Mention of Laios makes it clear that Oidipous is developing a more complex argument than making the simple connection between Kreon and Teiresias’ss accusation. His questioning appears rather to be leading to a closer examination of the relationship between Teiresias and Laios. Where, then, is he going? Emphasis on the passage of time might well be designed to make a case for the seer’s incompetence, for if his prophecies have not been realized, he is not a genuine prophet, and if Kreon knew this to be the case, then he would not have been sincere in promoting a consultation. But which of Teiresias’s prophecies has never been realized? The audience will have been familiar with only one incident from the myth material connecting prophecy with Laios: the oracle at Delphi forbade him not to have sex with his wife and threatened that disobedience would mean his death at the hands of the son born of their union. This the audience knows to be an instance of prophetic accuracy—it disproves the thesis to which the audience takes Oidipous to be arguing. Oidipous must therefore be thinking of another example. The only other possibility is the presumption that, when it is learned that Laios has been killed, Teiresias should know who killed him. Yet he did know, at least a few minutes ago (l. 362); if he knew the killer’s identity at the time of the incident, he kept silent about it. If he did not reveal what he knew, it may have been because, as the audience will already have surmised, it did not yet suit the god for him to do so (cf. m368). This consideration would not prove Oidipous’s point. In beginning to frame a question about the seer’s silence, then, Oidipous must be proceeding from the certainty that, had Teiresias known at the time who killed Laios, he would have divulged it. That certainty was unfounded. From the error the audience can see that, while Oidipous takes the seer’s silence as proof of his incompetence, it is an indication that the flow of discourse from a seer or Oracle is regulated by the god in relation to the god’s needs. Oidipous’s taking offense at Teiresias’s initial refusal to answer his questions stemmed from his false assumption that the seer serves first and foremost the city. Once it recognizes this, the audience can correct the assumption; a seer or prophet serves first and foremost the god for whom he speaks. The city consults a seer or prophet signals its recognition of its own aporia. To obtain the help it desires, it must put its trust in the god to guide and direct it as the god sees fit. The relationship between mortal and god requires the mortal’s trust. [Ad] [Apcma] [Mip] [Mg] [Dnc]