Meanwhile, Apollo seems to have answered Jocasta's prayer. With the terrible truth pressing in on him, Oedipus calls triumphantly for the shepherd who will tell him everything. At this moment, Oedipus revels in the kind of pride that always precedes the downfall of a tragic hero. He seems proud even in his (mistaken) belief that he is the son of a shepherd and the goddess Chance, "the giver of all good things" (1189). In calling Chance a goddess, Oedipus follows Jocasta's questionable advice to acknowledge that "chance rules our lives" (1070).
By now, the truth of Oedipus' birth is practically unavoidable, but the fact that he still cannot guess it — and that Jocasta has only now realized it — would not have seemed strange to Sophocles' audience. Sophocles means for the audience to suspend their disbelief, and let the tragedy unfold according to its own conventions.
