Oidipous means that it is contrary to law for Teiresias to deprive the town he serves of a prophetic truth he holds—a truth obtained through his special relationship with the god whom he represents. This implies that the town and its prophet, and through the prophet the god himself, are bound by legal conventions. It argues that legal conventions take precedence over sacred relationships. While acting as though the god has a direct interest in the town’s well being and its actions and can communicate these through the speech of his prophet, Oidipous’s language implies that the god must allow mortal law to take precedence. Coupled with the fact, of which the audience has just been reminded, that Oidipous was born in Thebes and that therefore his words to Teiresias apply equally to himself, the audience can reason that he obliges himself for the good of the town to treat prophetic utterance to a proper airing—not to withhold, defraud, or otherwise cheat it. Here that requires putting the god’s word ahead of civic law and convention. [P] [Mi] [Apc] [Mg]