That “bridegroom” is not a term that Delphi reportedly used in answer to Oidipous’s relationship with his mother strongly suggests that this is not what the god had in mind for them; rather, they were to be reunited. Apollo was prepared to guide Oidipous to a salubrious resolution to the problems created by Laios’ disobedience. [P] What has made it appropriate for people to say Oidipous was “bridegroom” to the woman who bore him is Oidipous’s own decision to take matters into his own hands, to eschew further direction from the Pythia and go it alone. His first decision was to avoid Corinth; that put him on the path to Thebes, where he was not only reunited with his mother, but married to her, precisely as he took the Pythia’s words to predict. It is not, then, the divine message that is delivered through prophecy that determines what must happen, but how that message is understood. The success of communication between gods and mortals depends as much, or perhaps more, upon the mortal partner as upon the god, for the prophetic institution at Delphi incorporates the possibility for disambiguation by allowing for a series of questions to be posed (as modeled by the exchange between Oidipous and Kreon early in this play, ll. 86-113). [Dnp] [Mipd]