Ion (41-82)

But just as the sun-god was starting forth to run his course, a priestess chanced to enter the god’s shrine; and when her eyes lit upon the tender babe she thought it strange that any Delphian maid

should dare to cast her child of shame down at the temple of the god; wherefore her purpose was to remove him beyond the altar, but from pity she renounced her cruel thought, and the god to help his child did second her pity to save the babe from being cast out. So she took and brought him up,

but she knew not that Phoebus was his sire nor of the mother that bare him, nor yet did the child know his parents. While yet he was a child, around the altar that fed him he would ramble at his play, but when he came to man’s estate, the Delphians made him treasurer of the god

and steward of all his store, and found him true, and so until the present day he leads a holy life in the god’s temple. Meantime Creusa, mother of this youth, is wedded to Xuthus; and thus it came to pass; a war broke out ’twixt Athens and the folk of Chalcodon

who dwell in the land of Euboea; and Xuthus took part therein and helped to end it, for which he received the hand of Creusa as his guerdon, albeit he was no native, but an Achaean, sprung from Aeolus, the son of Zeus; and after many years of wedded life

he and Creusa still are childless; wherefore they are come to this oracle of Apollo in their desire for offspring. To this end is Loxias guiding their destiny nor hath it escaped his ken, as some suppose. For when Xuthus enters this shrine,

the god will give him his own son and declare that Xuthus is the sire, that so the boy may come to his mother’s home and be acknowledged by Creusa, while the marriage of Loxias remains a secret and the child obtains his rights; and he shall cause him to be called Ion, founder of a realm in Asia,

through all the breadth of Hellas. But now will I get me to yon grotto ’neath the laurel’s shade that I may learn what is decreed about the child. For I see the son of Loxias now coming forth to cleanse the gateway in front of the temple

with boughs of laurel. I greet him first of all the gods by his name Ion which he soon shall bear.