Oidipous says that when Kreon arrives with the oracle’s answer, he would be “ignominious” (κακός: “bad,” “base,” “ignoble,” “despicable”) if he were not to do “all things, as many as the god made clear,” a pious attitude proper to one who has chosen to consult the Oracle in the first place. On the other hand, the audience knows from the myth that Oidipous is very soon and forever after to be regarded as the utmost in “bad,” and for doing precisely as an oracle “made clear.” This confronts the audience with a conundrum: does Oidipous make himself κακός for doing or not doing what the god spelled out for him? One thing is clear: the fact that Oidipous is sincerely committed to doing the right thing secures the audience’s sympathy for him and its sense that somehow the gods and their paradoxical ways must be to blame for everything going awry. Surely their treatment of Oidipous has been unjust. [Md] [Aj] [Mi]