The significance of the prophecy’s residual ambiguity is made evident by Oidipous’s own words, for the form of indirect discourse in his speech (“[t]he father-slayer, unholy man—me!—to slay”) leaves it unclear whether μ᾽ (me) is to be the subject or object of the verb in the infinitive. Thus, where he means to say that it is absolutely clear that the god instructs Kreon “to slay me, the unholy man, for killing my father,” his words can also be construed as follows: The god’s speech was absolutely clear–“that the murderous father, impious man, I must kill.” Regarded in light of the prophecy given Oidipous when he went in person to Delphi, the second formulation is the better of the two: Oidipous was required to kill his father for his impiety, which was expressed first by his disregard for the god’s instruction that he abstain from sex with his wife and then by his determination to nullify the god’s threat by killing his son. [P] [Aj] The reversibility of subject and object in this clause permits of another interpretation of “unholy man,” for this description applies not only to Laios for his past transgressions, but to Oidipous’s future transgressions. Oidipous had not yet, when he went to Delphi, exhibited his own impiety, but he would soon commit regicide, parricide, and incest, all in consequence of his impulse, exactly like that of his father, to negate prophecy and the power of the god to realize it. [Md] [Mp] [Ap] Apollo seems now, through double entendre, to indicate that impiety begins prior to action with the mortal subject’s impulses, preferences, attitudes, and beliefs. Parricide and incest are thus in fact only symptoms of impiety. Taking them not for signs but for the thing itself is a misconstrual of which Oidipous (joined by many subsequent readers) is still guilty. [Mpea] It is terribly ironic, then, that he should insist upon receiving the death penalty, for this decision is premised on acceptance of his potential to serve as a sacrifice for the communal good. He is willing to suffer an undeserved death if it will free the community of blight, and yet he was unwilling to kill his father, an “unholy man,” for the same cause. This diminishes his present piety; it is in fact an instance of impiety, for it makes the gods out to be cruel. [Ad] A distinction must be made between a genuine piety that may eventually bring an end to the punishing effects of pollution by trusting in the gods sufficiently to seek and follow their instruction and a seeming piety that grudgingly acknowledges the gods’ superiority while making them out to be intolerably unjust. [Dnc] The audience can see ever more clearly that true piety demands more than allowing the god to provide information to be used as one sees fit. It demands requesting the god’s instruction, how to act in a situation that one does not fully understand. It means yielding to the god by doing what the god sets forth even when one does not see the justice or necessity for such action. It means working with the god to resolve any ambiguity that may creep into the instructions through the oracular procedure. Not only does the problem of ambiguity resulting from indirect discourse (as in this passage) require that man and god work together to achieve success, it guarantees that freedom of human agency cannot be curbed. Pious action does not, then, hinge simply upon one’s willingness to yield one’s freedom to the god; it hinges upon the development of a perspicacity broad enough to recognize in the Oracle an opportunity for the display of genuine wisdom, namely: the capacity for determining when it is in the best interest of all to submit to divine guidance, the capacity for discerning possible ambiguities in the god’s instructions, and the capacity for seeking clarification. [Da]