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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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? Creusa Yes, lest I should myself perish if thou wert spared. Ion Doth thy childlessness make thee envious that my father found me?