Oidipous grants that he may have been wrong about Teiresias, but he does not specify the pronouncement to which he is referring. It could be any of them, because in all instances the seer’s insights have been accurate: Oidipous is Laios’ killer; though a native son of Thebes he is living there as a resident alien; he lives with his children as their brother and father; he is the same woman’s son and spouse; and to his father he is both fellow sower and killer (ll. 362, 367, 412-28 and 452-9). Supposing Teiresias also to have warned Laios about the manner of his death (unlike Aeschylus’ version of the story, which specifies that the prohibition on marital intercourse came through Delphi, Iokaste has said only that the prophecies came from Apollo’s servants), Oidipous could now be giving serious consideration to the validity of the prophecies about which he has just learned from Iokaste. Oidipous should therefore now be plumbing the depths of the wretched truth about himself: he killed his father and married his mother, his sibling children are an abomination, and he has polluted the town he rules. On top of all that, he knows now that he has built his life on a false premise—on the belief that he could outrun prophecy and the god behind it. He has misjudged the god, and in so doing he has alienated him. He has made himself an outcast in the eyes of men and gods alike. [Mi] [Mpea] [P] [Mw]