ION

IΩΝ

For India and Duncan-Krishna Roche

The date of Ion is uncertain, but it comes possibly after Heracles, which would put it between 420 and 410 B.C., when Euripides was in his middle sixties.

We have here the picture of an attractive young man brought up since babyhood in the temple precincts—as sheltered, we might say, as a convent girl—who in the course of the story grows up. Without repudiating his open, ingenuous nature he changes from a sweet, honest stripling into a mature human being: indeed, one hardened enough to contemplate murder.

The play is sometimes considered tragicomedy and is perhaps unique in Greek drama in the way it breaks with the tradition of a grandly simple structure and pursues a plot almost Shakespearean in its complexity. As to the gods, Euripides as usual levels them down to the ordinariness of mortals. Apollo in particular, far from exhibiting the type of moral excellence one expects, and though he escapes the stricture of being something of a feisty bungler like Heracles in the Alcestis, nevertheless has to be rescued in the end from obloquy by the special pleading of Pallas Athena. He is in fact not present during the play.

CHARACTERS

HERMES
ION, son of Creusa and Apollo; caretaker of Apollo’s shrine at Delphi
CHORUS, women attending Creusa
CREUSA, wife of Xuthus and queen of Athens
XUTHUS, king of Athens
OLD MAN, retainer of Creusa
SERVANT of Creusa
PYTHIAN PRIESTESS
PALLAS ATHENA
TEMPLE GUARDS
SERVANTS of Xuthus

TIME AND SETTING

Some nineteen years ago, Creusa was seduced by Apollo and bore a son, whom, for fear of her father, she abandoned in a cave. Hermes rescued the baby and put him in charge of the temple priestess at Delphi, where he was reared and came to serve in Apollo’s shrine. Meanwhile, Creusa has married Xuthus, but the couple are childless and determine to go to Delphi and ask for offspring.

It is dawn outside the temple at Delphi. Hermes strides into the arena.

PROLOGUE

HERMES: Atlas, who carries the heavens—
the dwelling of the gods—
on his bronze-strong back,
sired my mother Maia from a goddess
and she bore me to Zeus the Great.

I am the divine ones’ errand boy
and I’ve come here to Delphi, where Apollo has his seat
at the very navel of the earth
and gives forth oracles to man,
uttering without number
those things that are and those that are not yet.

 
In Greece there is a city not without renown
called after Pallas Athena—she of the gold-tipped spear—
and there it was that Apollo
forced his love on Creusa, Erechtheus’ child:
forced it in a cave under the hill of Pallas,
near those northerly crags in the land of the Athenians
which the Attic rulers call “the Beetling Cliffs.”

Never telling her father,
who was a friend of the god,
she carried to conclusion
the fruit of her womb.

And when her time was come
she bore at home a baby boy,
then took him to the very cave where she and the god had lain,
and exposed the infant there to die (or so she thought)
recessed in the lightly rocking enclave of a cradle.

 
Even so, she kept up one ancestral custom
which dated back to Erichthonius,
the earth-born one,
whom Athena furnished with a brace of snakes
to be his bodyguard
when she handed him over
to the daughters of Aglaurus to look after.

That is the origin of the Erechthid tradition
of putting gold-hammered snakes in nurseries.

So did Creusa hang around her boy
such trinkets as a girl might have
and left him there to die.

 
It was then that Apollo, who is my brother, said:
“Go, brother, to the people of glorious Athens—
you know Athena’s city well—
and there from the hollows of a rock
rescue a newborn baby.

Take him with his cradle and all his baby gear
to my oracle at Delphi, and dump him on my doorstep there.

You may as well know—the child is mine.
As to the rest, I’ll take care of it.”

 
I did everything my brother Loxias¹⁵ asked:
went and got the basket and put the baby
on the very steps of this selfsame shrine,
flipping open the cradle lid
so that the baby could be seen.

 
Now the priestess enters the temple of the god
just as the disk of the sun begins to ride,
and when she beheld the newborn babe
she was outraged that some Delphian slut
had had the nerve to toss out her secret brat
onto the god’s own temple steps.

At first she was all for flinging it away—
away and out of the holy precincts—but compassion
cast out callousness . . . (the god, of course,
was not about to let his child be jettisoned from his own
house),
and she picked the baby up and began to care for it.

She had no inkling, naturally, that Apollo had engendered it
nor who his mother was;
and the boy now has no idea who his parents are.

