Oidipous’s statement (if not his reasoning) that “the riddle was not the sort of thing for a random person happening by” confirms the audience’s suppositions regarding the sphinx’s riddle’s special suitability for Oidipous to solve. If his words are true, then his own “happening by” was not a chance event. As he explains, “it wanted something of prophecy.” And that it had; not that Oidipous was in some sense a prophet, as he perhaps means to suggest, but that his solution of the riddle led to realization of the prophecy he had received from Delphi. His perception of his own agency, then, and the insights that guide it is an illusion based on ignorance about the subtlety and reach of divine influence. This error seems to be related to his arrogance—his confidence that the insight that enables him to solve the Sphinx’s riddle is akin to prophecy. The audience can see quite clearly by now, however, that not only is Oidipous’s riddle-solving ability not akin to a divine gift, but the riddle itself had to be designed by a god so as to be solvable by him and him alone. [Apaos] [Mpea]