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Absent from Thebes at the first outbreak of Bacchic excitement, King Pentheus returns in haste, deeply troubled by reports of revelry on Mount Cithaeron and accounts of the captivating stranger who has led the Theban women astray (Ba. 212–38). When he meets the stranger he asks him about the appearance of the god (469,477) and the features of the rites (471) and complains that he cannot see the divinity who, the stranger assures him, is right at hand (500,502). Pentheus manifests great eagerness to see the Bacchantes with his own eyes, and it is by playing on this desire that the stranger lures him to Cithaeron and his death (810ff.)

Toward the midpoint of theOTJocasta, in a bid to convince Oedipus of the unreliability of oracles, recalls the old prophecy that Laius was destined to die at the hands of his son. Jocasta points out that this prediction proved doubly mistaken, since Laius was killed by foreign robbers at a crossroads and his newborn child was exposed on the desolate mountainside (707–25). To Jocasta's surprise, Oedipus responds with agitation. He questions her closely about the circumstances of Laius' death and then embarks on an autobiographical narrative that touches on his early life in Corinth and his journey to Delphi, reaching its rhetorical climax with the description of his own fateful encounter at the very crossroads mentioned by Jocasta.

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