In Oedipus Rex, Why does Teiresias does not wish to tell Oedipus what he knows is true?

Teiresias is one of a series of characters called upon by
Oedipus to reveal information about the person responsible for the cause of the plagues
troubling Thebes, and he, like others, is distinguished by a profound reluctance to
reveal the information that he has. In his silence, Teiresias forces us to confront the
somewhat troubling nature of the truth:

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How dreadful knowledge of the truth can
be

When there's no help in truth! I knew this
well.

But made myself forget. I should not have
come.

In a sense, we can
admire Teiresias for not wishing to divulge what he knows - as he says, if he did, the
knowledge would no longer be his "misery," it would be the "misery" of Oedipus and of
Thebes. It is clear that he wishes to be silent to spare Oedipus from the terrible fate
of self-knowledge that he knows would completely destroy him and his family. You might
want to re-read the speeches of Teiresias in this section of the play to see how he
tries to warn Oedipus about the dangers of the truth that he so desperately craves - yet
more examples of dramatic irony in this incredible
play.

Teiresias, a blind prophet and servant of Apollo,
twice was asked by Oedipus to come to the palace to discuss the crisis in Thebes. In the
first act of the play he finally appears, revealing the reasons for the city's
devastation, knowledge that he is reluctant to reveal to Oedipus for fear of making him
miserable. Oedipus, feeling himself to be betrayed by the prophet's resistance, verbally
abuses Teiresias ("You sightless, witless, senseless, mad old man!" ) and accuses him of
working on behalf of the "usurper" Creon.

Reluctantly,
Teiresias tells Oedipus that he should not mock him so quickly; in a famous moment of
foreshadowing, he tells the king that it is he who is blind: "But I say that you, with
both your eyes, are blind:/You cannot see the wretchedness of your life,/Nor in whose
house you live, no, nor with whom." Significantly, Teiresias is also the first character
in the play to question Oedipus's assumption that he knows his parentage and to tell him
that he has committed atrocities that he does not yet know are his own. He tells Oedipus
that he will become blind and poor, that Oedipus is himself Laius's murderer, and that
he will learn that he has fathered children with his mother. While Teiresias's presence
on stage is brief, as a prophet representing the god Apollo he remains one of the most
powerful characters in the play; in addition, the Athenian audience would have
recognized him from Homeric mythology (inThe Odyssey the title
character must go down into the underworld to gain information from the dead
prophet).