Nor didst thou save thy son, whom it became thee
To save; nor, though a prophet, wilt thou speak
To the sad mother who inquires of thee;
That, if he is no more, to him a tomb
May rise; but, if he lives, that he may bless
His mother’s eyes. But even thus behooves us
To omit these things, if by the god denied
To know what most I wish.-But, for I see
The noble Xuthus this way bend, return’d
From the Trophonian cave; before my husband
Resume not, generous stranger, this discourse,
Lest it might cause me shame that thus I act
In secret, and perchance lead on to questions
I would not have explain’d. Our hapless sex
Oft feel our husbands’ rigour: with the bad
The virtuous they confound, and treat us harshly.
(XUTHUS and his retinue enter.)
XUTHUS With reverence to the god my first address
I pay: Hail, Phoebus! Lady, next to thee:
Absent so long, have I not caused thee fear?
CREUSA Not much: as anxious thoughts ‘gan rise, thou’rt come.
But, tell me, from Trophonius what reply
Bearest thou; what means whence offspring may arise?
XUTHUS Unmeet he held it to anticipate
The answer of the god: one thing he told me.
That childless I should not return, nor thou,
Home from the oracle.
CREUSA Goddess revered,
Mother of Phoebus, be our coming hither
In lucky hour; and our connubial bed
Be by thy son made happier than before!
XUTHUS It shall be so. But who is president here?
ION Without, that charge is mine; within, devolved
On others, stranger, seated near the tripod;
The chiefs of Delphi these, chosen by lot.
XUTHUS ’Tis well: all that I want is then complete.
Let me now enter: for the oracle
Is given, I hear, in common to all strangers
Before the shrine; on such a day, that falls
Propitious thus, the answer of the god
Would I receive: meanwhile, these laurel boughs
Bear round the altars; lady, breathe thy prayers
To every god, that from Apollo’s shrine
I may bring back the promise of a son.
(XUTHUS, after giving the laurel boughs to CREUSA, enters the temple.)
CREUSA It shall, it shall be so. Should Phoebus now
At least be willing to redress the fault
Of former times, he would not through the whole
Be friendly to us: yet will I accept
What he vouchsafes us, for he is a god.
(CREUSA departs to the shrines in the outer precinct of the temple.)
ION Why does this stranger always thus revile
With obscure speech the god? Is it through love
Of her, for whom she asks? or to conceal
Some secret of importance? But to me
What is the daughter of Erechtheus? Naught
Concerns it me. Then let me to my task,
And sprinkle from the golden vase the dew.
Yet must I blame the god, if thus perforce
He mounts the bed of virgins, and by stealth
Becomes a father, leaving then his children
To die, regardless of them. Do not thou
Act thus; but, as thy power is great, respect
The virtues; for whoe’er, of mortal men,
Dares impious deeds, him the gods punish: how
Is it then just that you, who gave the laws
To mortals, should yourselves transgress those laws?,
If (though it is not thus, yet will I urge
The subject),-if to mortals you shall pay
The penalty of forced embraces, thou,
Neptune, and Jove, that reigns supreme in heaven,
Will leave your temples treasureless by paying
The mulcts of your injustice: for unjust
You are, your pleasures to grave temperance
Preferring: and to men these deeds no more
Can it be just to charge as crimes, these deeds
If from the gods they imitate: on those
Who gave the ill examples falls the charge.
(ION goes out.)
CHORUS (singing) Thee prompt to yield thy lenient aid,
And sooth a mother’s pain:
And thee, my Pallas, martial maid,
I call: O, hear the strain!
Thou, whom the Titan from the head of Jove,
Prometheus, drew, bright Victory, come,
Descending from thy golden throne above;
Haste, goddess, to the Pythian dome,
Where Phoebus, from his central shrine,
Gives the oracle divine,
By the raving maid repeated,
On the hallow’d tripod seated:
O haste thee, goddess, and with thee
The daughter of Latona bring;
A virgin thou, a virgin she,
Sisters to the Delphian king;
Him, virgins, let your vows implore,
That now his pure oracular power
Will to Erechtheus’ ancient line declare
The blessing of a long-expected heir!
To mortal man this promised grace
Sublimest pleasure brings,
When round the father’s hearth a race
In blooming lustre springs.
The wealth, the honours, from their high-drawn line
From sire to son transmitted down,
Shall with fresh glory through their offspring shine,
And brighten with increased renown:
A guard, when ills begin to lower,
Dear in fortune’s happier hour;
For their country’s safety waking,
Firm in fight the strong spear shaking;
More than proud wealth’s exhaustless store,
More than a monarch’s bride to reign,
The dear delight, to virtue’s lore
Careful the infant mind to train.
Doth any praise the childless state?
