Even when Oidipous concedes to Kreon, he does so with a command, to which Kreon responds with two commands of his own: “Move off and let go of your children!” Mention of literal children recalls the first word spoken by Oidipous, when he responded to the supplication occurring around the altar in the public space before his residence at the beginning of the play by addressing the supplicants as children (l. 1). Now Kreon is enjoining Oidipous to let go of his biological children, products of the hideous incest with his mother, but thanks to Oidipous (and the priest), the word extends to the townsfolk as well, suggesting that Oidipous cannot have the comfort of either set of children, for they have been polluted by contact with his and his parents’ beliefs that mortals can contest divine prophecy and the powers that support it. [P] [Mw] As Kreon enjoins him to let go of his paternalism, so perhaps the Athenian audience will sense that it is being encouraged to separate itself from those paternalistic attitudes by which its own leadership has offered itself in place of the city’s gods. [Gt-a] [Mg]