Oidipous’s insistence upon protocols of forensic cross-examination has prompted the chastened witness to appeal with a question that resonates far beyond immediate circumstances: “In what respect . . . am I doing wrong?” In demanding a basis for Oidipous’s judgment he prompts the audience to frame a set of more specific questions: Is it wrong for him to withhold a destructively painful truth? Can he be blamed for his role in realizing the god’s aims? Was it wrong of him to pity the infant? How far is he implicated in Laios’ death—especially considering that this death was required and arranged by a god? And to what extent can he be held accountable for the plague on Thebes? His impulse to save the infant was both compassionate and served the god’s project; for that he should be praised. His impulse to self-preservation during the slaughter at the crossroads is not noble, but serves the god’s plan to see Laios dead at Oidipous’s hand, Oidipous and Iokaste married, and these truth later revealed. Upon his return to Thebes his silence about Oidipous’s identity and misleading testimony about the assault on Laios permit the city’s pollution, but prophecy had foreseen the spawning of “a race unbearable for men to see” (ll. 791-2), so again, if prophecy must be upheld, the Theban slave’s silence and lie were a necessity. Yet it can be seen that Oidipous, now himself acting at once as the god’s willing agent (in relation to detection of Laios’ killer), as the god’s unwitting agent (in relation to discovery of his own identity), and in complete disregard for the god and so as the god’s negating agent (insofar as he intends to prove himself a child of chance), nevertheless forges ahead in an endeavor that alone promises to return clarity to this conflict. Thus, the god’s project seems to promise to clear up the thoroughly ambivalent relationships to household, city, and gods in which both herdsman and Oidipous stand. [Ad] [Aj] [Mw] [Mp] [Md]