In wishing Kreon a deity who watches better over him than the one who has been watching over Oidipous, Oidipous implicitly takes umbrage with Apollo, whom he supposes to be negligent or perhaps even malevolent. The audience will find this complaint unjust; Apollo did everything in his power to enlist Oidipous as an ally in a task that nobody else could perform. Knowing that Oidipous was ignorant of the fact that the god himself was under constraint to ensure that Laios die at Oidipous’s hands, Apollo created an opportunity to communicate this to him via an institutional medium made available for just such an occasion. But success required Oidipous’s sensitivity to the constraints of communication via that medium. For Oidipous to judge Apollo to be malevolent or negligent, he must ignore both the positive role the god has played in his life and the role the god required for him to play in addressing the necessity arising from his parents’ refusal to submit to a god’s instruction. He denies the god any role in his life other than one he would assign the god. His wish for Kreon’s happines arrogates to himself the prerogative for setting standards by which to apportion lots of happiness and unhappiness. Were Oidipous a god, he would reward Kreon for treating him with respect and sensitivity. Yet this is in fact precisely how the god does behave; he rewards cooperation and punishes disrespect and insensitivity towards himself and the necessities of which he is aware and to which even he must bow. It is Apollo’s justified and necessary punishment that Oidipous mistakes for malevolence. Clearly, it is not for men to judge the gods’ treatment of them in terms of their respect for and sensitivity to mortal needs, but rather for the gods to judge men in terms of their respect for and sensitivity to divine perceptions and prerogatives. The audience may thus revise Oidipous’s wish to read as follows: “May you prosper by showing the gods watching over you on your road more respect than I have shown the one watching me on mine.” [P] [Dnc] [Dnp] [Aj] [Mw]