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In the first place, if tears are arguments of cowardice, what shall I say of Homer's hero? Shall Achilles pass for timorous because he wept, and wept on less occasions than AEneas? Herein Virgil must be granted to have excelled his master; for once both heroes are described lamenting their lost loves: Briseis was taken away by force from the Grecians, Creusa was lost for ever to her husband.
For while I ran by the most secret streets, Eschewing still the common haunted track, From me, catif, alas! bereaved was Creusa then, my spouse; I wot not how, Whether by fate, or missing of the way, Or that she was by weariness retain'd; But never sith these eyes might her behold.
The play closes with an appearance of Athena, who prophesies that Ion shall be the founder of the great Ionian race, for Apollo's hand had protected him and Creusa throughout. The central problem of this piece is whether the gods govern the world righteously or not.
Æneas determined therefore to carry him upon his shoulders. Little Ascanius was to walk along by his side. Creusa was to follow, keeping as close as possible to her husband lest she should lose him in the darkness of the night, or in the scenes of uproar and confusion through which they would have to pass on the way.
There is a mystery in his birth which does not trouble his sunny intelligence. Creusa, daughter of Erectheus King of Athens, is married to Xuthus but has no issue. Unaware that Ion is her son by Apollo, she meets him and is attracted by his noble bearing. A splendid dialogue of tragic irony represents both as wishing to find the one a mother, the other a son.
She was Medea, and if Jason was volage, woe to Creusa!
Miserably bad scholar as I was, and am, I knew enough to see that the Dorsetshire schoolmaster and village parson had dared to challenge the deified Virgil himself. The depth of feeling in the lines An' took her wi' air-reachen arm To my zide at Woak Hill is not exceeded even by those which tell how Æneas filled his arms with the empty air when he stretched them to enfold the dead Creusa.
It is remarkable that Vergil does not tell how Creusa came by her death. Apparently we are left to infer that she was killed by the Greeks. In the early days of summer the fleet being ready and all preparations complete Anchises gave the order for departure, and so they set sail, piously carrying with them the images of their household gods and of the "great gods" of their nation.
He was in constant fear lest some stray dart or arrow should strike Anchises or Creusa, or lest some band of Greeks should come suddenly upon them, in which case he knew well that they would all be cut down without mercy, for, loaded down as he was with his burden, he would be entirely unable to do any thing to defend either himself or them.
Then he set out with father, wife and son, and they groped their way through the city by the light of burning homesteads. Thus they passed at last through the midst of the enemy, and reached the temple of Ceres. There, to his dismay, Æneas missed Creusa. He rushed back to the city and made his way to his own house. He found it in flames, and the enemy were sacking the ruins.
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