The subject modifiers seem to agree with the last noun in the previous sentence: “this man,” Teiresias, but as the sentence proceeds, it becomes clear that the subject might well be Oidipous himself; it is he who is going to his destruction, and indeed more slowly than one would have thought. On the other hand, the regression–and with it the transgression–has already occurred; Oidipous has already returned to the place from whence he came. He has reentered both the city of Thebes and the body of his mother. The pounding repetition of the sound pa ap ap ap and the idea “back…backwards… reversing…turning back…returning” (πάλιν ἄψορρος … ἀποστραφεὶς ἄπει) coupled with the image of his pushing his way back into his mother’s womb are so intolerable (ἀνεκτά) that by comparison the seer’s speech seems restrained and even modest. While the double entendre seems in this play always to stem from the god, the imagery’s obscenity seems rather to underscore Oidipous’s self-righteousness, his absolute and unshakable faith in the fact that he knows better than Teiresias, his certainty that he has succeeded in thwarting the prophecy that he kill his father and marry his mother. [Gd] [Mpea] [P] At the same time, the violent anger in these words seems to be an appropriate expression of the the god’s frustration with him and so to suggest that the indignities to which he is being subjected are richly deserved. [Aj]