The stranger does not bear some kinship to Laios; he is Laios. The unduly liberal specification prompts the audience to consider, however, that Oidipous was himself a “stranger” who bore kinship to Laios. Oidipous has lost sight of the fact that at the moment when he arrived at the crossroads his own identity was at issue. Oidipous and Laios, father and son, are complete strangers to one another; neither knows the other’s city of origin, and Oidipous does not know his own place of origin. From the audience’s point of view, the most striking aspect of the encounter at the crossroads is the fact that that the only way that they can find to interact is through the dealing out of blows, each to the other. Their reciprocal violence erases the possibility of their becoming acquainted. Ignorance of their relationship renders even the violence between them meaningless. The Oracle seems rightly to have understood Oidipous’s limitations when he answered the question about the father’s identity by predicting that Oidipous would come to know him by becoming his killer. It could have been otherwise. Given the prophecy he had just received, Oidipous could have assumed every older male stranger to be his father. Despite the prophecy, he persisted in assuming that he knew a “stranger” when he saw one. Ignoring the prophecy, he not only ignored the help it might have given him, he made it obvious to the god that, like his father, his attitude and assumptions were in need of correction . [Md] [Mi] [Mpea] [Aj]