By ο idipous ﷽mitations and improprieties.e way the town regards himpress his respect for ns. the Spartans that Athens, like Oidipouὐράνια Oidipous might mean “things in the sky” such as birds or “heavenly beings” such as the gods. If the former, then he is portraying the seer as one who reads the signs of birds, a skill that has earlier been associated with Oidipous, who saved Thebes by solving the riddle of the “auspicious bird” (line 54). By “things . . . on the plodding earth” Oidipous implicitly grants the seer’s skill in reading tracks and signs on the ground,” a skill to which he has felt himself called upon to exercise, but in which he has shown himself lacking, for he cannot see the tracks beneath his very own feet. In presently calling upon Teiresias’s skill in reading bird sign and animal tracks, he seems implicitly to acknowledge the possibility of traces of divine influence of the kind to which the audience has already been made a witness. Recognition of his own limitations in this regard would display appropriate insight, humility, and even piety. [Mp] [Mi] [Md] [Ad] [P]