Stasimon 4
[Episode]
This altar shall not save thee, nor yet Apollo’s courts, for that pity thou implorest cries out more loudly for me and my mother, who, though absent in the flesh, is never in name far from me.
1275
Ion
Behold this cursed woman, see the web of trickery she hath woven! yet comes she cowering to Apollo’s altar, thinking to escape the punishment of her misdeeds.
1280
Creusa
I warn thee not to slay me, both in my own name and in his at whose altar I am stationed.
Ion
What hast thou to do with Phoebus?
Creusa
This body I devote unto that god to keep.
1285
Ion
And yet thou wert for poisoning his minister?
Creusa
But thou wert not Apollo’s any longer, but thy father’s.
Ion
Nay, I was his son, that is, in absence of a real father.
Creusa
Thou wert so then; now ’tis I, not thou, who am Apollo’s.
Ion
Well, thou art not guiltless now, whereas I was then.
1290
Creusa
I sought to slay thee as an enemy to my house.
Ion
And yet I never invaded thy country, sword in hand.
Creusa
Thou didst; and thou it was that wert casting a firebrand into the halls of Erechtheus.
Ion
What sort of brand or flaming fire was it?
Creusa
Thou didst design to seize my home against my will, and make it thine.
1295
Ion
What! when my father offered me a kingdom of his getting.
Creusa
How had the sons of Aeolus any share in the realm of Pallas?
Ion
Arms, not words, he brought to champion it.
Creusa
No mere ally could enter into an inheritance in my land.
Ion
And was it then from fear of consequences that thou didst try to slay me?
1300