The joyless, loveless life I hate;
No; my desires to moderate wealth I bound,
But let me see my children smile around.
Ye rustic seats, Pan’s dear delight;
Ye caves of Macrai’s rocky height,
Where oft the social virgins meet,
And weave the dance with nimble feet;
Descendants from Aglauros they
In the third line, with festive play,
Minerva’s hallow’d fane before
The verdant plain light-tripping o’er,
When thy pipe’s quick-varying sound
Rings, O Pan, these caves around;
Where, by Apollo’s love betray’d,
Her child some hapless mother laid,
Exposed to each night-prowling beast,
Or to the ravenous birds a feast;
For never have I heard it told,
Nor wrought it in historic gold,
That happiness attends the race,
When gods with mortals mix the embrace.
(ION re-enters.)
ION Ye female train, that place yourselves around
This incense-breathing temple’s base, your lord
Awaiting, hath he left the sacred tripod
And oracle, or stays he in the shrine,
Making inquiries of his childless state?
LEADER OF THE CHORUS Yet in the temple, stranger, he remains.
ION But he comes forth; the sounding doors announce
His near approach; behold, our lord is here.
(XUTHUS enters from the temple. He rushes to greet ION.)
XUTHUS Health to my son! This first address is proper.
ION I have my health: be in thy senses thou,
And both are well.
XUTHUS O let me kiss thy hand,
And throw mine arms around thee.
ION Art thou, stranger,
Well in thy wits? or hath the god’s displeasure
Bereft thee of thy reason?
XUTHUS Reason bids,
That which is dearest being found, to wish
A fond embrace.
ION Off, touch me not; thy hands
Will mar the garlands of the god.
XUTHUS My touch
Asserts no pledge: my own, and that most dear,
I find.
ION Wilt thou not keep thee distant, ere
Thou hast my arrow in thy heart?
XUTHUS Why fly me,
When thou shouldst own what is most fond of thee?
ION I am not fond of curing wayward strangers,
And madmen.
XUTHUS Kill me, raise my funeral pyre;
But, if thou kill me, thou wilt kill thy father.
ION My father thou! how so? it makes me laugh
To hear thee.
XUTHUS This my words may soon explain.
ION What wilt thou say to me?
XUTHUS I am thy father,
And thou my son.
ION Who declares this?
XUTHUS The god,
That nurtured thee, though mine.
ION Thou to thyself
Art witness.
XUTHUS By the oracle inform’d.
ION Misled by some dark answer.
XUTHUS Well I heard it.
ION What were the words of Phoebus?
XUTHUS That who first
Should meet me-
ION How?-what meeting?
XUTHUS As I pass’d.
Forth from the temple.
ION What the event to him?
XUTHUS He is my son.
ION Born so, or by some other
Presented?
XUTHUS Though a present, born my son.
ION And didst thou first meet me?
XUTHUS None else, my son.
ION This fortune whence?
XUTHUS At that we marvel both.
ION Who is my mother?
XUTHUS That I cannot say.
ION Did not the god inform thee?
XUTHUS Through my joy,
For this I ask’d not.
ION Haply from the earth
I sprung, my mother.
XUTHUS No, the earth no sons
Produces.
ION How then am I thine?
XUTHUS I know not.
To Phoebus I appeal.
ION Be this discourse
Chang’d to some other.
XUTHUS This delights me most.
ION Hast thou e’er mounted an unlawful bed?
XUTHUS In foolishness of youth.
ION Was that before
Thy marriage with the daughter of Erechtheus?
XUTHUS Since never.
ION Owe I then my birth to that?
XUTHUS The time agrees.
ION How came I hither then?
XUTHUS I can form no conjecture.
ION Was I brought
From some far distant part?
XUTHUS That fills my mind
With doubtful musing.
ION Didst thou e’er before
Visit the Pythian rock?
XUTHUS Once, at the feast
Of Bacchus.
ION By some public host received?
XUTHUS Who with the Delphian damsels-
ION To the orgies
Led thee, or how?
XUTHUS And with the Maenades
Of Bacchus-
ION In the temperate hour, or warm
With wine?
XUTHUS Amid the revels of the god.
ION From thence I date my birth.
XUTHUS And fate, my son,
Hath found thee.
ION How then came I to the temple?
XUTHUS Perchance exposed.
ION The state of servitude
Have I escaped.
XUTHUS Thy father now, my son,
Receive.
ION Indecent were it in the god
Not to confide.
XUTHUS Thy thoughts are just.
ION What else
Would we?
XUTHUS Thou seest what thou oughtst to see.
ION Am I the son then of the son of Jove?
XUTHUS Such is thy fortune.
ION Those that gave me birth
Do I embrace?
XUTHUS Obedient to the god.
ION My father, hail!
XUTHUS That dear name I accept
With joy.
