Mention of “Laios’ ancient prophecies,” suggests that the Chorus has all along known of the prophecies threatening death at the hands of any child born to Laios and Iokaste. It also suggests that the prophecies’ realization has never been ruled out, which means that it either knows that Iokaste gave birth to Laios’ child or considers this to have been a possibility. Perhaps it even knows that the baby was taken into the wilderness and left to die of exposure. When it learned, then, of Laios’ violent death at the hands of an unidentified person, this should have given rise to speculation around the killer’s identity and the possibility that the prophecy had been fulfilled. If it did not think it possible to identify the killer immediately following the incident, the present endeavor to purify Thebes of pollution by actively attending to that identification should have brought the prophecies to mind. Their description as “ancient” suggests, however, that the Chorus views them from a very great distance–one comparable to that of the Athenian audience, in whose view these prophecies belong to ancient myth and legend. Chorus and audience are alike in having brought their knowledge of ancient stories with them into their observation of the present action, which unites plague and prophecy with the effort to identify Laios’ killer. The blending of viewpoints again, as happened during the supplication at the play’s opening, reduces or eliminates the distinction between the Chorus dancing and singing in the circular space of the orchestra and the audience seated on the benches surrounding it. With the elimination of this distinction comes the elimination of the distinction between mythic and contemporary action, between the response to prophecy as an element of myth and response to prophecy as an element of the contemporary context, the relationship between mortals and gods in myth and the relationship between mortals and gods in the contemporary city and the wider world beyond it. [Gm] [Gt-a] [D] Consequently, where the audience has since the play’s opening been entertaining the very strong expectation that Oidipous’s prophecies must in the course of the present performance be realized, this expectation is now attended by the expectation that the action in the mythic space created upon the stage also demonstrates Apollo’s power over the city in which the stage is embedded. [Gt-a] [Ap] [Dnp]