Despite claiming already to have said what he came to say, Teiresias proceeds to repeat the charges he has already made, that Oidipous is himself the unknown source of Thebes’ pollution, the murderer of Laios, and thus the man he seeks. To this list, however, Teiresias now adds two items; first, that the murderer is “officially a foreigner with resident status,” information that clearly applies to Oidipous but is nevertheless inconsequential, because it reveals nothing that is not already known, and second, that “he will be shown a native son of Thebes.” This is the beginning of an answer to the question about his birth that Teiresias evaded moments ago (ll. 437-8) yet now seems prepared to answer unenigmatically. The seer is prophesying, speaking of the future in terms very similar to those Oidipous must once have heard from the Oracle at Delphi, to whom Oidipous also put a question concerning his parents, and thus, implicitly, the place of his birth. Was the oracle not capable of saying what Teiresias says now? The Pythia may have demurred for the same reason that the seer himself refused but a few minutes ago to answer questions to which he now gives a direct answer. The god’s project or the limitations with which the god must work seem to lead him to express himself in different ways and in different shades of clarity on different occasions. [Mipd]