Oidipous’s narrative brings him to the junction of three paths with a play on his own name— ὁδοιπορῶν (heard before at l. 292). The doubling of name and activity (ὁ δίπους ὁδοιπορῶν) yields “the biped on the road” and so roots his identity in both wandering abroad and the solution to the Sphinx’s riddle. Mention of the road recalls a question that Oidipous put to Kreon at the outset of his investigation into Laios’ death, when he asked if there had been no συμπράκτωρ ὁδοῦ (co-actor, accomplice, fellow traveler, traveling aide; l. 116) to give an account of the killing. Now it is Oidipous himself who is presenting an eyewitness account of Laios’ murder, and so he is discovering himself (at least to the audience) to have been the πράκτωρ (“man of action”) with whom Laios “shared” his road. Oidipous has until now failed to place himself at this scene even when by night he wandered in his mind’s eye up and down these roads (as he reported at ll. 67-8), and even though he had been told by the god immediately prior to the killing that he will kill his father (a man). That he killed his father in accordance with the god’s word suggests that Oidipous as traveler-cum-co-actor was in fact acting as συμπράκτωρ (accomplice) to the god. He accomplished the god’s prophecy even against his own will. [Apamu] Oidipous both committed and witnessed the deed without any comprehension of the context in which it occurred; it meant nothing to him. This suggests that he did not and still does not know himself. [Mpei] Indeed, he has failed to heed the injunction to know thyself that greeted him when he entered the Oracle at Delphi. [Mip] Perhaps he is kept from knowing himself by the fact that, although entering the sanctuary at Delphi to consult with the god, he did not anticipate or desire that the god would endeavor to aid him to know himself, as a result of which he became an uncomprehending actor in a larger context of which he had no comprehension. Not only did he not know himself, he misjudged the god Apollo; he did not know him. This suggests that the god’s gift to Oidipous, had he been listening, would have been to give him insight into the larger context in which he was required to play a part. The acquisition of that insight would not have changed the outcome, but his understanding of it would have been altogether different, for then he would have been choosing to act in combination with the god and his actions would have been performed in the god’s name and with the god’s blessing. [Dnc]