‘I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,
Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see
At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives
Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights
Her stove, and lays out food in tins.’
...One of the most well-known and discussed in-between-sexes mythological figure is represented by Tiresias of Thebes, who appears as a prominent character in the ninth book of the Metamorphoses written by the Latin poet Ovid.
The stories concerning Tiresias offer a sort of ‘founding mythology’ for the transgender imaginary. Myths of alternative narratives of lives that appear to be more evident only in recent years.
In Ovid's Metamorphoses, the story of the Tiresias transformation from man to woman and back to man is briefly told:
'Once he had come upon two serpents mating,In the green woods, and struck them from each other,And thereupon, from man was turned to woman,And was a woman seven years, and sawThe serpents once again, and once more struck themApart, remarking, “If there is such magic In giving you blows, that man is turned to woman,It may be woman is turned to man. Worth trying”And so he was a man again' [1]
It takes Ovid only nine lines of verse to explain Tiresias’ metamorphosis. This is because Ovid does not explain Tiresias feelings regarding his transformation into a woman or the change back. We do not know how Tiresias’ life differed as a woman than as a man, or how his family dealt with the transformation. Ovid also does not specify exactly how the metamorphosis happened, though it is clear that it was not of Tiresias’ own volition.
The characters in Ovid's Metamorphoses, for the most part, have transformations inflicted upon them. They have no agency; the gods who make the changes seal their fate.
Tiresias is assumed to have direct knowledge of the different voluptas (sexual pleasure) experienced by men and women. He is considered to be doctus (learned) about men, women, and sex, and also to possess a privileged ‘authority of experience’ when it comes to questions of sex and gender.
In ancient Attic narrations Tiresias of Thebes was a sooth-sayer. He was also the mediator between the gods of the Olympus and humans, for this reason he had been given the gift of immortality that characterised the gods. Tiresias lived for seven generations and he never really knew death. One day he was walking on Mount Cyllene when he came upon two snakes coupling. For no apparent reason, Tiresias hit the female and as a form of divine punishment he was mutated into a woman. He lived as a woman for ‘seven long years’ till when after that time, in the same spot she found the same couple of snakes, this time Tiresias hit the male and through this action he returned to be a man.
Because of this double transformation, the transsexual character was convened by Juno (Hera for the Greeks) and Jupiter (Zeus) in order to clarify a point of a dispute that they were having. They wanted to ask Tiresias who in the sexual act has a greater level of pleasure; Juno was convinced that men enjoyed the act far more than women do. Nevertheless Tiresias answered that the woman receives the greater pleasure ‘ of ten parts a man enjoys one only’. Jupiter was satisfied by Tiresias’s answer but Juno got very irritated because he was contradicting her argument; so instantly she struck Teresias blind. Jupiter could not do anything to reverse the event but he gave Tiresias the gift of foresight. From that moment onwards Tiresias became the most famous sooth-sayer in ancient Greece.
Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see
At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives
Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights
Her stove, and lays out food in tins.’
...One of the most well-known and discussed in-between-sexes mythological figure is represented by Tiresias of Thebes, who appears as a prominent character in the ninth book of the Metamorphoses written by the Latin poet Ovid.
The stories concerning Tiresias offer a sort of ‘founding mythology’ for the transgender imaginary. Myths of alternative narratives of lives that appear to be more evident only in recent years.
In Ovid's Metamorphoses, the story of the Tiresias transformation from man to woman and back to man is briefly told:
'Once he had come upon two serpents mating,In the green woods, and struck them from each other,And thereupon, from man was turned to woman,And was a woman seven years, and sawThe serpents once again, and once more struck themApart, remarking, “If there is such magic In giving you blows, that man is turned to woman,It may be woman is turned to man. Worth trying”And so he was a man again' [1]
It takes Ovid only nine lines of verse to explain Tiresias’ metamorphosis. This is because Ovid does not explain Tiresias feelings regarding his transformation into a woman or the change back. We do not know how Tiresias’ life differed as a woman than as a man, or how his family dealt with the transformation. Ovid also does not specify exactly how the metamorphosis happened, though it is clear that it was not of Tiresias’ own volition.
The characters in Ovid's Metamorphoses, for the most part, have transformations inflicted upon them. They have no agency; the gods who make the changes seal their fate.
Tiresias is assumed to have direct knowledge of the different voluptas (sexual pleasure) experienced by men and women. He is considered to be doctus (learned) about men, women, and sex, and also to possess a privileged ‘authority of experience’ when it comes to questions of sex and gender.
In ancient Attic narrations Tiresias of Thebes was a sooth-sayer. He was also the mediator between the gods of the Olympus and humans, for this reason he had been given the gift of immortality that characterised the gods. Tiresias lived for seven generations and he never really knew death. One day he was walking on Mount Cyllene when he came upon two snakes coupling. For no apparent reason, Tiresias hit the female and as a form of divine punishment he was mutated into a woman. He lived as a woman for ‘seven long years’ till when after that time, in the same spot she found the same couple of snakes, this time Tiresias hit the male and through this action he returned to be a man.
