Oidipous’s refusal to look upon men with right-seeing eyes now that he has shown himself to be defiled will prompt the audience to recall Teiresias’s earlier charge that he was not seeing aright (l. 413) and so to realize that Oidipous has never seen things in their proper light. As he is capable now, but refuses, so it would seem that he was capable then, too, but refused. [Md] [Mpei] It seems that if Oidipous cannot see men and other matters on his own terms, then he will not see them at all. The problem is that physical blinding cannot prevent understanding; he cannot blind himself to the unbearable truth that he has polluted the very people he meant to lead to health and wellbeing, just as he killed the man he meant not to kill and married the woman whom he meant not to marry. Since pollution is a religious phenomenon, the audience can further infer that facing up to his own limitations would entail acknowledging the gods’ superiority, and that appears to be what his impulse to sensory deprivation is meant to allow him to avoid. It is ironic that he is incapable of avoiding recognition of his own limitations. [P] [Ap] [Mp]