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Creusa
[1395] What unexpected sight do I see?

Ion
You be silent; you know that you have said enough to me before—

Creusa
I cannot be silent; do not give me advice. For I see the cradle, in which I once exposed you, my son, when you were still an infant, [1400] in the caves of Cecrops and the overhanging rocks of Macrai. I will leave this altar, even if I must die.

Ion
Seize her; for she has been driven mad by the god and has left the wooden images of the altar; bind her hands.

Creusa
Do not hesitate to kill me; I shall lay claim to this vase, [1405] and you, and your concealed tokens.

Ion
Isn't this terrible? I am being seized by your talk.

Creusa
No, but you have been found to be dear to your own.

Ion
I am dear to you? And you were trying to kill me secretly?

Creusa
You are my child, if that is most dear to parents.

Ion
[1410] Stop weaving your plots; I will certainly catch you out.

Creusa
May I come to what I am aiming at, my child!

Ion
Is this vessel empty, or does it cover something?

Creusa
Yes, your clothes, in which I then exposed you.

Ion
And will you name them to me, before you see them?

Creusa
[1415] If I do not say them, I consent to die.

Ion
Speak; your daring has something strange in it.

Creusa
Look; cloth that I wove as a child.

Ion
What sort? Girls weave many things.

Creusa
Not completed, like a practice-work from the loom.

Ion
[1420] What appearance does it have? You will not catch me in this way.

Creusa
A Gorgon in the middle threads of the robe.

Ion
O Zeus, what fate hunts me down!

Creusa
And, like an aegis, bordered with serpents.

Ion
Look! That is the robe, as we are finding out the oracle.

Creusa
[1425] O long-lost work of my loom when I was a girl!

Ion
Is there anything else besides, or are you lucky in this only?

Creusa
Serpents; an old gift of Athena, in gold; she tells us to rear children, in imitation of Erichthonius of long ago.

Ion
[1430] Tells you to do what with the gold, how to use it? Explain it to me.

Creusa
Necklaces for the new-born baby to wear, my child.

Ion
They are here; I long to know the third thing.

Creusa
I put an olive crown around you, from the tree that Athena first brought out of the rock; [1435] if it is there, it has not lost its green, but flourishes, born from an immortal olive tree.

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