The if-clause invites the audience to evaluate for itself whether the condition has met by asking: Is this what Teiresias said? Having heard what Teiresias earlier said to Oidipous, the audience is also in a position to know the truth about the accusations; he did call Oidipous “polluter” (l. 353) and “killer” (ll. 362), but he did not formulate his accusation nearly as richly as Oidipous has just done. So while Oidipous’s account of the accusations is substantially accurate, it would seem that his (or the god’s) recasting it in new terms improves the message’s specificity. The improvement presents the audience with another instance of the paradoxical fact that the god can turn mortal error to advantage. [Mpei] [Apcmu]