The question that Oidipous now poses (οἶσθ᾽ἐφ᾽οἷς οὔν εἶμι) echoes both his own name and a question earlier posed by Teiresias: ἆρ᾽οἶσθ᾽ ἀφ᾽ ὧν εἶ; (“Do you even know from whom you are?” l. 415). [Gd] Leaving aside for a moment these echoes, the question itself can be interpreted in three ways: “Do you know on what terms I shall go?” “Do you know against whom I move?” and “Do you know upon how many [feet:] I travel?” Immediate answers are available to the last two alternatives: he moves against Apollo on two feet and a cane, a sign of two handicaps: the injury to his feet done him by his parents in their own efforts to counter the god and blindness resulting from his own false assumptions about the gods. [Mpea] Presuming that he means to ask if Kreon knows the terms on which he will leave the public arena, his question is rhetorical; he is not asking Kreon but telling him that he will leave only when Kreon has met his conditions. That he is imposing terms indicates that he has not fully accepted the removal of his decision-making power, nor does he take seriously Kreon’s commitment to obtain the god’s instructions pertaining to Oidipous’s treatment. [Md] But where Oidipous means his question rhetorically the audience can take it literally: Oidipous will be removed under conditions dictated by the god as an appropriate response to Oidipous’s actions and the attitudes that determined them. [Apa] [Aj] [Md] The echo of his name no longer advertises outstanding intelligence (“Foot-in-the-know”; it points rather to an incapacity to see his own limitations or the gods’ powers. [Mpei] In light of its bearing on the solution to the Sphinx’s riddle, his name indicates a profound inability to recognize a god’s interventions. [Apaos] By contrast with him, the audience is now supplied with answers to the questions it has heard him pose. He will be known henceforth as follows: “You-know-on-what-terms-I-shall-exit”: the gods’ terms, “You-know-against-whom-I-act”: the gods, and “You-know-upon-how-many-limbs-I-move”: two and a cane, for while his parents’ false assumptions crippled him, his own false assumptions blinded him. Oidipous’s life cannot be read as a paradigm of the pattern of growth and decline imposed on all human beings from birth through death. He is a more profound paradigm of mankind insofar as he stands a cypher for the harm that man is capable of doing himself and his offspring. If Oidipous is emblematic of human experience, then it is to show that human capacities are limited. How well individuals or a cities may fare depends not upon the extent of their talents and predilections but upon the way in which they supplement their lacks by securing for themselves the help of their gods. [Mw] [Mi]