“But since she is,” he is right indeed to “pull back.” The audience might shrink from the implicit wish that his mother die, all the more so since Merope is innocent, whereas Iokaste is in many ways responsible for much of the calamity about to befall them both. Yet it was his shrinking back from Merope that brought him to Thebes. Would that he had pulled back from that decision! Would that he had pulled back from marrying an older woman! [Mpea] Would that he had pulled back from killing the men who treated him brusquely on the road! [Md] Would that he had pulled back from resisting the outcome of prophecy! [P] Indeed, his only unalloyed success seems to be his present endeavor to cleanse Thebes of pollution by complying with Delphi’s instructions to find and punish Laios’ killer. [P-] This will bring suffering on himself, but it is suffering that he may be willing to undergo if it means his people’s salvation. [Md-] But this does not resolve the question, how he was to respond to the prophecy that he kill father and marry mother. [Mipd] Even if Oidipous cannot see it, the audience understands that killing Laios might have been acceptable; it was a necessary consequence of Laios’ actions. Oidipous’s very existence is predicated upon Laios’ disobedience, thus Oidipous’s life is tied to the crime, and so his service as Apollo’s agent of justice makes sense. It does not, then, make sense that he be punished now for killing Laios, unless the issue is not whether Oidipous killed Laios, but whether he did it in compliance with or resistance to Apollo’s instructions. Since it was the latter, the killing was an act of impiety and deserves punishment. [Aj] How can this distinction be made to apply to his marriage?