Oidipous’s question is rhetorical; it appears to be meant to trap Teiresias into saying what he has decided not to, but the fact that even a rhetorical question is a question prompts the audience to give serious consideration to the possibility that a prophet may have a good reason not to tell. Whatever that reason may be, it must be necessary to the god that some information be revealed and some withheld. It would lie with the god’s judgment, then, what information is to be revealed and what information is to be withheld. The god must be supposed to hold the criteria by which such decisions can be made. [Apc] [Mpi]