"Tiresias Strikes Copulating Snakes" Print

"According to Eustathius, Tiresias was originally a woman who promised Apollo her favours in exchange for musical lessons, only to reject him afterwards. She was turned by Apollo into a man, then again a woman under unclear circumstances, then a man by the offended Hera, then into a woman by Zeus. She becomes a man once again after an encounter with the Muses, until finally Aphrodite turns him into a woman again and then into a mouse."

“One day, the young Tiresias saw two serpents mating … For reasons perhaps known only to himself, Tiresias took exception to this act of herpetic copulation, and hit the snakes with his staff. For some reason, because he wounded the serpents, Tiresias was transformed into a woman. But then, a few years later, when he came upon two other snakes doing the same as before, and on the same spot, he hit them, he was turned back into a man.

This act of snake-smiting gender-switching made Tiresias something of a celebrity among the gods …”

screen printed with dark purple ink on weighty, textured, off-white paper. size approximately 8.5 x 9 in.