Having received confirmation that Iokaste gave the herdsman the child, Oidipous asks the herdsman to explain why she would do such a thing. His use of χρείας indicates his inference that she must have been under some compulsion; he is exploring her motives, and this invites the audience to review its own understanding of the pressures on Iokaste and the way in which she chooses to cope with them. In this instance Oidipous already knows as much as the audience does about the situation, for Iokaste has told him (ll. 716b-19). The χρεία about which Oidipous is asking was the prophecy that Laios’ fate was to die at the hands of a child born to him and Iokaste. The audience must be struck by the fact that Oidipous, who responded with vigor similar to hers when he received a similar prophecy, seems not to understand her decision. The difference must lie in the fact that in his view his motives were ethical; he was seeking to avoid parricide and incest while she acquiesced in the murder of her child: Oidipous himself. The audience may see it differently. Insofar as both are endeavoring to thwart prophecy they are equal, and their sleeping together in the same bed seems to reflect their togetherness in this regard. Indeed, the cluster of meanings surrounding the word χρεία includes “familiarity” and “intimacy” (LSJ IV). Oidipous might be heard to ask, “Due to what intimacy did Iokaste give up the child?” to which the audience would recognize that the answer lies in the sexual intimacy expressly forbidden husband and wife by Apollo. [Gd] It was their disregard for the god’s word that induced her to give up her child. The “necessity” of the infanticide, then, was something to which husband and wife gave birth when they chose to disregard the prohibition on intercourse. [Md] χρεία can also mean “use,” including especially the use of an oracle. Thus, Oidipous’s question can also be heard to mean, “Due to what use of an oracle?” The audience will readily answer: the ignored prohibition on intercourse. The couple’s disobedience subjected the god to the necessity of correction. Consultation has entailments: whenever the god issues instructions, it subjects both god and consulter to a new necessity that is neither impersonal nor one-sided. When mortals receive the god’s word, both parties are equally bound by it. [Dnc] This important consideration is something of which the god is aware and that he even tried to communicate to Oidipous when the latter was consulting him at Delphi, for he himself appears to have referred to necessity in the verbal form χρή (transformed to χρείη somewhere along the process of transmission by the Pythia and her priests to Oidipous and then to Iokaste; l. 791). That the god was acknowledging the necessity to which both he and Oidipous were subject suggests that he was not making a prediction but giving instruction; he was both advising Oidipous of the necessity of killing his father and warning him that he must act accordingly even if he abhorred it. The decision for Oidipous, then, was not whether to kill his father or try to avoid doing so, but to kill him in compliance with the god’s word and despite his own resistance to it. Just as his parents’ disregard for prophecy later made it seem necessary for them to kill their child, if Oidipous does not accept as necessity the instruction that he must kill his father, he will later find himself in circumstances where he has, of necessity but unwillingly, already killed him, and in the process alienated the god. His resistance makes of this particular parricide a crime of impiety. [P] Had he acted in accordance with the god’s instructions, the deed would have had an altogether different hue. Consequently, rather than relieving himself of the obligations undertaken when he consulted, Oidipous’s actions led to murdering his father, marrying his mother, and his city. The necessity of marriage to his mother was not, then, the god’s doing; it was brought about by Oidipous’s disregard for prophecy. From the moment that Oidipous heard the words of the god at Delphi he has believed that marriage with his mother is at issue, but at issue in fact was his compliance with a necessity about which the god was trying to inform him. The necessity of his marrying Iokaste was a consequence of his misinterpretation. The necessity with which he—and every consulter—needs to be concerned is to resolve at Delphi any possible ambiguities pertaining to the god’s instructions. [Dnp] Oidipous is clearly aware that the prophecy he received focused on the notion of necessity, for in his second account of the prophecy he used a synonym for χρή: δεῖ (l. 825). He nevertheless interprets a necessity revealed during a consultation at Delphi as the god’s perception or rhetoric; he sees it as binding neither on him nor on the god. Laios and Iokaste made this same error, and it could be made by anyone. To avoid it, the consulter must exercise great care to distinguish among a number of potential speech acts, such as: prohibition, warning, threat, prediction, revelation, encouragement, and instruction. Where the prophecy given Oidipous at Delphi appeared to him to be a prediction—you will murder your father, marry your mother, and bring forth children who are abominable in the sight of men—it may also be interpreted as revelation: your father is the man you kill; your mother is the woman you marry, or it may be interpreted as instruction; I require you to kill your father and to be brought together with your mother. Some mixture of these may also be possible: I require you to kill your father; to know your mother you must be reunited with her, but since you will not obey, you will bring forth children who are abominable in the sight of men. [Mipd] The prophecies given Laios and Iokaste could be interpreted as prohibition, threat, and prediction. Similarly, the prophecy given the Spartans can be interpreted as encouragement to Sparta and her allies, prediction for Sparta and Athens, warning to Athens, and even implicit encouragement to Athens to consult Delphi to seek the god’s instruction regarding what it is to say or do in relation to the war with the Peloponnesians. The range of possibilities underscores the fact that the burden of inquiry falls upon Athens. [Gt-a]