Iokaste’s mention of seeds and an ill-conceived labor prompts the audience to associate Iokaste’s improper family relations and failed philosophy with the blight on agricultural and human productivity affecting the entire town. [Gd] [Mpea] [Mw] Though the plague in Athens is of a different nature, the parallel is sufficient to warrant transfer of implications from Thebes to Athens. [Gt-a] The Athenian audience will find itself compelled to consider that the plague in its own city may stem from beliefs and attitudes that it shares with Iokaste. It will find that the complexity of the complementary prophecies given Laios, Iokaste, and Oidipous is matched by the complexity of the prophecy given the Spartans (and so, implicitly, Athens) that Sparta would defeat Athens and have the god’s unasked aid in doing so. The god’s intervention is an explicit aspect of this prophecy, and indeed, it can be understood to be an aspect implicit to all prophecies issued in his name. Having made a prophecy, the god can be relied upon to make good on it. Should the prophecy’s recipient work towards its fulfillment, the god can be counted upon to lend support. Should the prophecy’s recipient work against its realization, the god can be depended upon to use his powers to defeat the challenge and make an example of its failure. This is the foundation of the justice system upheld by Apollo. [Ad] [Apc] [Apa] [Aj] (1250) When Iokaste bemoans the bed in terms of its sordid service, she signals her awakening recognition that it bears the inscription of the god’s involvement in her life (cf. m1243). The god’s writing is a palimpsest: as double entendre uses human speech as a vehicle for the god’s oral communication, the palimpsest uses mortal interaction with a physical object as a vehicle for non-verbal communication. In this instance, and so perhaps in many or all, non-verbal communication is accompanied by pain. Ignoring verbal communication with the god leads to the god’s communicating more painfully in a non-verbal medium. The god’s writing is read through pain. [Apco] [Mw]