Ah me!the moist tear trickles from mine eye,When I reflect that she who gave me birth,By stealth espoused,may with like secrecy Have sold me,to my infant lips her breast Denied:but in the temple of the god Without a name,a servile life I led.
All from the god was gracious,but from fortune Harsh;for the time when in a mother's arms I in her fondness should have known some joy Of life,from that sweet care was I estranged,A mother's nurture:nor less wretched she,Thus forced to lose the pleasure in her son.
But I will take this vase,and to the god Bear it,a hallow'd offering;that from thence I may find nothing which I would not find.
Should she,that gave me being,chance to be A slave,to find her were a greater ill,Than to rest silent in this ignorance.
O Phoebus,in thy temple hang I this.
What am I doing?War I not against The pleasure of the god,who saved for me These pledges of my mother?I must dare,And open these:my fate cannot be shunn'd.
(He opens the ark.)
Ye sacred garlands,what have you so long Conceal'd:ye bands,that keep these precious relics?
Behold the cover of this circular vase;
Its freshness knows no change,as if a god So will'd;this osier-woven ark yet keeps Its soundness undecay'd;yet many a year,Since it contain'd this treasured charge,has pass'd.
CREUSA
What an unhoped-for sight do I behold!
ION
I thought thou long hadst known to keep thee silent.
CREUSA
Silence is mine no more;instruct not me;
For I behold the ark,wherein of old I laid thee,O my son,an infant babe;And in the caves of Cecrops,with the rocks Of Macrai roof'd,exposed thee:I will quit This altar,though I run on certain death.
ION
Seize her;for by the impulse of the god She leaves the sculptured altar:bind her bands.
CREUSA
Instantly kill me,so that I embrace This vase,and thee,and these thy conceal'd pledges.
ION
Is not this strange?I take thee at thy word.
CREUSA
Not strange:a friend thou by thy friends art found.
ION
Thy friend!Yet wouldst thou kill me secretly.
CREUSA
My son:if that to parents is most dear.
ION
Forbear thy wiles;I shall refute them well.
CREUSA
Might I but to come to what I wish,my son!
ION
Is this vase empty,or contains it aught?
CREUSA
Thy infant vests,in which I once exposed thee.
ION
And wilt thou name them to me,ere thou see them?
CREUSA
If I recount them not,be death my meed.
ION
Speak then:thy confidence hath something strange.
CREUSA
A tissue,look,which when a child I wrought.
ION
What is it?Various are the works of virgins.
CREUSA
A slight,unfinish'd essay of the loom.
ION
What figure wrought?Thou shalt not take me thus.
CREUSA
A Gorgon central in the warp enwoven-
ION
What fortune haunts me,O supreme of gods!
CREUSA
And like an aegis edged with serpents round.
ION
Such is the woof,and such the vest I find.
CREUSA
Thou old embroidery of my virgin bands!
ION
Is there aught else besides this happy proof?
CREUSA
Two dragons,an old work,their jaws of gold.
ION
The gift of Pallas,who thus nurtures children?
CREUSA
Emblems of Erichthonius of old times.
ION
Why?for what use?Explain these works of gold.
CREUSA
For ornaments to grace the infant's neck.
ION
See,here they are;the third I wish to know.
CREUSA
A branch of olive then I wreathed around thee,Pluck'd from that tree which from Minerva's rock First sprung;if it be there,it still retains Its verdure:for the foliage of that olive,Fresh in immortal beauty,never fades.
ION
O my dear mother!I with joy behold thee.
With transport 'gainst thy cheek my cheek recline.
(They embrace.)
CREUSA
My son,my son,far dearer to thy mother Than yon bright orb (the god will pardon me),Do I then hold thee in my arms,thus found Beyond my hopes,when in the realms below,I thought thy habitation 'mong the dead?
ION
O my dear mother,in thy arms I seem As one that had been dead to life return'd.
CREUSA
Ye wide-expanded rays of heavenly light,What notes,what high-raised strains shall tell my joy?
This pleasure whence,this unexpected transport?
ION
There was no blessing farther from my thoughts Than this,my mother,to be found thy son.
CREUSA
I tremble yet.
ION
And hast thou yet a fear,Holding me,not to hold me?
CREUSA
Such fond hopes Long time have I renounced.Thou hallow'd matron,From whom didst thou receive my infant child?
What bless'd hand brought him to Apollo's shrine?
ION
It was the god's appointment:may our life To come be happy,as the past was wretched.
CREUSA
Not without tears,my son,wast thou brought forth;Nor without anguish did my hands resign thee.
Now breathing on thy cheek I feel a joy Transporting me with heartfelt ecstasies.
ION
The words expressive of thy joys speak mine.
CREUSA
Childless no more,no more alone,my house Now shines with festive joy;my realms now own A lord;Erechtheus blooms again;no more His high-traced lineage sees night darkening round,But glories in the sun's refulgent beams.
ION
Now let my father,since he's present here,Be partner of the joy which I have given you.
CREUSA
What says my son?
ION
Such,such as I am proved.
CREUSA
What mean thy words?Far other is thy birth.
ION
Ah me!thy virgin bed produced me base.
CREUSA
Nor bridal torch,my son,nor bridal dance Had graced my nuptial rites,when thou wast born.
ION
Then I'm a wretch,a base-born wretch:say whence.
CREUSA
Be witness,thou by whom the Gorgon died.
ION
What means this adjuration?
CREUSA
Who hast fix'd High o'er my cave thy seat amid the rocks With olive clothed.
ION
Abstruse thy words,and dark.
CREUSA
Where on the cliffs the nightingale attunes Her songs,Apollo.
ION
Why Apollo named?
CREUSA
Led me in secret to his bed.
ION
Speak on;
Thy words import some glorious fortune to me.
CREUSA
Thee in the tenth revolving month,my son,A secret pang to Phoebus did I bear.
ION
Thy words,if true,are grateful to my soul.
CREUSA
