Joining its voice to that of Iokaste, the Chorus beseeches Oidipous to comply “willingly and prudently” (θελήσας φρονήσας τ’), a yoking that seems to express a complex insight, for by counseling willing compliance, the Chorus implies that, should Oidipous refuse to submit to the appeal in the name of the gods, compliance will be forced upon him against his will; he would therefore be prudent to submit willingly. It is still difficult to see how it would be preferable for Oidipous to accept Kreon’s oath, because this means having to consider the possibility that the seer has spoken truly; Oidipous is Laios’ killer (and his mother’s husband). This seems to suggest a test of the principle that willing submission is better than unwilling, for Oidipous was unwilling either to kill his father or marry his mother. The Chorus’s language implies that he could–and should–have committed these deeds willingly. Certainly, from the perspective of prophecy, it was necessary that he kill his father, but how would it have been better for Oidipous willingly to carry out such a horrendous deed? Are the psychological and moral consequences of willing participation in parricide and incest not worse even than the punishments of banishment or death stipulated by Delphi for Laios’ killer? As the audience knows, however, the fact is that Oidipous is guilty of killing Laios and marrying his mother, and it seems inevitable that his involvement will be exposed, which means that he will have to both confront the knowledge of what he has done and suffer the penalty despite his best intentions to avoid committing the crime in the first place. If the gods are behind both his exposure to the truth and the punishment he is to bear, it would seem that the gods are either unjust or irrational, and therefore at all costs to be eschewed. If, on the other hand, Oidipous ignores the advice he is receiving from the Chorus, he will certainly be unjust towards Kreon and Teiresias, both of whom willingly submit to the gods’ dictates. [P] [Aj] [Apao]