Mythos: A Retelling of the Myths of Ancient Greece

The two most celebrated seers of Greek myth were CASSANDRA and TIRESIAS. Cassandra was a Trojan prophetess whose curse was to be entirely accurate in her prognostications yet always just as entirely disbelieved. The Theban Tiresias underwent an equally stressed existence. Born male, he was turned female by Hera as a punishment for striking two mating snakes with a stick, something which annoyed her greatly at the time, for reasons best known to herself. After seven years of serving Hera as a priestess, Tiresias was returned to his original male form, only to be struck blind by Athena for looking on her naked while she bathed in the river.fn1 That is one story that explains his blindness, but I prefer the variant that tells how he was brought up to Olympus to arbitrate in a wager between Zeus and Hera. They had been arguing over which gender enjoyed sex the most. Since Tiresias, having been both male and female, was in a unique position to answer this question, it was agreed that his judgement would be final.

Tiresias declared that in his experience sex was nine times more enjoyable for females than males. This enraged Hera, who had bet Zeus that men got the most pleasure from the act. Perhaps she was basing her opinion on the inexhaustible libido of her husband and her own more moderate sex drive. For his pains Hera rewarded Tiresias by striking him blind. One god can never reverse the effects of another, so the best Zeus could do for Tiresias was to award him the compensatory faculty of second sight, the gift of prophecy.fn2

Narcissus

There was once a naiad called LIRIOPE, who coupled with the river god CEPHISSUS and gave birth to a son, NARCISSUS, whose beauty was so remarkable that she worried for his future. Liriope had seen enough of life to know that extreme beauty was an awful privilege, a dangerous attribute that could lead to dire and even fatal consequences. When Narcissus reached the age of fifteen and started to attract unwanted attentions, she decided to act.

‘We are going to Thebes,’ she told him, ‘to see Tiresias and have your fortune told.’

And so mother and son walked for two weeks all the way to Thebes and joined the queue to see the prophet that formed every morning outside the temple of Hera.

‘Although you are blind and cannot see my son,’ she explained to Tiresias when their turn came at last, ‘you may take my word for it that all who do see him are dazzled by his looks. No more beautiful mortal ever trod the earth.’

Narcissus blushed to his golden roots at this and shuffled his feet in an agony of embarrassment.

‘I know enough of the gods,’ continued Liriope, ‘to fear that such beauty might be more curse than blessing. The world knows what happened to Ganymede, to Adonis, Tithonus, Hyacinth and all those other boys far less beautiful than my son. So I would have you tell me, great seer, if Narcissus will live a long and happy life. Is it his moira to reach a contented old age?fn3 You who are blind see all that is invisible to the rest of us. Tell me, I beg, my beloved son’s destiny.’

Tiresias put out his hands and traced the outlines of Narcissus’s face.

‘Fear not,’ he said. ‘So long as he fails to recognize himself, Narcissus will live a long and happy life.’

Liriope laughed aloud. ‘So long as he fails to recognize himself!’ Such a strange pronouncement could have no serious application. How can anyone recognize themselves?

Echo

We leave Liriope joyfully thanking Tiresias at the temple of Hera in Thebes and travel a short distance over to the foothills of Mount Helicon, where the streams and meadows outside the township of Thespiae were filled with the comeliest nymphs in all Greece. So comely that they often received visitations from Zeus himself, whose weakness for a comely nymph we have already noted.

The oread ECHO was not the least comely of these, but she did have one personality trait which caused Zeus and other potential suitors to be wary of her – she was the most tremendous talker. A compound of village gossip, nosy neighbour and over-solicitous best friend, Echo found it impossible to hold her tongue. There was nothing malicious about her prattling, indeed she often went out of her way to speak up for her friends, to cover for them, praise them and paint them in the best light. There was an element of vanity here, for she had a lovely voice, pretty in both speech and song. Like many people gifted with a mellifluous tongue, she loved to exercise it. She was protected to some extent by the goddess Aphrodite who admired her singing, which was always in praise of love. In short, Echo was a romantic. Her detractors might call her sentimental and even slushy, mushy and gushy, but they could not deny her good intentions and fullness of heart.