Asserting that, regardless of what Teiresias says next, his words will be said in vain, Oidipous suggests that this is because he intends to make it so. Since, however, the audience knows Teiresias’s present words and past prophecies to be anything but vain, Oidipous’s belief that he can disarm or negate them reveals itself to be as woefully misguided as his parents’ earlier efforts to defeat them. He is presently acting as they did then. He is repeating their errors and so paying the pollution forward. His resistance to Teiresias seems only to justify the suffering towards which he is presently rushing. [Mpea] [Md] [P] [Mw]