The Corinthian’s statement that he gave Oidipous to Polybos as a gift is awkwardly worded and incomplete, and given the audience’s awareness of Apollo’s capacity to speak through any mortal, it may read thehis statement in two ways beyond the one the Corinthian intends: Apollo is declaring that it was really he, not the Corinthian, who gave the swollen-footed infant into Polybos’s hands, or the Corinthian is aware that he was acting for the god and he is adjusting his language to express this relationship as accurately as possible. It is difficult to distinguish between these alternatives. The significant factor is whether the Corinthian understands that his action served Apollo. As the audience now understands the event of the infant’s salvation, the Corinthian, the King of Corinth, and the infant were all necessary to the god’s project of realizing his own prophecy requiring Laios to be killed at the hands of the child born to him and his wife. That the god’s complex action is here termed a “gift” should not be lost on the audience: the god acts not at all out of cruelty, but in a complex effort to satisfy many needs. [Gd] [Apcm] [Apam] [Apao] [Ad]