Acknowledging that Laios was the child’s father, the herdsman creates yet another opening for doubt by interjecting that the baby was “said to be” (ἐκλήιζεθ᾽) his child. This leads to his suggestion that yet another witness might be questioned: Iokaste. Oidipous’s apparent commitment to precision and faith in the potential for discovery through the questioning of additional witnesses seems now to make a mockery of his values, his procedures, and the civic institutions with which those procedures are associated. Or it may be the god who is mocking these things by speaking through the herdsman, whose sentence suggestively identifies Iokaste both as the child’s mother and “your wife.” Is the herdsman providing for delay or pointing toward the relationship? Does he make a Freudian slip? Surely the herdsman would be horrified by the implications of his own words; the god appears to be toying with both speaker and hearer. Indeed, saying that she has just now “gone in” will remind both Oidipous and the audience that she left the stage in a state of great agitation. She can now be presumed to have been avoiding subjection to the very question that the herdsman is deflecting to her after himself having avoided it all these years. Knowing that she will hang herself, the audience might suppose that her death could be intended to block Oidipous’s confirmation of parricide and incest and to relieve her of having to confront her husband and son with the fact that Laios’ killing, their marriage, their children, and their rule over Thebes have all been built around the futile endeavor of defeating prophecy. This endeavor has produced one abomination after another. [Gd] [Mpea] [P] [Mip]