The participle καλούμενος can be interpreted to mean either “because I am being summoned” or “as I am called.” Since the suppliants are summoning Apollo, not Oidipous, the first meaning should easily be excluded, were it not for a discovery just made by the audience (cf. m8.1) that Apollo seems to be using Oidipous as a medium for his own communication via double entendre. If declaration made by the participle comes from the god, “being summoned” makes perfectly good sense; he is declaring that he has come in answer to the continuing supplication. To understand the participle from Oidipous’s perspective requires interpreting it the other way: “as I am called,” and yet this, too, is problematic, for the word famous (κλεινὸς) has already conveyed the idea that he believes that everyone will recognize his name. Indeed, since he is their king, the suppliants must already know his name. By adding the specification “as I am called,” then, he seems rather to mean to underscore the fact that this is what others choose to call him, presumably because this name suits him. Oidipous, then, would be a moniker bestowed on him to acknowledge a noteworthy characteristic. What, then, can this be? This question prompts an attempt to make a correlation between meanings conveyed by the name itself and characteristics attributable to the man. In addition to this problem, other questions are raised by the passive voice; by whom, when, and for what reason was the moniker Oidipous given to this man?
Attempting to solve the riddle of his name’s etymology, the audience may find three possibilities: Oide-pous (“Swell-Foot”), Oida-pous (“Foot-in-the-Know”), and Oi, Dipous! (“Woe, Biped!”). “Swell-Foot” fits well with a story that the audience can be presumed already to know from the myth’s previous tellings (and repeated later in this play), according to which infant Oidipous, ankles pierced and bound together with a thong, is meant to be left to die on the slope of a mountain but instead is rescued and raised by strangers. His present self-confidence indicates, however, that he does not yet know the troubling circumstances of his birth, so if he understands his name to mean “Swell-Foot,” he can only be alluding to the fact that his feet are sufficiently misshapen to have drawn comment. Why, however, would he wish to call attention to this imperfection? No good answer to this question presenting itself, the audience will give its consideration to the other two possible etymologies.
“Foot-In-The-Know” makes an obvious substitution of “foot” for “man.” This synecdoche marvelously embeds in the most succinct form possible the correct reply to the Sphinx’s riddle, which requires identification of a creature that goes in the morning on four feet, at noon on two feet, and in the evening on three feet. In addition to the knowledge of mankind in relation to its changing forms of locomotion, the solution to the Sphinx’s riddle depends upon recognition that the day’s broad divisions–dawn to noon, noon to dusk, and dusk to sleep–serve as a metaphor for the stages of mortal life–infancy, adulthood, and senectitude, each of which may be characterized by each of the three modes of locomotion. For his timely application of this common knowledge Oidipous is rewarded with possession of both Thebes’ throne and its queen. It therefore makes sense that he would presently gesture to his name as a reminder of the feat that established his qualification to rule. Marriage to the queen reminds the audience, however, of both the ruinous parricide and incest that are about to be revealed. This etymology poses a further problem in conjunction with the questions raised by the passive participle (By whom and on what occasion was he named?) because he could only have received the moniker “Foot-In-The-Know” following his encounter with the sphinx, but as he is known only by this one name, he seems likely already to have had it when he encountered the Sphinx. Or did he perhaps come with the name “Swell-Foot” and then change its meaning to shift attention from swelling to knowledge, from limitation to ability, and from stigma to accolade? In that case, the name he brought with him would seem to have been prophetic, and even to have stamped him, like the disability itself, with a hint to the riddle’s answer: foot means man. One should marvel, then, at his coming into possession of such a fabulously helpful name, and one might wonder (again), under what circumstances and by whom it was bestowed upon him. The name’s properties of prophetic foresight and miraculous provision are suggestive of divine origin. It would be strange and even contradictory, though, for him to underscore his name’s divine origin whilst trumpeting his credentials to solve a problem that, in his view, neither requires divine help nor for which such help can be expected. So, despite its offering another highly appropriate allusion to the myth, the audience may set aside the second etymology.
“Woe, Biped!” offers yet another promising perspective, for if biped is taken as another synecdoche for human, this expostulation, which seems to lament the mortal condition or mortal shortcomings, expresses a negative appraisal of the species. Such an appraisal implies a vantage point at some distance apart from the human race; it is a perspective befitting a god. The supposition that this comment expresses a super-human perspective is supported by (and in turn supports) the discovery made in response to the immediately preceding prompt; namely, that the god Apollo appears, from the very first word of this speech, to have been employing Oidipous as an unwitting medium for purposes of his own communication. On this understanding, it is not Oidipous who wishes to draw attention to the meaningfulness of the name by which he is called, but rather Apollo, who is speaking through him. Indeed, all three etymologies suggest that the god has been using this name to transmit, throughout the entire span of this man’s life, an extremely improbable and therefore marvelous combination of messages. [Apc]
Calling attention to the etymologies calls attention to divine interest in this man’s life. [Ad] Indeed, each of the three etymologies points to one of the three events that mark the critical junctures in his unique biography: “Swell-Foot” alludes to the infant’s miraculous survival, “Foot-in-the-Know” signals the achievement marking the youth’s transition to adulthood, and “Woe! Biped” anticipates the ruin of his waning years. The singular name at once bears witness to the parents’ crimes, prepares for the son’s encounter with the Sphinx by providing him with not one but two hints to the solution of its riddle (“foot stands for man” and “man is bi-pedal”), and foretells the wretchedness that will come once the gods (as Homer promises) reveal the relationships that define this life.
The supposition that the name Oidipous has throughout this man’s life served the gods’ communicative needs links back to the interpretation of καλούμενος to mean “being summoned,” which could not appropriately be spoken by Oidipous, but could well be said by Apollo. All of the interpretive paths–the ambiguity in the participle, the three etymologies, and the questions raised by the passive voice–lead the audience to infer that the god is speaking, both through this man’s present speech and through his name. Here the messaging of speech and name combine: the speech draws attention to the name, setting it as a riddle for the audience to solve. [Apcmu]
As the audience will have established as soon as it heard this man proudly proclaim his name, Oidipous himself does not yet know anything of the terrible changes about to be wrought upon his own life. Calling attention to this name, then, calls the audience to witness, comprehend, and judge what is about to happen. Indeed, it requires the audience to make an immediate choice between interpretations reflective of significantly different perspectives: that of a mortal expressing faith in his own independent capacities and that of a divine mastermind orchestrating a series of interventions affecting this mortal at key moments distributed over the span of his lifetime. This interpretive choice is of utmost consequence; it challenges the audience to choose to see things from the perspective either of a mortal or an immortal. If it chooses the man’s perspective, it must deny the god’s. If it chooses the god’s, it must find the man perilously self-centered and short-sighted. The participle’s ambiguity requires of the audience that it weigh and judge the implications of both perspectives. To the extent that the audience finds itself caught on the horns of a dilemma, unable (or unwilling) to choose between the alternatives it encounters, it becomes focused on a problem that it must find a way to resolve. [P]