Where the witness could presumably still insist that he does not remember such an incident, throwing the question back at his interrogator suggests that he does indeed recall it but has determined that an answer cannot be productive. This would seem to confirm that he knows, indeed has always known, that Oidipous is the son of Iokaste and Laios and that Apollo has seen to the fulfillment of that prophecy in fear of which the royal couple gave him their infant son to destroy. He has lived his life determined to keep this knowledge to himself, and he sees no reason to abandon that decision now. But why? Is he unwilling to subject his royal masters to the pain of discovering that they are mother and son? Is he unwilling to subject Iokaste to the knowledge that she failed to thwart the prophecy? Is he unwilling to subject Thebes to the turmoil resulting from the destruction of its leading family? Is he unwilling to subject himself to the consequences of his disobedience? Is he unwilling to acknowledge that he had a hand in Laios’ death (many hands killed him), which he had the misfortune to witness? Is he unwilling to concede that he did nothing to prevent or end the incestuous marriage? Is he unwilling to acknowledge his share of responsibility for the contamination of Thebes through parricide and incest? Can he not countenance the notion that by all these commissions and omissions of action he has played a significant role in bringing upon this city a plague that has affected the fertility of crops and herds all the way to the boundary regions to which he himself has withdrawn? Any one of these may be sufficient to explain his determination to conceal the truth, but as the audience reviews them it will judge that none of them justifies his decision; rather, all make him complicit in the city’s woes and those of its ruling family. One thing that does seem clear; he does not recognize that in all of his actions and inactions, including the present moment with its decision, to say what he knows or keep quiet, he has served the god’s purpose. [Md] [Apamu] [Mpei