But though Xuthus has now got a son, Creüsa is still a childless wife. In passionate anger she reveals her long hidden secret, denounces the god as the author of her ruin, and with the help of a slave, attempts to poison Ion. The plot fails, she is pursued as a murderess by Ion and is on the point of being put to death. Then the priestess once more intervenes. She has heard Creüsa’s story—in some details not unlike though more lamentable than her own—and she determines to help a fellow sufferer. She has already given up her son to his father, and she now arranges a second trick whereby Creüsa shall believe Ion to be her child. She has in her possession a baby’s wicker cradle, a piece of cloth similar to that in which the dead baby was wrapped, and Creüsa’s own bracelet which has been used in the poisoning plot. By an ingenious subterfuge she makes all three appear to be the recognition tokens of Creüsa’s child. Creüsa with joy, Ion with some painful doubts, accept the new relationship; and so the play ends. The Ion and the Andromache both abound in incident: the Medea and the Alcestis depend more on a psychological interest. They are ‘one-part’ plays—the strong woman Medea and the weak man Admetus—and they have many points of resemblance. In the Medea a mother kills her children to save her own pride: in the Alcestis a mother consents to death to save her children’s position. Alcestis is a saint: Medea—to some people—a devil. Medea is certainly not meant to be a pleasant character. She has laboured too long under a sense of injustice to be pleasant either in her thoughts or behaviour. ‘You are always abusing the government;’ Jason says to her, ‘and so you will have to be ejected.’ She expresses the revolt of women in its bitterest form. ‘Of all things that draw breath,’ she cries, ‘and have understanding, we women are the most miserable; we are merely _a thing that exists_. To begin with, we must outbid each other to buy ourselves a lord and take a master of our body. ’Tis a risky business—we may get a knave or an honest man. To leave her husband brings a woman no honour, and we may not refuse our lords. When a woman comes to fresh ways and pastures new, she needs must be a prophet, for she has never been taught at home how best to use the man who now shares her bed. If we work our task aright, and our lord keeps house with us, and does not kick against the yoke, then our life is enviable. If not—better to be dead. A man, if he is vexed with the company of his household, goes out and purges away his heart’s annoyance; but we women are compelled to look ever at one soul.’