When Oidipous invokes the gods in pleading for the men of Thebes to hide him away, his words underscore the contradictoriness and confusion in his thinking, for to invoke the gods is to acknowledge their superiority, which Oidipous seems not yet to have done, but πρὸς θεῶν also carries the more literal meaning: “before the gods,” and so “in their sight.” Clearly, Oidipous has been in Apollo’s sight all his life, from infancy to the present moment, despite his own best efforts to hide himself away by taking flight at night and setting his course in an altogether new direction. That wish to escape divine control and observation accords with his present wish above all to be removed from sight, separated from the scene of his ignominious behavior. The audience knows, however, that it is that very wish to escape the eyes of gods and men that has led to the performance of those deeds and the attendant ignominy he so wished to avoid. Now he is to be ignominious not only in the sight of gods and men, but even of himself. It is this that has just prompted him to stab out his own eyes, for he could not bear to see the looks in the eyes of his parents or the citizens of Thebes. Realizing such escape from judgment to be impossible, he should act rather to avoid Apollo’s condemnation. [Mpea] [Md] [Aj]