Iokaste’s wording is notable in two respects. First and most significant, she is now explicitly and directly attributing prophecies to the god, where earlier she had taken pains to say that the prophecy Laios received did not come from the god, but from one of his subordinates (ll. 711-12), and just a moment ago she indirectly challenged the god through the metonymy of prophecy (ll. 946-7)). Second, by calling the prophecies “grand” (σέμν᾽) she openly mocks them. In her joy at seeing herself and her husband liberated from their fears she seems to allow herself to give increasingly outspoken expression to her cynicism not just towards prophecy but towards the gods themselves. She seems to take delight in seeing the high and mighty gods brought low. This may give one pause to wonder if this is not because she herself desires ascendancy. What the Chorus said about power engendering hybris seems to apply well to Iokaste. Her glee at the gods’ fall makes her aspirations for power unseemly, and this impression may be exaggerated and so made the more evident to the audience by the fact that she is a woman. Indeed, as Iokaste directs Oidipous to listen to the Corinthian and to learn from him that “the god’s grand prophecies” have come to naught, the audience may see her as the mother who has called to her her little boy for instruction pertaining to matters of faith; she measures herself against the gods and finds them wanting. Her conviction that prophecy has been defeated seems to be licensing her shift away from traditional relations of all kinds. Given the knowledge that her convictions are based on error, however, her vaunting of intellectual and social superiority manifests her degradation and warrants her destruction. [P] [Md] [Mpea] [Mw]