Complete Works of Euripides

by Euripides

  As first thou met’st me from the hallow’d shrine

  As I came forth; assemble then thy friends,

  Invite them all to share the joyful feast,

  Since thou art soon to leave the Delphic state.

  And you, ye females, keep, I charge you, keep

  This secret; she that tells my wife shall die.

  ION Let us then go; yet one thing to my fortune

  Is wanting: if I find not her that bore me,

  Life hath no joy. Might I indulge a wish,

  It were to find her an Athenian dame,

  That from my mother I might dare to assume

  Some confidence; for he whose fortune leads him

  To a free state proud of their unmix’d race,

  Though call’d a citizen, must close his lips

  With servile awe, for freedom is not his.

  (XUTHUS and ION go out.)

  CHORUS (singing) Yes, sisters, yes, the streaming eye,

  The swelling heart I see, the bursting sigh,

  When thus rejoicing in his son

  Our queen her royal lord shall find,

  And give to grief her anguish’d mind,

  Afflicted, childless, and alone.

  What means this voice divine,

  Son of Latona, fate-declaring power?

  Whence is this youth, so fondly graced,

  That to ripe manhood, from his infant hour,

  Hath in thy hallow’d courts been plac’d

  And nurtured at thy shrine?

  Thy dark reply delights not me;

  Lurking beneath close fraud I see:

  Where will this end? I fear, I fear-

  ’Tis strange, and strange events must hence ensue:

  But grateful sounds it to his ear,

  The youth, that in another’s state

  (Who sees not that my words are true?)

  Enjoys the fraud, and triumphs in his fate.

  Say, sisters, say, with duteous zeal

  Shall we this secret to our queen reveal?

  She, to her royal lord resign’d,

  With equal hope, with equal care,

  Form’d her his joys, his griefs to share,

  And gave him an her willing mind.

  But joys are his alone;

  While she, poor mourner, with a weight of woes,

  To hoary age advancing, bends;

  He the bright smile of prosperous fortune knows.

  Ev’n thus, unhonour’d by his friends,

  Plac’d on another’s throne,

  Mischance and ruin on him wait,

  Who fails to guard its happy state.

  Him may mischance and ruin seize,

  Who round my lov’d queen spreads his wily trains.

  No god may his oblation please,

  No favouring flame to him ascend!

  To her my faith, my zeal remains,

  Known to her ancient royal house a friend.

  Now the father and the new-found son

  The festive table haste to spread,

  Where to the skies Parnassus lifts his head,

  And deep beneath the hanging stone

  Forms in its rudely-rifted side

  A cavern wild and wide;

  Where Bacchus, shaking high his midnight flames,

  In many a light fantastic round

  Dances o’er the craggy ground,

  And revels with his frantic dames.

  Ne’er to my city let him come,

  This youth: no, rather let him die,

  And sink into an early tomb!

  With an indignant eye

  Athens would view the stranger’s pride

  Within her gates triumphant ride:

  Enough for her the honour’d race that springs

  From old Erechtheus and her line of kings.

  (CREUSA and her aged TUTOR enter.)

  CREUSA Thou venerable man, whose guiding voice

  My father, while he lived, revered, advance

  Up to the oracular seat thy aged steps;

  That, if the royal Phoebus should pronounce

  Promise of offspring, thou with me mayst share

  The joy; for pleasing is it when with friends

  Good fortune we receive; if aught of ill

  (Avert it, Heaven!) befalls, a friend’s kind eye

  Beams comfort; thee, as once thou didst revere

  My father, though thy queen, I now revere.

  TUTOR In thee, my child, the nobleness of manners

  Which graced thy royal ancestors yet lives;

  Thou never wilt disgrace thy high-born lineage.

  Lead me, then, lead me to the shrine, support me:

  High is the oracular seat, and steep the ascent;

  Be thou assistant to the foot of age.

  CREUSA Follow; be heedful where thou set thy steps.

  TUTOR I am: my foot is slow, my heart hath wings.

