Ion (776-825)

Herein hast thou declared a further evil crowning all, a grief for me to mourn.

The child of whom thou speakest—is he some woman’s destined babe, or did the god declare the fate of one already born?

A youth already born and grown to man’s estate doth Phoebus give to him; for I was there myself.

What sayest thou? nor tongue nor lip should speak the word thou tellest me.

And me. But declare more clearly how this oracle is finding its fulfilment, and say who is the child.

Whomso thy husband first should meet as he issued from the shrine, him the god gave him for his son.

Ah me! my fate, it seems, has doomed me to a childless

life, and all forlorn am I to dwell in ray halls, without an heir.

To whom did the oracle refer? whom did our poor lady’s husband meet? how and where did he see him?

Dear mistress mine, dost know that youth

that was sweeping yonder shrine? He is that son.

Oh! for wings to cleave the liquid air beyond the land of Hellas, away to the western stars, so keen the anguish of my soul, my friends!

Dost know the name his father gave to him, or is that left as yet unsettled and unsaid?

He called him Ion, because he was the first to cross his path.

Who is his mother?

That I cannot say. But,—to tell thee all I know, old sir,—

her lord is gone, with furtive step, into the hallowed tent, there to offer on this child’s behalf such gifts and victims as are offered for a birth, and with his new-found son to celebrate the feast.

Mistress mine, we are betrayed by thy husband, fellow-sufferers thou and I; ’tis a deep-laid plot to outrage us

and drive us from Erechtheus’ halls. And this I say not from any hatred of thy lord but because I bear thee more love than him; for he, after coming as a stranger to thy city and thy home, and wedding thee, and of thy heritage taking full possession,

has been detected in a secret marriage with another woman, by whom he hath children. His secret will I now disclose; when he found thee barren, he was not content to share with thee thy hard lot, but took to himself a slave to be his stealthy paramour

and thus begat a son, whom he sent abroad, giving him to some Delphian maid to nurse; and, to escape detection, the child was dedicated to the god and reared in his temple. But when he heard his boy was grown to manhood, he persuaded thee to come hither to inquire about thy childless state.

And after this, ’twas not the god that lied, but thy husband, who long had been rearing the child, and he it was that wove this tissue of falsehood, intending, if he were detected, to refer it to the god, whereas if he escaped exposure, to repel all odium, he meant to vest the sovereignty in this son of his.