The focus of Kreon’s attention is not with the exercise of power or authority, but concern for the wretched individual before him and, even more, the people of the town, whose attitude appears to him to want correction. [Md] Thus he feels it to be a matter of urgency that the Thebans remove the “abomination” (ἄγος; l. 1426) from public view. Such an act should signal the town’s repudiation of Oidipous’s errors and isolate it from further contamination by aligning it with the dictates of pious action. [Mw] [Mg] [P] Granted, the action is the same as that which Oidipous himself has been requesting, but a distinction can be made; where Oidipous seeks to insulate himself from further censure, Kreon seeks to stop the spread of pollution to earth, rains, and sunlight (ll. 1427-8), those natural elements essential to successful agriculture. He sees the plague on fecundity as a consequence of an improper relationship between mankind and nature. Where Oidipous imagines that he inhabits an essentially man-made and man-directed world, Kreon sees the man-made world within the broader context of nature’s elements and forces, to each of which he assigns a divine aspect. Like Oidipous, however, Kreon, while associating each natural element with a god, does not acknowledge the action of Apollo’s intelligent, benevolent, and just plan. [Ap] [Ad] [Aj] [Dnc]