  CREUSA Fix thy staff firm on this loose-rolling ground.

  TUTOR That hath no eyes; and dim indeed my sight.

  CREUSA Well hast thou said; on cheerful then, and faint not.

  TUTOR I have the will, but o’er constraint no power.

  CREUSA Ye females, on my richly-broider’d works

  Faithful attendants, say, respecting children,

  For which we came, what fortune hath my lord

  Borne hence? if good, declare it: you shall find

  That to no thankless masters you give joy.

  LEADER OF THE CHORUS O fortune!

  CREUSA To thy speech this is a proem

  Not tuned to happiness.

  LEADER Unhappy fortune!

  But why distress me for the oracle

  Given to our lords? Be that as fate requires

  In things which threaten death, what shall we do?

  CREUSA What means this strain of woe? Whence are these fears?

  LEADER What! shall we speak, or bury this in silence?

  CREUSA Speak, though thy words bring wretchedness to me.

  LEADER It shall be spoken, were I twice to die.

  To thee, my queen, it is not given to clasp

  In thy fond arms a child, or at thy breast

  To hold it.

  TUTOR O my child, would I were dead!

  CREUSA Yes, this is wretchedness indeed, a grief

  That makes life joyless.

  TUTOR This is ruin to us.

  CREUSA Unhappy me! this is a piercing grief,

  That rends my heart with anguish.

  TUTOR Groan not yet.

  CREUSA Yet is the affliction present.

  TUTOR Till we learn-

  CREUSA To me what tidings?

  TUTOR If a common fate

  Await our lord, partaker of thy griefs,

  Or thou alone art thus unfortunate.

  LEADER To him, old man, the god hath given a son,

  And happiness is his unknown to her.

  CREUSA To ill this adds the deepest ill, a grief

  For me to mourn.

  TUTOR Born of some other woman

  Is this child yet to come, or did the god

  Declare one now in being?

  LEADER One advanced

  To manhood’s prime he gave him: I was present.

  CREUSA What hast thou said? Thy words denounce to me

  Sorrows past speech, past utterance.

  TUTOR And to me.

  CREUSA How was this oracle accomplish’d? Tell me

  With clearest circumstance: who is this youth?

  LEADER Him as a son Apollo gave, whom first,

  Departing from the god, thy lord should meet.

  CREUSA O my unhappy fate! I then am left

  Childless to pass my life, childless, alone,

  Amid my lonely house! Who was declared?

  Whom did the husband of this wretch first meet?

  How meet him? Where behold him? Tell me all.

  LEADER Dost thou, my honoured mistress, call to mind

  The youth that swept the temple? This
is he.

  CREUSA O, through the liquid air that I could fly,

  Far from the land of Greece, ev’n to the stars

  Fix’d in the western sky! Ah me, what grief,

  What piercing grief is mine I

  TUTOR Say, by what name

  Did he address his son, if thou hast heard it?

  Or does it rest in silence, yet unknown?

  LEADER Ion, for that he first advanced to meet him.

  TUTOR And of what mother?

  LEADER That I could not learn:

  Abrupt was his departure (to inform the

  Of all I know, old man) to sacrifice,

  With hospitable rites, a birthday feast;

  And in the hallow’d cave, from her apart,

  With his new son to share the common banquet.

  TUTOR Lady, we by thy husband are betrayed,

  For I with thee am grieved, with contrived fraud

  Insulted, from thy father’s house cast forth.

  I speak not this in hatred to thy lord,

  But that I love thee more: a stranger he

  Came to the city and thy royal house,

  And wedded thee, all thy inheritance

  Receiving, by some other woman now

  Discover’d to have children privately:

  How privately I’ll tell thee: when he saw

  Thou hadst no child, it pleased him not to bear

  A fate like thine; but by some favourite slave,

  His paramour by stealth, he hath a son.

  Him to some Delphian gave he, distant far,

  To educate; who to this sacred house

  Consign’d, as secret here, received his nurture.

