30 Ernest Heinrich Klotsche 



For the •same sentiment cf. Creusa's words, 



vv. 249 ff. : 



"... looking on Apollo's dwelling place, 

 I traversed o'er an ancient memory's track : 

 Afar my thoughts were, and my body here. 

 Ah, wrongs of women ! — wrongful-reckless deeds 

 Of Gods! For justice where shall we make suit. 

 If 'tis our Lord's injustice crushes us?" 



Again she charges Apollo with injustice 



Ion 384 ff-: 



5} ^oZ^e, KaKei Kav&ad' ov 5t/catos el k. t. X. 



"O Phcebus, there and here unjust art thou 

 Unto the absent one whose plea is here. 

 Thou shouldst have saved thine own, yet didst not save ; etc." 



and in the violent invectives vv. 881 ff. she cannot find sufficient 

 imprecations wherewith to curse before Heaven the " ravisher- 

 bridegroom " (911) who has made her mother. 



These passages not only show that the poet requires the Gods 

 to teach by example and not merely by precept in order to furnish 

 a moral standard for humanity, but these verses also illustrate 

 how ready Euripides is to bring forward with great force the 

 grosser side of the Greek legend, and to discredit the religion 

 with which he is not at all in inner harmony. Toward the end of 

 the play, however, — as in other tragedies of Euripides, where the 

 Gods are most severely assailed, — the conduct of the God is vin- 

 dicated by Athena who speaks for her brother, vv. 1595 ff. " Well 

 hath Apollo all things done : etc. ; " and Creusa finally admits the 

 justice of Apollo : 



" Here me : Phoebus praise I, whom I praised not in mine hour 

 of grief. 

 For that whom he set at naught, his child, to me he now re- 

 stores, etc." 



and the chorus insists at the end that the God's ways are not our 

 ways, and that their seeming injustices are made good in due 

 time : 



84 



