Enjoining Thebes to bring things to completion “for me” Oidipous invokes his listeners’ relation to him as a man—the man whom they know as their ruler, but also the man upon whom the audience knows a curse to have been pronounced. The people of Thebes, then, if they are to carry out his injunction, must act both for and against Oidipous. Indeed, the people of Thebes cannot serve Oidipous and Apollo simultaneously or equally; service to the god must be given precedence. In acting against Oidipous, then, the citizens would act “for” the god in several ways. This would be difficult for the Athenian audience to accept, for as Oidipous’s request compels the Theban Chorus to bring about his own suffering, fulfillment of the recent prophecy given the Spartans promises Athenian suffering, and so any suggestion of Athens’ honoring the god at Delphi entails Athenian acquiescence in its own suffering. [P] [Mw]