grim angers are they concealing?
Something shames the gods.
Two stylistic features may be noted. One is that while Manto’s descriptions
are specific and detailed, Teiresias couches his apprehensions in vague and
portentous terms. 33 He speaks of ‘dire evils’, the ‘gods’ wrath’, and ‘grim angers’
that the gods are ‘concealing’ and ‘ashamed of’, without specifying what the evils
or passions are and what the gods may be concealing and ashamed of. While the
outer audience understand these hints, just as Sophocles’ outer audience had
understood the hints given by his Teiresias, the terms nonetheless convey a sense
of undefined menace. They operate on two levels. 34 On the level of character
depiction, they serve to convey Teiresias’ apprehensions. On the level of Teiresias’
dramatic function, they are means for him to create an unresolved angst in the
audience, designed to keep them on the edge of their chairs and eager for further
clues.
33 Tietze Larson (1994) esp. 31-44, in her study of the difference between descriptions in Greek
tragedy and Seneca’s tragedy (especially in messenger-speeches), points out that Seneca’s
descriptions are much more detailed than those found in Greek tragedy. Dupont (1995) 189-93,
200-3, discusses the effects of the specificity of what she term ‘rituel perverti’ on the Roman
audience.
34 Bishop (1978) 291 finds it odd that Teiresias is unable either to understand that the gods reject
the sacrifice or to figure out the name of the murderer even though the smoke wraps around
Oedipus’ head. He interprets this oddity as a code of covert political criticism, a code which the
audience won’t have a problem of deciphering. For the play as a comment on the contemporary
situation between Nero and his mother Agrippina, see also Pathmanathan (1967/68).
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HANNA M. ROISMAN, TEIRESIAS, THE SEER OF OEDIPUS THE KING
The second stylistic feature is the alternation of statements and rhetorical
questions. This too serves a dual purpose: relaying the depth of Teiresias’
perplexity and distress, while, at the same time, including the audience in these
feelings. By virtue of their open-endedness, the questions invite participation.
They not only tell the audience, both inner and outer, what Teiresias thinks and
feels, they also invite them to experience the same feelings and make them
partners in his uncertainties, apprehensions, conjectures, and to search for
answers. They cause the audience to wonder what it is that Teiresias cannot say,
what the gods may be simultaneously veiling and revealing, and what it is that
shames them.
The second and third ‘interpretations’ are much shorter and one may, in fact,
question whether they can be called interpretations at all. I use the term for lack of
a better.
The second interpretation, which follows Manto’s description of the
movements of the slaughtered bull and heifer, is only one sentence: ‘These
ominous sacrifices arouse great terrors’ (infausta magnos sacra terrores cient,
351). The sentence does not provide new information. It does not answer any of
the previous questions. The ‘terrors’, ‘enormities’, the sacrifices arouse are as
vague as the ‘dire evils’ of the first interpretation. What the sentence does do is
raise the audience’s tension by telling them that they have cause to worry. Its
dramatic function is to heighten the angst whose seeds had been planted in the
first interpretation, without making any undue revelations.
The third interpretation follows Manto’s description of the animals’ viscera
and comes in answer to Oedipus’ questions about what it all means. It is slightly
more specific than the first two. It states: ‘The desperate situation you seek to
remedy, you will find enviable’ (his invidebis quibus opem quaeris malis, 387).
This line, which echoes Sophocles’ Teiresias, brings the prognosis somewhat
closer, but is actually a letdown. Manto had described the viscera following
Teiresias’ statement that ‘prognoses from the signs are sure’ (manifesta sacri
signa, 302). From a dramatic perspective, the statement is designed both to make
the audience listen with interest to Manto’s description, and to raise their
expectations for a resolution of the mystery. The third interpretation does not
bring the promised resolution, thereby averting premature closure and keeping the
audience on edge.
In short, what Seneca has Teiresias do in this scene is to preside over a
dramatic ceremony, which involves the audience, keeps them intellectually and
emotionally focused, and creates and steadily augments a sense of tension. Also
keeping the tension level—and dramatic interest—high is the fact that each
interpretation is progressively more ominous.
Unlike Sophocles’ Teiresias, Seneca’s seer does not serve to focus any
thematic issue in the play, as far as one can tell. The three scenes in which he
figures are quite disparate and do not relate very much to one another. Each raises
its own themes and issues, which are quite apart from Teiresias’ persona.
17

3. Conclusion
HANNA M. ROISMAN, TEIRESIAS, THE SEER OF OEDIPUS THE KING
I would like to close the paper with some thoughts about the philosophical
implications of the revelations of the two Teiresiases. The revelations of Seneca’s
Teiresias are as opaque and incremental as those of Sophocles’ seer, and even less
informative. This does not arouse the consternation it had in Sophocles’ play,
however. Any possible annoyance, whether on the part of the inner or outer
audience, is deflected in advance by the depiction of Teiresias’ good will, his
frank if rather unseerlike admissions of confusion, and his shifting the
responsibility for his failure to provide a clear answer to the gods, whom he
describes as angry, ambivalent, and veiling their messages. Seneca’s Oedipus, for
his part, expects less of Teiresias than the Sophoclean king. While Sophocles’
Oedipus had explicitly asked the seer to reveal the name of the murderer, Seneca’s
Oedipus asks him only to ‘expound the responses’ (responsa solve, 292)—that is,
to perform a divination and explain the meaning of the signs. This is a more
modest request, which does not set up the expectation, as Sophocles had, that
Teiresias possesses complete knowledge, which he can share.
This difference in the expectations inherent in the two plays is related to a
fundamental difference in their attitudes toward the gods. Sophocles is concerned
about the injustice of Oedipus’ fate. His depiction of Teiresias, who may be
viewed as a representative of the gods, as gallingly irritating and intent on
separating knowledge from revelation, seems to be an expression of protest
against the cruelty of the gods, who the play repeatedly states forged Oedipus’
unavoidable destiny. There is no such protest in Seneca’s play. In Teiresias’
interpretations in the divination scene, the gods come across as confused and
ambivalent. Oedipus, for his part, has premonitions of guilt from the very
beginning of the play, and so takes upon himself complete responsibility for his
actions. All in all, Sophocles’ Teiresias is a fitting seer for the deeply pessimistic
world-view of the play, while Seneca’s Teiresias is the right seer for that play’s
more resigned and accepting attitude.
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