The invocation of Artemis echoes the prayer to Athena in this ode’s first first antistrophe, but now the goddess is imagined in the mountain wilds, a setting that myth associates both with Oidipous’s infancy and his violent encounter with Laios. That these events occurred within her domain suggests that she suffered them to occur. As with Apollo’s plague-bearing arrows, she seems unlikely to reverse course now to accommodate the Thebans’ prayer, which consequently is bound to go unanswered. The image of torches repeats that of Ares in the preceding strophe. Thus again, as in the immediately foregoing invocation of Apollo, the Chorus’s prayer turns against itself in confusion and lack of understanding. [Mpei] [Mpea] What is needed is a clarity to which mortals have no direct and unaided access; only a god can clarify the way in which harmful divine action can be removed or transformed through mortal words or deeds. [Mi]