That Oidipous is aware of Laios’ genealogy suggests that he may have been envying his predecessor (Laios) in this regard. If so, it reveals a “feeling of inadequacy in the matter of his birth” (Knox; 56). Certainly, if myth has made the audience aware of the fact that questions about his birth propelled him to visit Delphi where he received a prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother, then it knows that he has continued to bear this worry throughout his adulthood. The ongoing concern with parentage links present and past events in Thebes and Corinth with Delphi, prophecy, and the god Apollo. So, while Oidipous means actively to assume the role of son to a man to whom he believes there to be no direct connection, the audience is aware that his continuing emotional investment has long since involved him in a situation in which the god also clearly has expressed an interest and whose active engagement the audience is beginning to be able to detect at a variety of points scattered across space and time up to and including the present moment. [Md] [Ad] [Apa] [Apc]