Two of the words in this clause repeat words he earlier reported having received from Apollo at Delphi: φύς echoes φυτεύσαντος (l. 793) and χρῆν echoes χρείει (l. 791) and χρῆναι (l. 995). His words advertise to the audience the fact that he has been shown by the god to have done what the god told him he must do while he himself still fails to see this onnection, for despite his words, his mind is not in fact recalling the god’s prophecy and marveling at the precision of its realization. Indeed, the necessity to which he presently refers is precisely the opposite of the necessity with which the god himself was complying. Apollo instructed Laios not to have intercourse with his wife; it was necessary that they not conceive a child. In that sense, Oidipous’s statement is perfectly accurate: his getting was prohibited; he should not have been born (as the herdsman has just wished for himself). But this is not what he seems to mean. Rather, he has found his parentage to be placed in the wrong couple; it is as though a terrible accident has befallen him. This view is entirely understandable—there is no point in imagining that he had never been born, but it fails to appreciate the bigger picture, according to which his begetting was no accident but an act of disobedience to the god. The circumstances of his conception cannot be ignored; they have enormous implications. Indeed, they impose on the god a necessity to see to it that the child kill his father. This was perhaps what the god was beginning to communicate to Oidipous at Delphi, when he began to draw a distinction between the man who raised Oidipous as his son and the one whose seed gave Oidipous life. The word meaning “beget” is thus imbued with far more meaning than Oidipous realizes, and the audience may now be able to attribute his deficient understanding to his own decision to break off the interview with the Pythia. The word meaning “not necessary” makes Oidipous’s fault even clearer; he is expressing the idea that his parentage has turned out in the worst possible way for him. He is giving no thought at all to the necessity to which the god tried to call his attention at Delphi and which the god has consequently been forced to realize not only without Oidipous’s cooperation but against Oidipous’s determined resistance. The upshot has proven to be even worse than it might otherwise have been, for Oidipous has alienated the god, turning him into an adversary to whom he must be made to succumb. The original necessity that Laios refrain from intercourse with Iokaste was increased by their disobedience to become a necessity that Laios fall victim to their child, and the child’s refusal willingly to participate in this necessity transformed it into the necessity that he become his father’s murderer, his mother’s husband, and himself the begetter of yet another generation of mortals who will extend the chain of necessities. Each act of disobedience or resistance deepens and perpetuates the woe. To bring this to an end requires of the new generation that it approach Delphi for instruction, make absolutely certain that it understands what the god demands of it, and follow the god’s instructions with the utmost scrupulousness. [Mw] [Da] [Dnc]