TEIRESIAS arrives at the palace to tell Creon about terrible signs from the gods:
TEIRESIAS
You’ll know—once you hear the tokens of my art.
As I was sitting in my ancient place
receiving omens from the flights of birds
who all come there where I can hear them,
I note among those birds an unknown cry—
evil, unintelligible, angry screaming.
I knew that they were tearing at each other
with murderous claws. The noisy wings
revealed that all too well. I was afraid.
So right away up on the blazing altar
I set up burnt offerings. But Hephaestus
failed to shine out from the sacrifice—
dark slime poured out onto the embers,
oozing from the thighs, which smoked and spat,
bile was sprayed high up into the air,
and the melting thighs lost all the fat
which they’d been wrapped in. The rites had failed—
there was no prophecy revealed in them.
I learned that from this boy, who is my guide,
as I guide other men. Our state is sick—
your policies have done this. In the city
our altars and our hearths have been defiled,
all of them, with rotting flesh brought there
by birds and dogs from Oedipus’ son,
who lies there miserably dead. The gods
no longer will accept our sacrifice,
our prayers, our thigh bones burned in fire.
No bird will shriek out a clear sign to us,
for they have gorged themselves on fat and blood
from a man who’s dead.
Why did TEIRESIAS’ rites fail—why was there was no prophecy revealed in them?
What happened when he tried to send up his offerings?
Who and what was the cause?
1 answer