Estranha gárgula do Mosteiro da Batalha que há séculos lá permanece sem que o seu segredo seja desvendado – um velho rei barbado que num gesto brutal afasta a capa que o cobre e desvenda um peito de menina escondido sob as vestes.
Hermafrodita primordial, talvez representasse os sentidos de transmutação dos opostos – o nigredo da renovação do Tempo –.
O seu ar trágico lembra-nos também o mito do velho e patético adivinho Tirésias, condenado a carregar eternamente o seu duplo feminino.
T.S. Eliot recorda-o no Waste Land e dá-lhe o papel de testemunha cega, onde convergem todos os passam todos os outros personagens
(…) At the violet hour, when the eyes and back
Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits
Like a taxi throbbing waiting,
I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,
Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see
At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives
Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast,
lights
Her stove, and lays out food in tins.
Out of the window perilously spread
Her drying combinations touched by the sun's last rays,
On the divan are piled (at night her bed)
Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.
I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest —
I too awaited the expected guest
He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,
A small house agent's clerk, with one bold stare,
One of the low on whom assurance sits
As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.
The time is now propitious, as he guesses,
The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,
Endeavours to engage her in caresses
Which still are unreproved, if undesired.
Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;
Exploring hands encounter no defence
His vanity requires no response,
And makes a welcome of indifference.
(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all
Enacted on this same divan or bed;
I who have sat by Thebes below the wall
And walked among the lowest of the dead.)
Bestows one final patronising kiss,
And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit (…)
