Oidipous now says he accepts the necessity of hearing what the herdsman has to say, but this is a very limited acceptance, for it recognizes an impersonal force, not a god. It must be apparent to the audience, however, that the events over which men cannot exercise control are those in which the god has a clear interest and on which he has, via prophecy, staked out a clear position. The mortal’s preference for an impersonal necessity over a personal divinity ignores prophecy and so eliminates that avenue of communication. Restoration of the possibility of communication then requires the deity to construct circumstances that force mortals to reconsider their views. The current effort, for example, seems to have begun with the plague, a circumstance for which mortal powers had no answer. That overcame Oidipous’s skepticism sufficiently to bring him straight back to Delphi, but to his skepticism he nevertheless continues tenaciously to cling. [Mw] [Apaon] [Mpea] [Md] [Mi]