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.CreusaI warn thee not to slay me, both in my own name and in his at whose altar I am stationed.IonWhat hast thou to do with Phoebus?CreusaThis body I devote unto that god to keep.IonAnd yet thou wert for poisoning his minister?CreusaBut thou wert not Apollo’s any longer, but thy father’s.IonNay, I was his son, that is, in absence of a real father.CreusaThou wert so then; now ’tis I, not thou, who am Apollo’s.IonWell, thou art not guiltless now, whereas I was then.CreusaI sought to slay thee as an enemy to my house.IonAnd yet I never invaded thy country, sword in hand.CreusaThou didst; and thou it was that wert casting a firebrand into the halls of Erechtheus.IonWhat sort of brand or flaming fire was it?CreusaThou didst design to seize my home against my will, and make it thine.IonWhat! when my father offered me a kingdom of his getting.CreusaHow had the sons of Aeolus any share in the realm of Pallas?IonArms, not words, he brought to champion it.CreusaNo mere ally could enter into an inheritance in my land.IonAnd was it then from fear of consequences that thou didst try to slay me?CreusaYes, lest I should myself perish if thou wert spared.IonDoth thy childlessness make thee envious that my father found me?