When first addressing the Theban suppliants Oidipous asked what it was they feared or desired. Now he reveals that his question was rhetorical—he knew its answer all the while. Why, then, pose it? His question, as already noted, is reminiscent of Achilles’ question to his goddess mother when he asks why he must tell her what she already knows. [Gm] Oidipous, moreover, expresses himself in an unnecessary pleonasm—”known and not unknown to me”—as if repeating a formula. In answering thus, Oidipous seems to be speaking from the perspective of one whose vision, like Thetis’s, has godlike compass. Immediately he tells what he knows; that the city is ill and nobody in it more so than himself. This statement holds prophetic truth; he is polluted by murder and incest, facts of which he remains ignorant despite the confidence he has in his own knowledge. [Gd] By contrast with the truth that he fails to register, the knowledge to which he actually lays claim is of little value, for the plague’s ravages would have been obvious to everyone within the city. Rather than presenting the example of a human who equals the gods, Oidipous makes it clear that mortal powers are very limited. [Mpei] He does, however, present the audience with an example of the way in which the gods can deliver to mortals a message carrying insights of great value to them. While Oidipous is clearly no god, it does seem as though a god may presently be speaking through him. [Apcmu]