The forceful penetration of the woman’s inner chamber seems to reenact Oidipous’s first improper and unwanted entry into the “great harbor” (l. 1208) of his mother’s body. The violence best recalls Oidipous’s violent interaction with his father., they were necessary to Apollo. Since both the violence against Laios and the breaking of taboo with Iokaste were prophesied, the speaker’s assumption of divine direction not only to be correct but to be surprisingly insightful. This particular allows the audience to infer that the god is not simply causing action to occur so as to fulfill prophecies issued in his name, he is using Oidipous’s bodily motion and apparent state of mind as a way to communicate a complex message; he wants to draw attention to the fact of his presence and capacity to direct human movement. By drawing attention to his effort to communicate with mortals, he urges those present to give the utmost care to interpret every detail of this incident. In contrast to the great harbor, whose mouth is always open, the doors to Iokaste’s innermost chamber were bolted from the inside; they presented a blockage with which Oidipous had not previously met, requiring that he force his way in, bowing the doors until they cave in under the pressure of his assault. This vivid image of his ramming his way through the opening offers the audience a revised understanding of his return to his mother; it was violent and destructive where previously it was assumed to have been pleasurable and welcome. This latest entry and his reentry into Thebes stand at the beginning and end of his power, wealth, and status in this city. Apollo shaped both events, both of which also follow closely upon consultations with the god at Delphi. Thus, Delphi stands at the antipodes of Oidipous’s fateful journey and can be associated with the violence exhibited when he slew Laios at the beginning of this trajectory and repeated by his bashing in the doors to Iokaste’s room at its end. The speed and energy with which Oidipous arrived in Thebes, dispatched the Sphinx, and fell into Iokaste’s bed derived their impetus from the intensity of his recoil from Delphi. The force with which he now breaks through the doors of Iokaste’s room thus mirrors and expends the force (previously unrecognized) with which he broke out of the consultation chamber and took flight from the prophecy that he must kill father and marry mother. Oidipous’s stupendous successes and his abysmal failures prove to be two aspects of one unified movement. This confronts the audience with the paradox of the ultimately self-willed and self-directed man who nevertheless moves at every turn at a god’s direction and whose actions are bent by the god whenever necessary to fulfill the god’s will. This realization will give the audience pause to consider its own impetus to violence as a response to prophecy. It may view the force of its response as a gauge of the intensity of its belief that it must shape its own destiny, because circumstances are arranged only by the application of mortal energy to chance events. If Oidipous’s fate presages that of Athens, the assumptions upon which Athens is acting will prove illusory. It will eventually be seen that at the very moment when Athens appeared to achieve the pinnacle of success, the city had already begun its plunge into the deepest abyss. [Apamu] [Apcmu] [Dnc] [Dnp] [Mpea] [Mpei] [Gt-a]