Agreeing that for Oidipous to have died as an infant accords with its will, the Chorus reveals that it, like Oidipous, is none the wiser for the suffering that it has endured or witnessed. [Mpei] Its comment points at the fact that, like Oidipous, its own judgments and preferences serve as primary criteria in determining its course of action. The people of Thebes conspicuously fail to interpret the signs of Apollo’s presence, speech, and intervention on their behalf. [Apc] [Apa] [Ad] In this the Chorus makes itself Oidipous’s counterpart and provides for the audience’s judgment that the citizenry may merit a punishment not unlike that meted out to its leadership. [Aj] Earlier the chorus had gone so far as to question its continued participation in the Athenian dramatic festival of Dionysos if Apollo was not to realize his prophecies and if he allowed mortals’ disregard for divinely-sponsored institutions to go unpunished (ll. 896 ff.). Now that Thebes has received the reassurance for which it called, it is doubly troubling that neither the Chorus nor the Athenians performing as chorus seemsnot only not to be satisfied with the display of divine power but to be incapable of recognizing that everything that has happened as a result of the shepherd’s actions has been for the benefit of all mortals. That the chorus’s collective blindness reflects on Athens as much as it does on Thebes should sting the Athenian audience to determine forthwith to stop making the same error. [Gt-a] [P]