Understanding this statement as a reference to medical healing is further problematized by its conclusion in the word βουλευμάτων, which carries as its most direct meaning: resolutions of the legislative council. The priest seems to be using this word as a metaphor for the internal workings of Oidipous’s intellect in reaching the decision, how best to handle a crisis. He appears to be expressing his belief that Oidipous’s mind and experience enable him to understand events that remain impenetrable to others by engaging in internal debate and deliberation. Yet, the audience’s expectation that Oidipous is about to be publicly revealed as a regicide, parricide, and father to children born of an incestuous relationship undercuts any appreciation it may have for the priest’s faith in deliberation. Because the priest is ignorant of the insights conveyed by his own speech, however, his words only point up his own blindness to anything afoot on the plane upon which the gods are at work. In this regard he is as much a know-nothing as the man in whom he places all his trust. Thus, the metaphorical use of βουλευμάτων, rather than elevating Oidipous, has the effect of denigrating the Athenian βούλη, the legislative body which, like the priest, trusts its own judgment and that of its leadership, which previously led the city out of the crisis precipitated by the Persians. The problem is that the audience knows the priest to be at least partly wrong: Oidipous is not destined for another glorious success. There is, then, an error in his thinking, and if Athens is making the same mistake in placing its confidence in the decisions of its βούλη, there must be a similar error in Athens’ deliberations. [Gt-a] [Mpea] Investigation of this error gives the audience a new focus for its own interest in the way the myth plays out. Is the parallel between the priest in relation to Thebes’ leadership and the audience in relation to Athens’ leadership meant to suggest that Athens’ leadership, like Oidipous, is doomed to be shown by the gods to have polluted itself with unspeakable crimes? [Mw]