Tiresias

The blind seer of Thebes, whose prophetic sight outlasted seven generations of mortal lives. Apollodorus tells how he struck two coupling serpents on Mount Cyllene and was turned into a woman for seven years, then struck them again and became a man — and how Zeus and Hera, quarrelling over which sex enjoys love more, asked him to decide; he sided with Zeus, Hera blinded him in anger, and Zeus consoled him with long life and the art of prophecy (Apollodorus 3.6.7). Alone among the shades at the Nekyia, Persephone let him keep his wits, and he told Odysseus of the long homecoming ahead and of the gentle death that would come to him from the sea in old age (Homer *Odyssey* 11.90-151).

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