Now knowing Oidipous to be both son and husband, when Iokaste begs him to halt his investigation, she appears to be thinking more of him than herself. She accepts her own suffering but hopes to prevent his. Knowing that this effort is also doomed to fail, the audience can see how the contamination passes from one generation to another, not through birth and not through lack of love or concern, but because succeeding generations pass their errors down. [Mpea] The error that pollutes Thebes is the refusal of generations of its rulers to obey the god’s instruction and the belief that the prophesied consequences can be avoided. The three aspects of prophecy, instruction and threat of consequences, and prediction are made available through three interpretations of the same statement, for that which is meant by the god as an instruction (“it is necessary that you be your father’s killer”) also expresses the punishment that the god will exact for failure to obey (you will be made to murder your father) and predicts that the event will happen either way. The action itself can be interpreted in two lights: compliance with the god’s instruction or punishment for failure to comply with the instruction. It is not, then, the act per se that determines piety or impiety but the spirit in which the act is undertaken. [Md] Oidipous must kill Laos. This is a fact over which the god himself, having prophesied it, has no control. [Dn] Oidipous may perform the action in compliance with or despite his resistance to the god’s instruction. This makes it clear how important it is correctly to discern the nature of an oracular utterance as a combination of instruction, threat, and prediction. By correctly recognizing the performative aspect of the god’s speech as an expression of the god’s will and then complying with it, one makes oneself an ally of the god; one secures oneself against κακία. [Mip] [P]