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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Table of Contents:
Euripides. The Complete Greek Drama, edited by Whitney J. Oates and Eugene O'Neill, Jr. in two volumes. 1. Ion, translated by Robert Potter. New York. Random House. 1938.
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