44 pages • 1 hour read
Ed. John C. Gilbert, EuripidesIon
Fiction | Play | AdultA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Lines 725-1105Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Lines 725-1105 Summary: “Third Episode”
Creusa enters the stage accompanied by her elderly and nearly blind slave, whom she helps navigate the steps to the sanctuary. The chorus admits to Creusa that Apollo has announced that Xuthus has a son but she does not. Creusa and her slave question the chorus further, and their news of Xuthus having a son with another woman devastates Creusa.
When the chorus shares that the boy is the temple custodian himself, whom Xuthus named Ion, Creusa moans in agony. The slave accompanying her suspects that Xuthus, having sent his bastard son to be raised in secret at the Delphic sanctuary, orchestrated the retrieval of this son by planning a trip to the oracle with his childless wife, aiming to take advantage of her noble Athenian lineage.
Creusa’s slave offers to lay a trap to kill Ion (supposing him to be Xuthus’s illegitimate son). Creusa privately chides herself for expecting to find her abandoned son. She resolves to publicly admit Apollo’s rape of her.
Creusa approaches the temple of Apollo and berates him (in absentia) for raping her in her youth. She also admits to exposing her child in the cave where he raped her. In conference with her slave, Creusa admits to enclosing drops of blood from the Gordon serpents killed by Athena in her bracelet. One of these drops is filled with an elixir that can ward off disease, and the other causes death. She expresses her commitment to heeding the slave’s suggestion and killing Ion once back in Athens. The slave retorts that people would likely suspect her, the stepmother, of the murder. Instead, the slave volunteers to kill Ion himself, as he is old and has nothing to lose. Creusa agrees and gives him the charm containing the deadly Gorgon blood. She instructs her slave to pour a drop of blood into Ion’s cup at the banquet Xuthus plans to hold for him at Delphi.
The chorus invokes Hecate, goddess of the underworld, to aid in the death of Ion, fearing that Creusa might kill herself if she lives to see Ion rule Athens. Next, the chorus besmirches Apollo and threatens to disavow his integrity should he allow Ion to survive and return to Athens within 20 days’ time.
Finally, the chorus invokes the bards (ancient poets who recited stories in verse) to attest to the superior piety of women compared to men who carry on illegitimate romances. Instead of singing about the infidelity of women (such as Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty who notoriously cavorted with mortal men), the chorus suggests that these bards instead sing of men’s love trysts, which are too often undiscovered.
Lines 725-1105 Analysis
This section enhances the dramatic irony already established in the prologue. However, this irony is exploited to a degree that is unanticipated by the audience. As Creusa is contemplating killing Ion, supposing him to be a pretender to the throne, she is in reality plotting the death of her own son.
Contributing to this irony is the fact that the handmaidens, who are unwaveringly loyal to Creusa, encourage her to hasten her own son’s death. The tension that mounts on stage and among the audience during these scenes constitutes the densest moments of rising action in the play.
Though the play’s material is already mythic in nature, an element of magic is revealed with the revelation of the serpent blood. The twin causes of good and evil are often coupled in Greek mythology. One famous example is Pandora’s box. Legend states that the gods each put something for the girl (Pandora) in the box, which was created by Hephaestus. This box contained not only the various woes that now afflict mankind but also hope. Greek gods are notorious for doling out charity and grief in equal measure, as illustrated by the serpent blood being capable of curing all disease. Specifically, the blood taken from the heart of the Gorgon (a mythical female figure whose most famous exemplar is Medusa) slayed by Athena is a panacea capable of curing all diseases, while the blood from the serpent in the Gorgon’s hair causes instant death.
A final figure of speech discernible in this section is that of invocation. An invocation is when a character (usually mortal) invites a god (or another being who is not present onstage) to help him or her accomplish a specific feat in which the invoked god has a special interest or ability. Creusa’s chorus of handmaidens remark, “Dark Hecatê, thou Wender of the Way / by dark, by daylight, Guide of them that slay” (1048-49). Here, they appropriately invoke the goddess of the underworld, Hecate.
Sometimes, invocation can be coupled with personification, as in the lines spoken by Creusa’s slave: “O aged feet, be young to do and dare / Though days and years gainsay thee. Forward fare” (1041-42). Here, the slave addresses his feet as if they were animate beings, as he invokes their help in bringing him to the place where he might accomplish his mission to assassinate Ion.
Related Titles
By these authors