  He knowing this, and that his son advanced

  To manhood, urged thee to attend him hither,

  Pleading thy childless state. Nor hath the god

  Deceived thee: he deceived thee, and long since

  Contrived this wily plan to rear his son,

  That, if convicted, he might charge the god,

  Himself excusing: should the fraud succeed,

  He would observe the times when he might safely

  Consign to him the empire of thy land.

  And this new name was at his leisure form’d,

  Ion, for that he came by chance to meet him.

  I hate those ill-designing men, that form

  Plans of injustice, and then gild them over

  With artificial ornament: to me

  Far dearer is the honest simple friend,

  Than one whose quicker wit is train’d to ill.

  And to complete this fraud, thou shalt be urged

  To take into thy house, to lord it there,

  This low-born youth, this offspring of a slave.

  Though ill, it had been open, had he pleaded

  Thy want of children, and, thy leave obtain’d,

  Brought to thy house a son that could have boasted

  His mother noble; or, if that displeased thee,

  He might have sought a wife from Aeolus.

  Behooves thee then to act a woman’s part,

  Or grasp the sword, or drug the poison’d bowl,

  Or plan some deep design to kill thy husband,

  And this his son, before thou find thy death

  From them: if thou delay, thy life is lost:

  For when beneath one roof two foes are met,

  The one must perish. I with ready zeal

  Will aid thee in this work, and kill the youth,

  Entering the grot where he prepares the feast;

  Indifferent in my choice, so that I pay

  What to my lords I owe, to live or die.

  If there is aught that causes slaves to blush,

  It is the name; in all else than the free

  The slave is nothing worse, if he be virtuous.

  I too, my honour’d queen, with cheerful mind

  Will share thy fate, or die, or live with honour.

  CREUSA (chanting) How, o my soul, shall I be silent, how

  Disclose this secret? Can I bid farewell

  To modesty? What else restrains my tongue?

  To how severe a trial am I brought!

  Hath not my husband wrong’d me? Of my house

  I am deprived, deprived of children; hope

  Is vanish’d, which my heart could not resign,

  With many an honest wish this furtive bed

  Concealing, this lamented bed concealing.

  But by the star-bespangled throne of Jove,

  And by the goddess high above my rocks

  Enshrined, by the moist banks that bend around

  The hallow’d lake by Triton form’d, no longer

  Will I conceal this bed, but ease my breast,

  The oppressive load discharged. Mine eyes drop tears,

  My soul is rent, to wretchedness ensnared

  By men, by gods, whom I will now disclose,

  Unkind betrayers of the beds they forced.

  O thou, that wakest on thy seven-string’d lyre

  Sweet notes, that from the rustic lifeless horn

  Enchant the ear with heavenly melody,

  Son of Latona, thee before this light

  Will I reprove. Thou camest to me, with gold

  Thy locks all glittering, as the vermeil flowers

  I gather’d in my vest to deck my bosom

  With the spring’s glowing hues; in my white hand

  Thy hand enlocking, to the cavern’d rock

  Thou led’st me; naught avail’d my cries, that call’d

  My mother; on thou led’st me, wanton god,

  Immodestly, to Venus paying homage.

  A son I bare thee, O my wretched fate!

  Him (for I fear’d my mother) in thy cave

  I placed, where I unhappy was undone

  By thy unhappy love. Woe, woe is me!

  And now my son and thine, ill-fated babe,

  Is rent by ravenous vultures; thou, meanwhile,

  Art to thy lyre attuning strains of joy.

  Set of Latona, thee I call aloud

  Who from thy golden seat, thy central throne,

  Utterest thine oracle: my voice shall reach

  Thine ear: ungrateful lover, to my husband,

  No grace requiting, thou hast given a son

  To bless his house; my son and thine, unown’d,

  Perish’d a prey to birds; the robes that wrapp’d

  The infant’s limbs, his mother’s work, lost with him.

  Delos abhors thee, and the laurel boughs

  With the soft foliage of the palm o’erhung,

  Grasping whose round trunk with her hands divine,

  Latona thee, her hallow’d offspring, bore.

