By introducing the months as his siblings Oidipous propounds the view that birth and character are determined by the cycling of the moon through the astrological stations of the year: chance. Like the mention of mother, the mention of siblings will bring to the audience’s mind the incestuous relations for which he will be remembered. [Gd] By making chance his mothers and the constellations his siblings, Oidipous is claiming the capacity to escape from the determinative influence of biological parents and a biological family. This the audience knows to be impossible, at least in this context. Denying actual relations in favor of imaginary ones produces a universe polluted by incest, a network of forbidden relations. Just as incest collapses the distinctions between siblings, parents, and children, putting mortals on the same footing as all other elements of the universe collapses distinctions, such as the one between mortals and gods. Its awareness of the misery just ahead for Oidipous enables the audience to see the arrogance of espousing a philosophy that sets men equal to the planets and stars and thereby challenging the gods’ superiority. [Mpea] [P] [Mw]