Knowing well the prophecy given Laios that, if he should have intercourse with his wife, the child born to them will kill him, knowing well that this child is Oidipous, and knowing well that Oidipous did kill his father just as the prophecy foresaw, the audience must be struck by the extreme irony that Iokaste should cite his prophecy as evidence for her argument that one can ignore prophecy; she could not be more wrong, which means that her argument could not be more false. It is not, however, the audience whom she is endeavoring to persuade, but her husband, and the audience must also note that he should be similarly struck by her argument, not because he knows it to be false, but because the prophecy she cites perfectly complements the one he himself received at Delphi; namely, that he must take his father’s life. One would think that Oidipous could not help but recognize the complementarity. He should now be fitting the two prophecies together and realizing not only that his destiny pairs with Laios’, but that Laios should therefore be his father, which must also mean that Laios’ wife, to whom Oidipous is now married, the woman presently reassuring him that one need not concern oneself with prophecy, is in fact his mother. That he does not flinch, shrink back from his mother, or emit an involuntary sound suggests that he has not yet made the connection, but how is this possible? How can the prophecy given Laios not remind him of the prophecy given him? He cannot have forgotten such a prophecy. Can he be so sure that the man he killed was not his father? Does he consider it possible that the complementarity of the two prophecies has no significance; it is nothing more than a fluke or an accident? Whether he does not notice the complementarity or notices but does not feel troubled by it, his immunity to recognition and understanding is breathtaking. He has been told the truth directly by Teiresias and he has been shown a complementarity whose significance cannot be dismissed, and yet he does dismiss it. He consequently must appear to be suffering from a mental block of such monstrous proportions that it cannot be overcome. The block must be connected with Iokaste’s thesis: he is already so deeply persuaded that prophecy can be ignored that he is not even taking seriously what she says. The audience will begin to recognize that nothing short of a calamity can shake his view of prophecy. Thus, if that view must be shaken, as apparently will be required if Thebes is to be freed from pollution, a calamity will be required. The affliction, then, ought to be viewed as the god’s avenue of last resort; it is a sign not of his displeasure and disapproval, but also of his concern for the city’s wellbeing. The affliction in Thebes having much the character of the plague in Athens and the connection to prophecy in Thebes finding a similar connection to prophecy in Athens, the Athenian audience should consider Apollo to be disposed to help Athens, but necessitated by Athens’ intransigence, its mental block about prophecy, to bring ever more suffering to bear upon the city. [Mpea] [Apcmu] [Dnc] [Mw] [Ad] [Apao]