LEADER
To kill a suppliant there the law forbids.
CREUSA
But by the law I perish.
LEADER
If their hands Had seized thee.
CREUSA
Dreadful contest,with drawn swords They hastily advance.
LEADER
Now take thy seat At the altar:shouldst thou die ev'n there,thy blood Will call the vengeance of the god on those That spilt it:but our fortune we must bear.
(She takes refuge at the altar as ION,guards,and Delphians enter.)
ION
Bull-visaged sire Cephisus,what a viper Hast thou produced?a dragon from her eyes Glaring pernicious flame.Each daring deed Is hers:less venomous the Gorgon's blood,With which she purposed to have poison'd me.
Seize her,that the Parnassian rocks may tease Those nice-adjusted ringlets of her hair,As down the craggy precipice she bounds.
Here my good genius saved me,e'er I came To Athens,there beneath my stepdame's wiles To fall;amid my friends thy fell intents Have I unravell'd,what a pest to me,Thy hate how deadly:had thy toils inclosed me In thine own house,thou wouldst at once have sent me With complete ruin to the shades below.
But nor the altar nor Apollo's shrine Shall save thee.Pity,might her voice be heard,Would rather plead for me and for my mother,She absent,yet the name remains with me.
Behold that sorceress;with what art she wove Wile after wile;the altar of the god Impress'd her not with awe,as if secure.
No vengeance waited her unhallow'd deeds.
CREUSA
I charge thee,kill me not,in my own right,And in the god's,whose suppliant here I stand.
ION
What right hast thou to plead Apollo's name?
CREUSA
My person hallow'd to the god I offer.
ION
Yet wouldst thou poison one that is the god's.
CREUSA
Thou wast no more Apollo's,but thy father's.
ION
I have been,of a father's wealth I speak.
CREUSA
And now I am:thou hast that claim no more.
ION
But thou art impious:pious were my deeds.
CREUSA
As hostile to my house,I would have kill'd thee.
ION
Did I against thy country march in arms?
CREUSA
And more;thou wouldst have fired Erechtheus'house.
ION
What torch,what brands,what flames had I prepared?