If Oidipous thought he was asking a rhetorical question, the stranger’s answer, that Polybos is no blood relation, will ttake him by surprise. The audience, while it has long awaited this revelation, will itself be surprised by its source, for the myth has not prepared the audience for this turn, and it might feel some discomfort to find that, just like Oidipous, it can be taken by surprise. And how is a Corinthian to know the circumstances of Oidipous’s birth? Without myth or prophecy to guide it (in this play these are closely related), the audience is ignorant. [Mpei] [Gm] [Mi]