Oidipous is apparently recalling that he promised to prosecute the criminal regardless of any special personal relationship to him (ll. 249-250). The audience knew then that that person would prove to be himself, and so it has turned out, and as Oidipous promised when he was ignorant of the murderer’s identity, he neither seeks special dispensation nor will he grant himself any. His integrity is marvelous. [Md] His declaration that the gods revealed him to be of Laios’ race fulfills two expectations: fulfillment of the Homeric myth, according to which the gods reveal Oidipous’s deeds, and fulfillment of Apollo’s obligation to answer Oidipous’s question regarding his parentage. [Gm] [Ap] [Ad] That Apollo was indeed both willing and able to answer him seems nevertheless to escape Oidipous’s notice. [Mpei] At the time when he put the question regarding his parents’ identity, the defiled family member was Laios, for whose disobedience to prophecy the god meant to impose the sanction he had threatened: death at the hands of the child born to him and Iokaste. Oidpous’s defilement arose with his flight from Delphi in an effort not to murder his father or be brought together in marriage with his mother—both misinterpretations of the god’s communication with him. [Mipd] Thus, the audience can trace Oidipous’s defilement back to the improper response to Delphi stemming from a false assumption about the god’s willingness to help him and a failure to appreciate the fact that even gods are subject to necessity, to comply with which they require mortal cooperation. [Dnc]