Oidipous questions the seer as if the latter were on trial. Oidipous puts his charge in the form of a rhetorical question; one to which he believes that there can be no satisfactory answer, for if the seer had known the answer to the Sphinx’s riddle, he would surely have made use of it. This is an entirely reasonable presumption, yet knowing the seer to be no fraud, the audience also knows that presumption to be false. [Mpea] There must be another explanation. Perhaps the seer could not see the answer to the Sphinx’s riddle; after all, it was not meant for him to solve. Whether he knows only what the god wishes for him to make known or knows all but reveals only what the god permits, the audience will infer that the god did not wish for him to aid in setting Thebes free of the Sphinx. This was something Oidipous alone was meant to do. Had he not done so, it would not have occurred to Thebes to offer him marriage to the widowed queen. If the Sphinx was meant to help fulfill Apollo’s prophecy that Oidipous marry his mother, it seems worth further considering that Apollo must have made similar preparations for Oidipous to kill Laios. The Sphinx would have served this purpose too, for its predations gave Laios ample reason to set off for Delphi to consult the god—a journey that would bring him face to face with his son and thus his own death. If the Sphinx was playing these parts in the god’s plan, it would have been necessary for Teiresias to keep silent about it and not to solve the Sphinx’s sing-song riddle. Both sphinx and seer serve as the god’s designs require. [Apaos] [Apcma]