‘An unclean thing there is, hid in our land,
Eating the soil thereof: this ye shall cast
Out, and not foster till all help be past’.“[[22]]
But what is the unclean thing that is polluting the city? Œdipus does not know that it is himself; and he questions Creon until the oracular command seems clear to him—to hunt out and banish the murderers of Laius. The task seems hopeless. How is it possible, after all these years, to find the men who slew the king? But the oracle has said explicitly that it must be done; that they are still alive within the city; and Œdipus unhesitatingly takes the task upon him.
An assembly of the people is commanded, and Œdipus publicly makes known to them his purpose of tracking the murderers. In a great speech, full of tragic irony, he claims their help in his search. They are Thebans born; but he, a stranger to their town in those days when Laius was killed, had never seen the king. It is for them to seek and render up the men who murdered him. He calls upon them solemnly to reveal what they may know. They need not fear that harm will come to them, for he will promise to befriend the man who does this service to the State. He pauses. But there is of course no answer. Again he appeals to them, growing indignant now, because he believes that they are wilfully shielding the guilty. Will they not speak out, and save their city? Then he will make a decree against them. For those who refuse to denounce the murderers, they shall be outcast and shelterless, and none shall succour them in living or in dying. For those who will not lend him their active aid in his search, Nature herself shall frown upon them and deny them every blessing; whilst on the man himself who slew the king, the most awful curse shall fall.
“Even as his soul
Is foul within him let his days be foul,
And life unfriended grind him till he die.
More: if he ever tread my hearth and I
Know it, be every curse upon my head