  LEADER Ah, what a mighty treasury of ills

  Is open’d here, a copious source of tears!

  TUTOR Never, my daughter, can I sate my eyes

  With looking on thy face: astonishment

  Bears me beyond my senses. I had stemm’d

  One tide of evils, when another flood

  High-surging overwhelm’d me from the words

  Which thou hast utter’d, from the present ills

  To an ill train of other woes transferr’d.

  What say’st thou? Of what charge dost thou implead

  The god? What son hast thou brought forth? Where placed him

  A feast for vultures? Tell me all again.

  CREUSA Though I must blush, old man, yet I will speak.

  TUTOR I mourn with generous grief at a friend’s woes.

  CREUSA Hear then: the northward-pointing cave thou knowest,

  And the Cecropian rocks, which we call Macrai.

  TUTOR Where stands a shrine to Pan, and altars nigh.

  CREUSA There in a dreadful conflict I engaged.

  TUTOR What! my tears rise ready to meet thy words.

  CREUSA By Phoebus drawn reluctant to his bed.

  TUTOR Was this, my daughter, such as I suppose?

  CREUSA I know not: but if t
ruth, I will confess it.

  TUTOR Didst thou in silence mourn this secret ill?

  CREUSA This was the grief I now disclose to thee.

  TUTOR This love of Phoebus how didst thou conceal?

  CREUSA I bore a son. Hear me, old man, with patience.

  TUTOR Where? who assisted? or wast thou alone?

  CREUSA Alone, in the same cave where compress’d.

  TUTOR Where is thy son, that childless now no more

  CREUSA Dead, good old man, to beasts of prey exposed.

  TUTOR Dead! and the ungrateful Phoebus gives no aid?

  CREUSA None: in the house of Pluto a young guest.

  TUTOR Whose hands exposed him? Surely not thine own.

  CREUSA Mine, in the shades of night, wrapp’d in his vests.

  TUTOR Hadst thou none with thee conscious to this deed?

  CREUSA My misery, and the secret place alone.

  TUTOR How durst thou in a cavern leave thy son?

  CREUSA How? uttering many sad and plaintive words.

  TUTOR Ah, cruel was thy deed, the god more cruel.

  CREUSA Hadst thou but seen him stretch his little hands!

  TUTOR Seeking the breast, or reaching to thine arms?

  CREUSA To this, deprived of which he suffer’d wrong.

  TUTOR And what induced thee to expose thy child?

  CREUSA Hope that the god’s kind care would save his son.

  TUTOR How are the glories of thy house destroy’d!

  CREUSA Why, thine head cover’d, dost thou pour these tears?

  TUTOR To see thee and thy father thus unhappy.

  CREUSA This is the state of man: nothing stands firm.

  TUTOR No longer then, my child, let grief oppress us.

  CREUSA What should I do? In misery all is doubt.

  TUTOR First on the god that wrong’d thee be avenged.

  CREUSA How shall a mortal ‘gainst a god prevail?

  TUTOR Set this revered oracular shrine on fire.

  CREUSA I fear: ev’n now I have enough of ills.

  TUTOR Attempt what may be done then; kill thy husband.

  CREUSA The nuptial bed I reverence, and his goodness.

  TUTOR This son then, which is now brought forth against thee.

  CREUSA How? Could that be, how warmly should I wish it.

  TUTOR Thy train hath swords: instruct them to the deed.

  CREUSA I go with speed: but where shall it be done?

  TUTOR In the hallow’d tent, where now he feasts his friends.

  CREUSA An open murder, and with coward slaves!

  TUTOR If mine displease, propose thou some design.

  CREUSA I have it, close and easy to achieve.

  TUTOR In both my faithful services are thine.

  CREUSA Hear then: not strange to thee the giants’ war.

  TUTOR When they in Phlegra fought against the gods.

  CREUSA There the earth brought forth the Gorgon, horrid monster.