Considering consequences “stronger than hanging,” Oidipous seems to be judging his own fate and crimes in relation to Iokaste’s and judging himself worthy of a more severe punishment. The wording is ambiguous, however, and allows the interpretation that the deeds done him by his parents deserve more than a hanging. In fact the mother who hanged herself did so in the knowledge that she had lived intimately with her own son making her children with him an abomination and the father also received more; he was slain by his son. The audience will judge that both Laios and Iokaste seem to have suffered precisely what Apollo foresaw, foretold, planned, and executed, and it is problematic that Oidipous takes no account of this; he speaks as if he were the only judge, as if it were up to him to settle upon an appropriate punishment. In this respect he still regards his own deeds as he did when first he heard them foretold. The audience, by contrast, will have changed its view of the prophecies. Where they were given as instructions, upon whose execution depended the relationship between gods and mortals, to carry out which would therefore have demonstrated pious submission to the gods’ greater knowledge and powers, but since Oidipous refused his submission, the deeds of which they spoke were transformed into punishments–manifestations of divine justice and divine power. In answer to Oidipous’s rhetorical question, with what eyes one should look upon one’s misdeeds, the audience may supply an answer that differs from his: with the eyes of a god. For crimes against a god one must submit oneself to consequences dictated by the god. To take the punishment into one’s own hands (as Iokaste and Oidipous both have done) only calls for additional punishment. [Dnc] [Mip] [Md] [Aj] [Mw]