Teiresias
Quote 1
TEIRESIAS
How far good counsel is the best of goods?
CREON
True, as unwisdom is the worst of ills.
TEIRESIAS
Thou art infected with that ill thyself.
CREON
I will not bandy insults with thee, seer.
TEIRESIAS
And yet thou say'st my prophesies are frauds.
CREON
Prophets are all a money-getting tribe.
TEIRESIAS
And kings are all a lucre-loving race.
CREON
Dost know at whom thou glancest, me thy lord?
TEIRESIAS
Lord of the State and savior, thanks to me. (1050-1058)
Having remarked just moments before that Teiresias’s prophecies are always true, Creon attacks the man anyway when offended by what the prophet has to say. Here, Creon displays the same rashness and temper that Oedipus did as king, and against the same man.