Voluntarily inserting himself into a situation that others have failed properly to manage, Oidipous’s insertion of the word ἐγὼ seems to emphasize his self-reliance in contrast to Kreon and all Thebes. Just as Oidipous years ago took on the Sphinx singlehandedly and dispatched it, so he now expects singlehandedly to deal with this not altogether dissimilar problem. If, however, the incident of plague parallels the incident of the Sphinx, then the audience’s anticipation that he will soon discover himself bound up in the plague’s cause further suggests that his handling of the Sphinx may not have been as clear-cut as it may have presumed to be the case. This again raises the question whether perhaps in that instance, too, he may have been less successful, or less the agent, than he (and everyone else) thinks. So, where he sees himself everywhere as the source of solutions, the audience is beginning to see a cause of problems in the overconfidence bordering on arrogance. [Md] [Mpea] [Mw] Promising to shed light (φανῶ) on the invisible things that Kreon just attributed to the Sphinx, Oidipous’s speech seems rather to affirm that “with respect to those mysteries I will emerge into the light” as the culprit. Since his shedding light is to occur in a manner and with consequences that he does not at all anticipate, the audience will observe that it is Oidipous’s illusion that it is he who sheds the light. It seems, however, to be the prerogative of an unseen other to shed light, both literally and figuratively. [Ap]