Iokaste confirms the detail of the crossroads by referring again to the report on which she is entirely reliant, but her additional comment that the report “never having yet abated [still] holds” has no bearing on the matter and reports do not, in fact, abate. Nor do facts change unless they are corrected. So Iokaste’s apparent confidence, based entirely on the story’s undergoing no change, especially since there has never been a proper investigation, actually points up a weakness in the evidence on which she operates. Ironically, it is this single geographical detail that might provide the basis for a change to the report, for his interest in it suggests that he may have been there; he is himself a possible eyewitness. This would put him in a position to verify, correct, or augment the report. The importance of a single detail confirms what Oidipous said earlier: “one fact might by deduction lead to several more” (ll. 119-20). It is perhaps significant that the turning point (if that is indeed what this is) is furnished by a detail overlooked by Iokaste but notable to Oidipous because it coincides with his own direct sensory experience. If the god is beginning to have some success in bringing about the revelation for which the audience has been waiting and to which Oidipous’s mind has seemed so tightly closed, it comes not through the direct statements of a prophet, whose validity Oidipous can easily reject, but on the basis of evidence that Oidipous can and will accept. [Md] [Mp] [Apco]