Defending himself before Iokaste, Oidipous claims to have caught Kreon acting improperly. Placement of the adverb κακώς (“badly”) immediately before εἴληφα (“I caught him”) may momentarily sound like a confession that his own act of apprehending Kreon was badly done. Of course he is not confessing; in his view the bad behavior is all on Kreon’s side—he developed an evil strategy to get Oidipous killed. τέχνη has previously been used to refer to the seer’s skill in prophecy. Βy applying it here to Kreon’s purported conspiracy Oidipous transfers the “craft” from the seer, who in his view is Kreon’s instrument, to the would-be usurper. Transferring this skepticism of Teiresias to Kreon, he easily finds cynicism in Kreon’s recommendation to consult him. The audience knows, however, that Kreon is as sincere as the seer is genuine. If craftiness is in play, it is practiced by the god. Thus, Oidipous is right in recognizing cunning manipulation, right in regarding the prophet as an instrument, but mistaken in his identification of Kreon as the power behind the prophet and wrong also about the motives directing that power, for the god cannot wish to usurp temporal power. Apollo’s goal seems to be to uphold Delphi and Teiresias and thereby to uphold prophecy as a means of communication between himself and mortals. One might infer from Apollo’s intervention in this matter that a ruler’s dismissal of prophecy and accusing prophets of collusion with temporal powers compels the god to take extreme measures. [Mg] [Mpea] [P] [Dn] [Apa]