Because of this double transformation, the transsexual character was convened by Juno (Hera for the Greeks) and Jupiter (Zeus) in order to clarify a point of a dispute that they were having. They wanted to ask Tiresias who in the sexual act has a greater level of pleasure; Juno was convinced that men enjoyed the act far more than women do. Nevertheless Tiresias answered that the woman receives the greater pleasure ‘ of ten parts a man enjoys one only’. Jupiter was satisfied by Tiresias’s answer but Juno got very irritated because he was contradicting her argument; so instantly she struck Teresias blind. Jupiter could not do anything to reverse the event but he gave Tiresias the gift of foresight. From that moment onwards Tiresias became the most famous sooth-sayer in ancient Greece.
The myth of Tiresias offers stimulating thoughts about a mytholological rendering of the contemporary transsexual or transgender subjectivity
It is also essential to notice how the first metamorphoses Tiresias goes through (M to F) is perceived by the story-teller and conveyed to the reader as a form of punishment, that is to say, Tiresias loosing his male resemblances goes through a passage of diminishment of his natural state of being. Thus, being a woman is intrinsically seen a form of punishment. A further misogynistic aspect of the myth is the fact that it follows a dichotomist structure of woman/ prostitute vs man/ prophet.
In an interesting interview about Kate Bornstein, a performative artist, gender explorer-theorist and also an M to F transgender, the interviewer Shannon Bell uses a striking title: ‘A Transgender Transsexual Postmodern Tiresias’.
The identification of Bornstein with the Theban prophet is surely an interesting narrative strategy, it can be argued that the association between a stigmatised contemporary figure, such as the transgender person and an archaic mythological character can add a sort of historical, literary significance of the former within today’s culture. However, I would argue that the association can be seen as problematic for the very fact that Tiresias in the myth does not undergo the sex metamorphosis because of an inner desire or arbitrium (will). The agency of the mythic character vanishes under the imposed and capricious intervention of the Olympian gods.
Clearly the ways in which we use myths are not always literal and my aim here is not to discuss the value of the myth within contemporary culture, that would require further and complex developments; yet I do believe that in our late postmodern times, the desire of hypertexuality, and the ‘fetishistic’ attitude of connecting ‘everything’ may lead to a forced and perhaps inappropriate use of references.
Therefore why is Tiresias’ myth commonly used to refer to the figure of the transgender? Just because he is a transgender character in antiquity? As we have seen, Tiresias did not even choose to be transformed; it was an imposition of the Greek divinities.
It is problematic to associate the figure of Tiresias with the contemporary transsexual/ transgender. In our contemporary cultural landscape, the myth of Tiresias continues to be reread, reinterpreted and re-proposed. Surely, T.S. Eliot in the Fire Sermon of the Waste Land makes Tiresias one of the strongest and most disturbing presences within the poem. He uses stark and ‘violent’ words to describe his presence as we can read in the epigraph at the beginning of the paragraph.
During the post-war artistic production we find another striking representation of the myth. This time the artist in question is the Russian-born painter Mark Rothko.
The work of art Tiresias was painted in 1944, it successfully symbolizes the fusing of the sexes and man’s breaking into woman’s secret realm. The painting combines composite elements, which evoke the myth’s experience, without actually elucidating his mysterious figure. Here too graphic and chromatic refinements subtly convey the myths meaning. The gradation of cold into warm tones is striking; the complementary radiating structures express the ideal of androgyny by revealing severe and angular features. The enlarged head’s single eye, composed by two circles, stands for the blinding which is the punishment assigned to Tiresias. There are endless resonances in Tiresias, as there seem to have been too in another painting of this same period, such as in Oedipus. Indeed, just like Oedipus, Tiresias breaks down barriers, transgresses sexual limits, and in consequence is cast out from society. The two figures are wanderers with too much knowledge, and as such they reflect the artist, who puts himself at risk by exploring unknown territories such as the other sex, the unconscious and violent passions. In other words, in Rothko’s representation of Tiresias we understand transgression to normativity as gift destined to the chosen few, as a second sight: seeing with the mind and the spirit.
In contemporary cinematographic expression we find Tiresias in the latest film released by the French enfant terrible director Bonello. In this film the figure of the ancient prophet is embodied in the character of an algid Brazilian transsexual who lives in the banlieu of Paris. (S)he will be the object of a morbid and obsessive love of a mysterious priest, in an extreme attempt to possess her he will kidnap her. Without the daily intake of hormones Tiresias, kept in the hideout, sees that her body is slowly reacquiring the original features and her beauty seems to change into an indefinable state of monstrosity. (S)he is more and more in between the sexes, he is going through a second metamorphoses just like in the ancient myth. The priest, the lover-kidnapper is confused and lost, he then violently blinds her with a knife and the throws the blinded transsexual in the woods. The body of Tiresias, once young god of beauty now is portrayed in a stark, rainy woods dumped there to die. But Tiresias survives, albeit without vision. Soon after being taken in by a kind couple, she has predicted the fate of various folk in the small village where she was taken. Like in the myth, the postmodern Tiresias, the Brazilian transsexual, after loosing her sight she gains special powers, she can now foretell the future.
In this paper, the analysis concerns the discussion of the complexity of these ‘postmodern Tiresiases’ by following a journey through their contemporary representation within the arts.
[1] Ovid, Metamorphoses, Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1998, p.327-335
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