The dead press in on the blood-pit, hungry, wailing, blackened eyes fixed on the warm offering. Then a movement in the crowd. Tiresias comes through the mass parting them unhindered. Proud, ancient, blind. The golden staff in his hand is the sign that he is not like the others here. He alone keeps his mind among the shades without drinking. He drinks first by Odysseus’s permission, lips and beard glistening dark, and gives the great prophecy. The staff is small in the telling but it is the badge that lets him cross the crowd untouched. The dead defer. Even down here there are ranks.
Tiresias's Golden Staff
The blind prophet's mark of authority. He alone among the dead keeps his mind without drinking. He walks through the shades parting them.