Ion (557b-635)

We share the good luck of thy house; but still I could have wished my mistress too, and Erechtheus’ line, had been blest with children.

My son, albeit the god hath for thy discovery brought his oracle

to a true issue, and united thee to me, while thou, too, hast found what most thou dost desire, till now unconscious of it; still, as touching this anxiety so proper in thee, I feel an equal yearning that thou, my child, mayst find thy mother, and I the wife that bare thee unto me.

Maybe we shall discover this, if we leave it to time. But now leave the courts of the god, and this homeless life of thine, and come to Athens, in accordance with thy fathers wishes, for there his happy realm and bounteous wealth await thee; nor shalt thou

be taunted with base origin and poverty to boot, because in one of these respects thou something lackest, but thou shalt be renowned alike for birth and wealth. Art silent? why dost fix thy eyes upon the ground? Thou art lost in thought, and by this sudden change from thy former cheerfulness, thou strikest thy father with dismay.

Things assume a different form according as we see them before us, or far off. I am glad at what has happened, since I have found in thee a father; but hear me on some points which I am now deciding.

Athens, I am told,—that glorious city of a native race,—owns no aliens; in which case I shall force my entrance there under a twofold disadvantage, as an alien’s son and base-born as I am. Branded with this reproach, while as yet I am unsupported, I shall get the name of a mere nobody, a son of nobodies;

and if I win my way to the highest place in the state, and seek to be some one, I shall be hated by those who have no influence, for superiority is galling; while ’mongst men of worth who could show their wisdom, but are silent, and take no interest in politics,

I shall incur ridicule and be thought a fool for not keeping quiet in such a fault-finding city. Again, if I win a name amongst the men of mark who are engaged in politics, still more will jealous votes bar my progress; for thus, father, is it ever wont to be;

they who have the city’s ear, and have already made their mark, are most bitter against all rivals.

Again, if I, a stranger, come to a home that knows me not, and to that childless wife who before had thee as partner in her sorrow, but now

will feel the bitterness of having to bear her fortune all alone,—how, I ask, shall I not fairly earn her hatred, when I take my stand beside thee; while she, still childless, sees thy dear pledge with bitter eyes; and then thou have to choose between deserting me and regarding her,

or honouring me and utterly confounding thy home? How many a murder, and death by deadly drugs have wives devised for husbands! Besides, I pity that wife of thine, father, with her childless old age beginning; she little deserves

to pine in barrenness, a daughter of a noble race. That princely state we fondly praise is pleasant to the eye; but yet in its mansions sorrow lurks; for who is happy, or by fortune blest, that has to live his life in fear of violence with many a sidelong glance?

Rather would I live among the common folk, and taste their bliss, than be a tyrant who delights in making evil men his friends, and hates the good, in terror of his life. Perchance thou wilt tell me, Gold outweighs all these evils,

and wealth is sweet. I have no wish to be abused for holding tightly to my pelf, nor yet to have the trouble of it. Be mine a moderate fortune free from annoyance! Now hear the blessings, father, that here were mine; first, leisure, man’s chiefest joy,

with but moderate trouble; no villain ever drove me from my path, and that is a grievance hard to bear, to make room and give way to sorry knaves. My duty was to pray unto the gods, or with mortal men converse, a minister to their joys, not to their Sorrows.