In suggesting that the townspeople put him to death (φονεύσατ᾽) Oidipous uses a form of the same word that he first used when quoting what the Oracle told him he was to become (φονεὺς; l. 793) and the word that Kreon quoted the god as having used in regard to the removal of Thebes’ pollution by requiting murder with death (φόνῳ φόνον πάλιν / λυόντας; ll. 100-1). In this instance of the word’s use it is clear, however, that Oidipous is not instructing the people to “murder” but “execute” him, and this will prompt the audience to recognize that Delphic Apollo might have used the word in just that way; he was instructing Oidipous precisely as Oidipous now instructs the townspeople to execute one whose actions justify the penalty of death. At Delphi he failed even to consider this meaning, perhaps because he misinterpreted the prophecy as a prediction rather than an instruction, or perhaps because he presumed his father to be Polybos, a man whom he could not possibly take to be deserving of punishment. This again makes apparent something that Oidipous himself cannot see; he sets his own judgment above that of a god. It is not the killing of his father that makes him a pollution (μίασμα; l. 97), but his uncritical presumption of his own superiority. It is this presumption of which the city must be purified. [Mpea] [Md] [Aj] [Dnc]