The competition between two claims to wisdom (expressed previously in the double articulation of the abstract noun σοφίᾳ … σοφίαν at l. 502) calls for a “touchstone” (βασάνῳ at l. 510 echoes l. 493), a reliable gauge by which to determine which is better and which worse. For this purpose, the Chorus chooses demonstrated success through action as its criterion. In this respect it finds that Oidipous has proven himself “a sweet blessing to the city.” The audience, however, knows otherwise; for even crediting Oidipous with ridding the city of the Sphinx, the audience knows him to be the source of the city’s pollution, and thus, in the proof soon to be delivered, no sweet blessing at all. The Chorus, then, appears to have chosen a false criterion for adjudicating competing claims to the truth. In its preference for demonstrated success the Chorus shortsightedly mistakes appearance for reality, short-term appearance for an enduring truth. There are signs here of other limitations as well, such as the citizens’ failure to take proper note of the facts before them. When the Chorus sings that, “quite visibly once did a winged maid come upon him,” it misstates the case, for the Sphinx did not come upon Oidipous; rather, it was Oidipous whose wanderings brought him to her. The emphasis on her being visible (φανερά) is also curious, for it seems to point at a contrast with things unseen, such as Laios’ unseen murder (ἀδήλων θανάτων mentioned at l. 497), the unseen Furies circling above Oidipous’s head through imagistic association with the bull (l. 482), or the unseen advantage to the god when Oidipous’s success with the sphinx’s riddle leads to the prophesied marriage that he intends to avoid. Finally, “winged maid” (πτερόεσς᾽ κόρα) recalls the epithet “winged words” (ἔπεα πτερόεντα) so frequently met with in Homer, where it means “a particularly cogent message.” The Homeric adjective in this context suggests that the Sphinx is characterized by just such cogency. Viewed from this perspective, the Sphinx is a medium for communication meant for Thebes, Oidipous, or both. In this sense the Chorus is right to say that she “arrived;” she brought her riddle to Thebes. So, as the Chorus promulgates its view that Oidipous’s victory over the Sphinx is not to be discounted, its speech gives the audience good reason to suppose that, if the Sphinx had come to deliver a subtle message requiring a thoughtful reading, its removal did not prove to be a victory. It has in fact blinded both Oidipous and the town to the magical event whose meaning, like Laios’s killing, it has never investigated. Indeed, Oidipous and Thebes fail not only to interpret the message but even to recognize it as a message, and this failure is a problem that should concern the audience, because it suggests that simply eliminating an extraordinary problem–especially one with a supernatural dimension–sweeps away the opportunity to receive the message that that problem was designed to convey. [Mpei] [Apco]