Chorus (to Creusa)
Sit at the altar—right there on the burnt-offering stone.
If they kill you here, the blood-guilt is on them.
We bear what we must.

(Creusa grips the altar, breathing hard. Ion storms in with Delphian nobles behind him.)

Ion
Father Cephissus—river with the bull’s head—look at your child:
a viper, a dragon with murder in her eyes.
Her courage is poison—the same venom as the Gorgon’s drops
she tried to pour down my throat.

Seize her! Let Parnassus comb her hair with rock and thorn—
she’ll be hurled from the cliffs and dashed to pieces.

Luck saved me—kept me from going to Athens
to die under a stepmother’s roof.
I see you now—your hatred, your plan.
If you’d locked me in your house even once,
my road to Hades would have started there.

This altar won’t save you. Nor Apollo’s halls.
The pity you beg speaks louder for me—and for my mother,
absent in body though never far in name.

Look at her—look at the web she wove—
and now she crouches at Apollo’s altar,
thinking she can dodge the punishment she earned.

Creusa
Don’t kill me. I speak for myself—and for the god whose altar I hold.

Ion
What do you have to do with Phoebus?

Creusa
I consecrate my body to him. I’m under his protection.

Ion
You tried to poison his priest!

Creusa
You weren’t Apollo’s anymore. You were your father’s.

Ion
I was Apollo’s son—until a real father appeared.

Creusa
And now I—not you—stand under Apollo’s care.

Ion
You’re guilty now. I wasn’t then.

Creusa
I struck at an enemy of my house.

Ion
I never invaded your land with a sword.

Creusa
You did—you threw a firebrand into Erechtheus’ halls.

Ion
What fire? What blaze?

Creusa
You planned to take my home and make it yours—against my will.

Ion
What—when my father offered me a kingdom he had won?

Creusa
What stake do the sons of Aeolus have in Athena’s realm?

Ion
He brought force, not words, to claim it.

Creusa
A mere ally doesn’t inherit in my city.

Ion
So fear drove you to kill me?

Creusa
Yes—better I die than let you live to destroy me.

Ion
Is your childlessness why you envy me—because my father found me?

Creusa
And you—will you rob the childless of her home?

Ion
Do I get no share in my father’s inheritance?

Creusa
Everything his sword and shield won—that is yours. Yours alone.

Ion
Leave the altar. The sanctuary is for the gods.

Creusa
Tell your mother—wherever she is—to do that.

Ion
You’ll face punishment for trying to kill me.

Creusa
Not if you butcher me here.

Ion
What joy is there in dying among sacred wreaths?

Creusa
I’ll wound someone who wounded me.

Ion
Strange—how badly the gods wrote the laws for mortals.
They should never have let the impious sit at altars,
never let unclean hands touch the sacred stones.
The righteous deserve refuge—
not the wicked and the good together,
equal under the same protection.

(A calm authority interrupts. The Pythian Priestess steps through the doorway.)

Pythian Priestess
Hold, my son.
I am the priestess of Phoebus—chosen among Delphi’s maidens
by the ancient rite of the tripod.
I have left the prophetic seat to cross this threshold.

Ion (softening, respectful)
Hail—mother mine, though you did not bear me.

Pythian Priestess
I have been called that—and I don’t regret it.

Ion
You’ve heard? She plotted my death.

Pythian Priestess
I have. And yet you are rough—too rough.

Ion
Aren’t murderers to be paid with their own coin?

Pythian Priestess
Wives hate the children of other beds.

Ion
And I hate stepmothers—for how they treat me.

Pythian Priestess
Do not. Leave the shrine. Go home.

Ion
What do you advise?

Pythian Priestess
Go to Athens with clean hands, under good omens.

Ion
Any man has clean hands who kills his enemies.

Pythian Priestess
No. Take my counsel.

Ion
Speak—your goodwill guides me.

Pythian Priestess
Do you see this basket in my arms?

Ion
An old ark, crowned with chaplets.

Pythian Priestess
I found you in it—long ago—a newborn child.

Ion
What? You’re bringing a new story to light.

Pythian Priestess
I kept these tokens secret—until now.

Ion
How did you hide them that day—when you found me?

Pythian Priestess
The god wanted you to serve in his courts.

Ion
And now he doesn’t? How do I know?

Pythian Priestess
He names your father—so he sends you from this land.

Ion
Is it by his command you kept these? Why?

Pythian Priestess
Loxias stirred my heart that day—

Ion
To what end? Speak—finish it.

Pythian Priestess
—to keep what I had found until now.

Ion
What does this bring me—good or ill?

Pythian Priestess
Inside are the swaddling-clothes you were wrapped in.

Ion
These tokens—they might lead me to my mother.

Pythian Priestess
Yes. Now the god wills it—before, he did not.

Ion (awestruck)
Hail, day of blessed visions!

Pythian Priestess
Take them. Seek your mother—diligently.
Travel through Asia and the bounds of Europe, if you must—
you will learn the truth yourself.
For the god’s sake I raised you, child;
and now I entrust these relics to you—by his will.

(She offers the basket. Ion reaches out, trembling. Creusa watches, rigid with fear and hope. The Chorus murmurs, sensing the turn of fate.)