Inquiring after Oidipous’s present suffering, the Chorus makes direct reference to σχολή, “respite,” by which it means a let-up in Oidipous’s frenzied outburst. Yet in terms just expressed by the staffperson, for many years since killing his father and marrying his mother Oidipous’s life has offered him a period of unbroken happiness. Oidipous is not in a period of cessation from his misery (κακοῦ), but for the first time is experiencing a brief moment in which to take note of what he has wrought. So resistant has he been to this awareness that only a god’s long-range planning and superhuman efforts have been able to overcome it. Thus, the question the Chorus poses suggests that the Athenian audience change its perspective on the intense suffering into which it has been plunged; rather than considering this a never-ending ordeal from which it craves release, it might look back on the long period of prosperity nascent with the seeds of destruction that have now germinated and consider that the city itself sowed them. The city’s present suffering presents it with an opportunity to recognize its errors and rectify them. [Aj] [Mw] [Mj]