Traditions: Greek mythography, Apollodorus; Roman poetry, Ovid Motif: A seer’s changed sight follows an encounter with gods Connection verdict: Related figure with competing explanatory episodes Article status: Expanded Date: 2026-10-29
Summary
Apollodorus, Library 3.6.7, preserves accounts of Tiresias’s blindness and prophetic gift; Ovid, Metamorphoses 3, gives the dispute between Jupiter and Juno.
Read the two scenes
Tiresias appears in multiple mythic settings, and ancient texts do not all explain his blindness in the same way. Apollodorus reports variant causes, including an episode involving Athena. Ovid chooses the story in which Tiresias adjudicates a dispute between Jupiter and Juno after changing sex, and Juno takes his sight while Jupiter grants prophetic knowledge. A comparison should not splice these accounts into a falsely continuous biography. Their disagreement is a valuable record of how traditions use a familiar seer to think about seeing, knowing, and divine power.
What connects—and what does not
Apollodorus explicitly reports more than one explanation, including seeing Athena; Ovid develops the judgment about male and female experience.
The same seer is the connection, not proof that every etiological episode was once a single sequence.
Why read them side by side?
A famous figure can carry alternative explanations whose differences are themselves part of the tradition.
Sources and reading notes
- Apollodorus, Library 3.6.7 — Textual witness; verify the named section and edition.
- Ovid, Metamorphoses Book 3 — Public-domain edition; locate the named book or episode.
Research limit
A named parallel can establish literary reuse or related tradition; a general resemblance alone cannot prove borrowing. Linked editions and translations vary. Where a source is identified as secondary orientation, the comparison does not claim direct close reading of that tradition’s primary text.