I'm reading the play Oedipus and I was wondering if someone here was willing to explain something to me, better than my teacher did, in the play, there is a blind seer, who predicts the future through the flight of birds. How is that possible if he is blind? And if you hadn't read Oedipus Rex it is funny. And disgusting.
The blind seer is Tiresias. Mythologically speaking, there are a few different stories about him understanding birds, the one I recall best was that he was blinded by Athena, after seeing her naked, but after reconciliation through his mother (a nymph) Athena gave him exceptional hearing, the ability to comprehend the sounds of birds and to see the future. My understanding is that those last two were separate powers, but Sophocles conflated them.
