Who is she? If she would but help me in the task, how happy should I be!Creusa’Tis she on whose account I have preceded my husband hither.IonWhat are thy wishes? be sure I will serve thee, lady.CreusaI would fain obtain a secret answer from Apollo’s oracle.IonName it, then; the rest will I undertake for thee.CreusaHear, then, this story. Yet am I ashamed.IonThus wilt thou accomplish naught, for shame is a goddess slow to act.CreusaA friend of mine asserts that Phoebus lay with her.IonPhoebus with a mortal woman? Stranger lady, say not so.CreusaYea, and she bare the god a child without her father’s knowledge.IonIt cannot be; some man did wrong her, and she is ashamed of it.CreusaThis she denieis herself; and she hath suffered further woe.IonHow so, if she was wedded to a god?CreusaThe babe she bare she did expose.IonWhere is the child who was thus cast forth? is he yet alive?CreusaNo man knoweth. That is the very thing I would ask the oracle.IonBut if he be no more, how did he perish?CreusaShe supposes that beasts devoured the hapless babe.IonWhat proof led her to form this opinion?CreusaShe came to the place where she exposed him, but found him no longer there.IonWere any drops of blood upon the path?CreusaNone, she says; and yet she ranged the ground to and fro.IonHow long is it since the babe was destroyed?CreusaThy age and his would measure out the self-same span, were he alive.IonHath she given birth to no other child since then?CreusaThe god doth wrong her, and wretched is she in having no child.IonBut what if Phoebus privily removed her child, and is rearing it?CreusaThen is he acting unfairly in keeping to himself alone a joy he ought to share.IonAh me! this misfortune sounds so like my own.CreusaThee too, fair sir, thy poor mother misses, I am sure.