Page:Lives of Poets-Laureate.djvu/313

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Again Erectheus blooms.

Our ancient house no more looks forth in night,

But raiseth up its head in the sun's rays."

Minerva appears, and prophesies the future greatness of the descendants of Ion, and advises that Xuthus should not he undeceived about his supposed parentage to Ion. This fault of making gods and men conspire against Xuthus, the critics have justly condemned. It is the only blemish of a play in which many of the descriptions are exquisite, the situations dramatic, and the plot interesting.

Whitehead's "Creusa" lacks all the supernatural elements in the drama of Euripides, and is altogether tragic.

Ilyssus, the Ion of this play, is not a foundling, nor the child of heaven and earth. Nicander, the mortal lover of Creusa, had been privately married to her, and on the night that she bore him her first child, he was banished by her father, Erectheus, King of Athens. He took his new-born child with him, and to prevent pursuit, left some of his own clothes on the road, besmeared with blood. This produced a general belief that he and the child were dead. He retired to Delphi, entrusted the child to the priest and priestess of Apollo, and lived near, and acted the part of the supposed orphan's guardian, under the assumed name of Aletes. Ilyssus ministers in the temple. Meanwhile, at Athens, Creusa is married to a military stranger, Xuthus. Their marriage bed is unfruitful. Phorbas, an Athenian citizen, is sent to Delphi to inquire of the Oracle about this. Next comes Creusa herself. Her interview with her unknown son, Ilyssus, is manifestly imitated from Euripides, and very well described, She laments his friendless state. He tells her the priest and priestess have been parents to him, and, "more than all," that Aletes,