And yet there’s no story from Thebes that doesn’t include Tiresias, the blind soothsayer. The sorrows of Oedipus began shortly after this conversation—which is to say, his eyes were opened and then, in dread, he obliterated them.

OEDIPUS:
Old Tiresias, here in Thebes they say the gods blinded you out of jealousy. Is that what I should believe?

TIRESIAS:
Well, if I accepted that everything comes from them, I’d believe it too.

OEDIPUS:
What do you think?

TIRESIAS:
I think we talk too much about the gods. When it comes to bad luck, being blind isn’t that different from being alive. Things go wrong when it’s their time to go wrong.

OEDIPUS:
So what are these gods playing at?

TIRESIAS:
The world was here before they were. It already existed, filling space, bleeding, and delighting—it was the only god before time was born. Things themselves ruled then. Things happened. But now, it’s all by virtue of the gods, and so everything is made of words, illusion, and threats. The gods make trouble—dangling things and then ripping them away. Don’t touch things. Don’t change things. They got here too late.

OEDIPUS:
Only a priest, like you, would say that?

TIRESIAS:
If I didn’t know that much, I wouldn’t be a priest. Think of a boy swimming in the Asopus. It’s a summer morning. The boy climbs out of the water, happy, so he plunges back in. Again and again, he dives back into the water. Then, he hits it wrong and drowns. What do the gods have to do with that? Do we blame the gods for his death? Or thank them for his happiness? Neither. Something happened—good or bad—and it has no name, so the gods name it.

OEDIPUS:
Giving something a name, explaining it, does that seem so trivial to you, Tiresias?

TIRESIAS:
You’re young, Oedipus, like the gods, and like them, you explain things by naming them. You don’t know yet that there is rock under the dirt, or that the bluest sky is the emptiest. For someone like me, someone who can’t see, everything is a bump, nothing more.

OEDIPUS:
But you’ve followed the gods your whole life. The changing seasons, human pleasures, human tragedy—all that has always been your concern. They tell stories about you as if you were a god. Some of the stories are so odd, so unusual, they must have meaning—like the one about the clouds in the sky.

TIRESIAS:
I’ve had quite a life. I’ve had such a life that every story I hear feels like my own. So, what do you think a cloudy sky means?

OEDIPUS:
A presence in the void…

TIRESIAS:
What is it about this story that makes you think it means something?

OEDIPUS:
Old Tiresias, have you always been like this?

TIRESIAS:
I hear you. There’s the story of me and the snakes, and how I was a woman for seven years. So, what do you think that story means?

OEDIPUS:
You’re the one it happened to, so you should know. And yet those are the sorts of things that don’t happen without gods.

TIRESIAS:
Is that what you think? Anything can happen. Nothing is extraordinary. At the time, I was repulsed by sex—I thought that sex poisoned my spirit, my well-being, my character. When I saw those two snakes copulating and writhing on the moss, I was filled with disgust. I poked them with my stick. Then, right after that, I was a woman. For years, my pride was forced into submission. The things of this world are rock, Oedipus.

OEDIPUS:
But is the female sex really that vile?

TIRESIAS:
Not in the least. Nothing would be vile if it weren’t for the gods. Sure, there are irritations, repulsions, and illusions, all of which disperse when you touch rock. In my case, the rock was the power of sex, its constancy, its omnipresence across all forms and transformations. From man to woman and then back again (seven years after seeing those two snakes). Whatever my spirit didn’t want to face was forced on me or turned into lust. The arrogant man and the ravaged woman, liberated like a woman and abject like a man. In the end I knew everything about sex: as a man I sought men and as a woman I sought women.

OEDIPUS:
So you see, the gods did teach you something.

TIRESIAS:
There is no god of sex. I’m telling you, it’s the rock. A lot of gods are wild animals, but the snake is the most ancient. When it flattens to the ground, it represents sex. There is life and death in the snake. What god can incarnate and comprise so much?

OEDIPUS:
But you—you just said—

TIRESIAS:
Tiresias is old and isn’t a god. When he was young, he didn’t pay attention. Sex is foggy and always equivocal. It’s a half that feels like a whole. Man embodies it, inhabiting it like a strong swimmer in the water—but in the meantime, he’s aged, he’s touched the rock. At the end there’s this idea, this lingering illusion, that the other sex has been satisfied. Well, don’t believe it. I know it’s futile for everyone.

OEDIPUS:
It’s not easy to argue with what you say. It’s not for nothing your story begins with snakes. But it also begins with disgust and the nuisance of sex. And what would you tell a real man who swears he’s not disgusted?

TIRESIAS:
That he’s not a real man—he’s still a child.

OEDIPUS:
But I too have had encounters on the road to Thebes. One time I was talking about man—his journey from birth to death—and we touched the rock too. After that, I became a husband, and father, and king of Thebes. There’s nothing ambiguous or futile about my life.

TIRESIAS:
You’re not the only one, Oedipus, who thinks that. But the rock isn’t touched by words. May the gods protect you. I can talk to you too, but I am old. Only the blind know darkness. I feel like I live outside of time and have always been alive, and I no longer believe in days. There’s also something in me that feels pleasure and bleeds.

OEDIPUS:
You said this something was a god. Why won’t you try praying to him, dear Tiresias?

TIRESIAS:
Everyone prays to some kind of god, but what happens is unnamable. What does the boy drowning on a summer morning know of the gods? What’s the use of praying? There is a big snake for every day of life, flattening to the ground and watching. Did you ever wonder, Oedipus, why the unhappy ones go blind as they age?

OEDIPUS:
I pray to the gods that doesn’t happen to me.

This is an excerpt from The Leucothea Dialogues, forthcoming in Minna Zallman Proctor’s translation from the Italian on October 14, 2025, from Archipelago Books.