That Zeus and Apollo are knowledgeable seems to offer an explicit answer to the aporia to which the Chorus confessed at l. 485, but the selection of these two gods suggests that the Chorus has in mind the pan-hellenic oracles at Delphi and Dodona, staffed however by mortals whose insights the Chorus does not trust any more than it trusts its own. The audience knows, however, the skepticism of which this judgment is an expression to be excessive. It has just seen how the Chorus’s preference for “proof” can impede communication between gods and mortals. The problem, then, is to establish an appropriate balance between skepticism towards prophecy and trust in it. [Mpea] [Mpei] [Md] [Mw]