Oidipous terms Laios’ death a “fatal handiwork” (θανασίμῳ χειρώματι). With the utterance already seeming to apply to both men, these words give the fatal meeting a common characterization; both were destroyed by the work of a hand. If so, then by whose hand? Oidipous’s hand is literally the one that destroys Laios, as specified by the prophetic warning Laios received. Oidipous, then, in some sense limps slowly towards destruction at his own hand, for it is his own acts of parricide and, later, incest that will destroy him. And yet it is impossible not to see in both men’s ends a god’s destructive hand. Is the god, then, unjust? One might think so, for the myth has it that Oidipous seems to do everything in his power to avoid killing his father and marrying his mother. Laios, on the other hand, as the reminder of Oidipous’s limp calls to mind, attempted to kill his child in order to escape the consequence of his own disobedience to a divinely issued instruction to forego intercourse with his wife. Laios’ death is not unjust. Less clear is the case against Oidipous, about whom the myth does not relate an act of disobedience to a god. [Gd] [Apcma] [Md] [Mpea] [Aj]