In the Ion Pythia consents to an even harder sacrifice: she hands over her child to another woman, saves him thereby from the guilt of murder and makes him prince of Athens. Andromache and the Priestess have been injured in the past, but they are saved by their children: the maternal, not the marital, is the holy state. But in both plays the feminist interest is complicated by other motives, political and religious. In the Andromache a bitter attack is made upon the Spartan system in the person of Menelaus. ‘You a man?’ old Peleus cries, ‘You dastard son of dastard parents. What claim have you to be counted among men? A fine _man_ it was, a Phrygian, that robbed you of your wife. You left your hearth and home without a lock, without a servant to guard, as though, forsooth, you had a virtuous wife within doors, she who was the worst of all women. Why, even if she wished, none of your Spartan girls could be virtuous. They leave the shelter of home and go about with young men; their legs bare, their dresses open; and run and wrestle like men. It all seems to be abominable. We need not be surprised that your system of education does not produce virtuous women.’ In the Ion the system of Delphi and the oracle is assailed, and a vein of bitter irony runs through the play. So ironical is the poet’s method that, if we take the prologue seriously and confine ourselves to the statements there made, we are apt to get a somewhat misleading idea of the play’s purpose. Dr. Way, for example, who gives the traditional interpretation with the greatest clearness, supplies the following summary of the action. ‘In the days when Erechtheus ruled over Athens, Apollo wrought violence to the king’s young daughter Creüsa. And she, having borne a son, left him, by reason of her fear and shame, in the cave wherein the God had humbled her. But Apollo cared for him, and caused the babe to be brought to Delphi, even to his temple. Therein was the child nurtured, and ministered in the courts of the God’s house. And in process of time Erechtheus died, and left no son nor daughter save Creüsa, and evil days came upon Athens, that she was hard bestead in war. Then Xuthus, a chief of the Achæan folk, fought for her and prevailed against her Eubœan enemies, and for guerdon of victory received the princess Creüsa to wife, and so became king-consort in Athens. But to these twain was no child born; so, after many years, they journeyed to Delphi to inquire of the oracle of Apollo touching issue. And there the God ordered all things so that the lost was found, and an heir was given to the royal house of Athens. Yet, through the blind haste of mortals, and their little faith, was the son well-nigh slain by the mother, and the mother by the son.’