In raising the possibility that he will be forced to flee, Oidipous must be thinking of the god’s stipulated penalty for Laios’ murder: banishment or death (ἀνδρηλατοῦντας ἢ φόνῳ, l. 100). Flight, however, diverges from both punishments. Oidipous seems to be changing the terms of the divinely sanctioned sentence for Laios’ killer. It is odd, too, that the word the god reportedly used for death is from the same root as the word that Oidipous reports that Apollo used during the consultation at Delphi when informing him that he would be his father’s killer (φόνευς, l. 793). If Apollo meant “by killing” as a form of punishment for murdering Laios, one might suppose that Apollo meant it the same way when responding to Oidipous when he was at Delphi; he informed the young man that he must be his father’s executioner. The two readings of φόνευς, “murderer” and “executioner,” are radically opposed. Oidipous’s flight from Delphi, then, appears to have been based on a terrible misunderstanding; he was not to murder his father, but to execute him in accordance with divine justice and in compliance with divine instruction. [Aj] [P] [Mi] [Apcma] Refusal to comply was itself, like Laios’ refusal, a crime that required punishment. The god must now see to two executions: Laios’ punishment by death at the hands of his own son, and the son’s punishment for refusing to serve as the god’s executioner. Is the son to be punished for murdering his father or for refusing to execute his father? The two crimes collapse into one: the refusal to serve as executioner results in the execution’s conversion to murder. The sentence of banishment or death, then, addreses both crimes at once. If Oidipous continues his present compliance with the god’s instruction to execute Laios’ killer, he might end the cycle of disobedience and so lift the pollution from Thebes. If, however, he takes flight, as his present statement indicates, one can anticipate that further punitive action will be required. The highest importance, it would seem, must be given to the respect for prophecy, which requires both careful and thoughtful disambiguation of prophetic speech and scrupulous execution of the instructions received. [Dnc] [Dnp] [Mipd]