Oidipous’s request may bear upon the burial of his wife and mother, but he refers to her only by the definite article, thereby avoiding specification of the category to which she belongs. Indeed, he seems not to want to give her any further thought, for he leaves it to Kreon to arrange her funeral, ordering him to “set it” (θοῦ) as he wishes. The middle voice adds to the impression that he is instructing Kreon to act on his own behalf. Kreon’s previous comments have made it plain, however, that he is thinking not of his own preferences but the good of the city, which in his judgment requires consultation at Delphi to disambiguate the instructions he recently obtained there. [Mg] [Mipd] The city’s wellbeing depends in his view upon ascertaining the god’s preferences and then complying with them. [Mw] Oidipous’s imperative thus wrongly assumes first, that he is still in a position to give orders, and second, that Kreon, like Oidipous, will see fit to act according to his own best judgment. At one moment treating Kreon as his ruler, at another supplicating him as a god, and then peremptorily instructing him to act according to his own judgment, Oidipous seems to have lost his moorings in the world of social relations. He has gotten so lost that he cannot appreciate the fact that he was directed to his present woes by taking the stars as the compass by which to navigate his life. [Mpea] In view of Oidipous’s confusion, Kreon’s insistence upon consulting the god seems a wise course. Indeed, the matter of proper burial, as an audience familiar with Sophocles’ Antigone will have known, can have profound implications. Might the audience have thought also of the speech Pericles gave to commemorate Athenian losses and gin up Athenian commitment to the war effort) after the first season of warfare? [Md] [Mg] [Gt-as]