Teiresias’s question, “What more could I say to make you angrier?” provokes a response that can, like much of what Oidipous says, be taken in two ways, for ὅσον χρῄζεις can mean either “as much as is your wont” or “to whatever extent you deliver oracles.” Oidipous is heard, then, to dismiss prophecy as nothing but a provocation. If, however, prophecy is in fact a medium for the god’s meaningful communication, Oidipous is responsible for the failure and thus for the consequences that a timely and appropriate response might presumably have helped to moderate. The two readings of the double entendre are in this instance complementary, for it is the seer’s customary function to deliver prophecies. From Oidipous’s unawareness of this single truth, it follows that a man (or a city) like him is unreceprive to prophecies that indict him as a cause of pain, public or private. [Md] [Me] [Mi]