Book 9
1
It’s difficult to tell now, Tiresias, whether you’re blind, as our eyes are all alike—empty, with nothing but sockets. Indeed, you can no longer tell which was Phineus, or which was Lynceus. Phineus was blind, Lynceus renowned for his sharpness of sight. But I do know you were a prophet, and the only person to have been both man and woman. I heard that from the poets. So, for heaven’s sake, tell me which life you found more pleasant—when you were a man, or a woman?
1
The woman’s life, Menippus, by a long way. It has fewer worries, and women have the mastery over men, and don’t have to fight in wars, or stand on the battlements, or argue in parliament, or be crossexamined in court.
2
Then you haven’t heard, Tiresias, what Euripides’ Medea Euripides, Medea, 11. 230-231 and 11. 250-251. said about women’s pitiable plight in having an unhappy lot, and having to endure intolerable suffering in childbirth? But tell me, now that I’m reminded of it by Medea’s lines from the play, did you ever have any children, when you were a woman, or did you remain barren and childless in that life?
2
Why do you ask that, Menippus?
2
It’s an easy enough question, Tiresias. Just answer, if it’s not too difficult.
2
I wasn’t barren, but I didn’t have any children.
2
That will suffice; I wanted to know if you had a womb.
2
Of course I did.
2
And in time your womb gradually disappeared, the woman’s place sealed up, your breasts subsided, you grew a male organ and produced a beard? Or was your change from woman to man sudden?
2
I don’t understand the object of your question, but it seems to me you don’t believe things happened like that.
2
Why shouldn’t I disbelieve such a story, Tiresias, rather than accept it like a dolt without examining whether its possible or not?
3
Then you don’t believe any of the other stories either, when you hear of women changing into birds or trees or beasts, as, for example, Aedon, or Daphne, or the daughter of Lycaon? Aedon became a nightingale, Daphne a laurel tree, and Callisto a bear.