ION This present day-
XUTHUS Hath made me happy.
ION O my dear mother, when shall I behold
Thy face? Whoe’er thou art, more wish I now
To see thee than before; but thou perchance
Art dead, and nothing our desires avail.
LEADER We in the blessing of our house rejoice.
Yet wish we that our mistress too were happy
In children, and the lineage of Erechtheus.
XUTHUS Well hath the god accomplish’d this, my son,
Discovering thee, well hath he joined thee to me;
And thou hast found the most endearing ties,
To which, before this hour, thou wast a stranger.
And the warm wish, which thou hast well conceived,
Is likewise mine, that thou mayst find thy mother;
I from what woman thou derivest thy birth.
This, left to time, may haply be discover’d.
Now quit this hallow’d earth, the god no more
Attending, and to mine accord thy mind,
To visit Athens, where thy father’s sceptre,
No mean one, waits thee, and abundant wealth:
Nor, though thou grieve one parent yet unknown,
Or poor: no, thou art noble, and thy state
Adorn’d with rich possessions. Thou art silent.
Why is thine eye thus fixed upon the ground?
Why on thy brow that cloud? The smile of joy
Vanish’d, thou strikest thy father’s heart with fear.
ION Far other things appear when nigh, than seen
At distance. I indeed embrace my fortune,
In thee my father found. But hear what now
Wakes sad reflections. Proud of their high race
Are your Athenians, natives of the land,
Not drawn from foreign lineage: I to them
Shall come unwelcome, in two points defective,
My father not a native, and myself
Of spurious birth: loaded with this reproach,
If destitute of power, I shall be held
Abject and worthless: should I rush among
The highest order of the state, and wish
To appear important, inferior ranks
Will hate me; aught above them gives disgust.
The good, the wise, men form’d to serve the state,
Are silent, nor at public honours aim
Too hastily: by such, were I not quiet
In such a bustling state, I should be deem’d
Ridiculous, and proverb’d for a fool.
Should I attain the dignity of those,
Whose approved worth hath raised them to the height
Of public honours, by such suffrage more
Should I be watch’d; for they that hold in states
Rule and pre-eminence, bear hostile minds
To all that vie with them. And should I come
To a strange house a stranger, to a woman
Childless herself, who that misfortune shared
Before with thee, now sees it her sole lot,
And feels it bitterly, would she not hate me,
And that with justice? When I stand before them.
With what an eye would she, who hath no child,
Lo
ok on thy child? In tenderness to her,
Thy wife, thou must forsake me, or embroil
Thy house in discord, if thou favour me.
What murderous means, what poisonous drugs for men
Have women with inventive rage prepared!
Besides, I have much pity for thy wife,
Now growing old without a child, that grief
Unmerited, the last of her high race,
The exterior face indeed of royalty,
So causelessly commended, bath its brightness;
Within, all gloom: for what sweet peace of mind,
What happiness is his, whose years are pass’d
In comfortless suspicion, and the dread
Of violence? Be mine the humble blessings
Of private life, rather than be a king,
From the flagitious forced to choose my friends,
And hate the virtuous through the fear of death.
Gold, thou mayst tell me, hath o’er things like these
A sovereign power, and riches give delight:
I have no pleasure in this noisy pomp,
Nor, while I guard my riches, in the toil:
Be mine a modest mean that knows not care.
And now, my father, hear the happy state
I here enjoy’d; and first, to mortal man
That dearest blessing, leisure, and no bustle
To cause disturbance: me no ruffian force
Shoved from the way: it is not to be borne,
When every insolent and worthless wretch
Makes you give place. The worship of the god
Employ’d my life, or (no unpleasing task)
Service to men well pleased: the parting guest
I bade farewell-welcomed the new-arrived.
Thus something always new made every hour
Glide sweetly on; and to the human mind
That dearest wish, though some regard it not,
To be, what duty and my nature made me,
Just to the god: revolving this, my father,
I wish not for thy Athens to exchange
This state; permit me to myself to live;
Dear to the mind pleasures that arise
From humble life, as those which greatness brings.
LEADER Well hast thou said, if those whom my soul holds
Most dear shall in thy words find happiness.
XUTHUS No more of this discourse; learn to be happy.
It is my will that thou begin it here,
Where first I found thee, son: a general feast
Will I provide, and make a sacrifice,
Which at thy birth I made not: at my table
Will I receive thee as a welcome guest,
And cheer thee with the banquet, then conduct the
To Athens with me as a visitant,
Not as my son: for, mid my happiness,
I would not grieve my wife, who hath no child.
ION But I will watch the occasions time may bring,
And so present thee, and obtain her leave
That thou mayst hold the sceptre which I bear.
Ion I name thee, as befits thy fortune,