 
The lad romped and played
among the altars of his temple home,
but when he grew to manhood the Delphinians
appointed him custodian of Apollo’s gold
and trusted him with care of everything.

So he continues to this day
within the god’s temple leading a pious life.

 
Meanwhile Creusa, the mother of this young man,
has married Xuthus . . . This is how it happened.

A fierce war had broken out
between the Athenians and the people of Chalcedon
(those who hold Euboea), and because Xuthus
supported Athens and helped them on to victory
he was honored with the reward of Creusa’s hand,
though he was not of their race but Achaean-born:
son of Aeolus son of Zeus.

But he and Creusa, though they’ve tried and tried,
are childless. That is why they’ve come to Apollo’s oracle
to plead for children.

Apollo is directing their destiny in this.

His plan is obvious, as you’ll see.

For when Xuthus comes into the temple
he’ll hand his own son to him and say
Xuthus is the father.

The boy accordingly
will come into his mother’s house
and Creusa will acknowledge him.

This way Apollo keeps his love affair a secret
and the boy regains his rights.

Ion is the name he has given him—
founder of Ionia in the East—
a name he will be called by throughout Hellas.

 
But now I’ll slip away into that laurel thicket
and watch how the boy’s destiny unfolds.

I see him coming with branches of sweet bay,
this, Apollo’s son,
to decorate the portals of the temple.

Of all the gods I am the first to call him Ion:
the name that shall be his.

 
[As HERMES slips into the bushes, the temple doors open and ION steps jubilantly into the arena, followed by servants carrying his bow and arrow. He is lightly dressed in a short chiton, and his head is crowned with laurel. He turns into the rays of the early sun as it breaks through the twin peaks of Parnassus]

PARADOS OR ENTRY SONG

ION: Gaze on the blazing car of the sun
Whose rays go streaming over the earth
And burn the stars’ light from the skies
In flight until mysterious night.
Parnassus’ lonely peaks are tinged,
Shining on mankind with spokes of sun.

 
From the aromatic desert drifts The scent of myrrh to Apollo’s courts As on the sacred tripod sits The Delphic priestess poised to chant For the pilgrim Greeks the oracles Apollo whispers in her ears.

 
But come, you Delphians, Apollo’s devout, Go to Castalia’s silver springs And dip yourselves in its crystal dews. Then enter the shrine with lips all purged Of hurtful converse. Set your tongues As paragons of gracious speech To those who would consult the god.

 
And I for my part shall fulfill
Those duties I have since childhood held:
With sprays of bay and sacred wreaths
I’ll sweeten the pathway of Apollo.
I’ll sprinkle his floor with water drops.
I’ll aim my arrows and chase away
Those flocks of birds that foul his offerings.
Mother or father I have none:
I serve my nurse—Apollo’s shrine.

 
[The rhythm changes into verses of strophe and antistrophe as ION, in a kind of dance, begins to sweep, arrange, clean the temple precincts, singing as he does so]

 
STROPHE I

You brush of newly plucked bay
You serve him too,
Come, sweep the temple threshold
Of Apollo’s shrine:
You who throve in perennial
Gardens where chrismed waters
Brim in living rills
Bedewing the holy leaves
Of myrtle groves:
Day after day I use you
Just when the sun
Beats with his lifting wing
And I begin
My daily task—
To sweep Apollo’s shrine.

 
Healer, Apollo, Healer!
Thrice-blessed son of Leto,

 
ANTISTROPHE I

How I bless this duty
I do before your temple!
Oh yes, Apollo,
How I honor
Your home and oracle
And glory in my task!
My dedicated service
Is not to mortals
But immortals:
A blessed work
That never tires.
For Phoebus is like a father,
So I praise him,
So I call him “father”:
Phoebus Apollo,
Lord and master
Of this temple.

 
EPODE

Healer! Phoebus! Healer!
Thrice-blessed son of Leto!
Now I’ve finished sweeping
With my bay-sweet broomstick
Let me sprinkle water
From a golden ewer:
Water pure as dewdrops
Brimming from Castalia’s
Spring and chaste as I am.
Oh may my service
To Apollo
Never cease; or cede
Only to further bliss.

 
[Suddenly ION thrusts away his broom and urn of lustral waters and, snatching up his bow and arrows, runs through the temple gardens waving his arms and shouting. In an exuberant mime he makes a show of warding off the various birds that begin to alight]

 
STROPHE II

Bah! the feathered hordes are back, swarming
From their roosting on Parnassus. Stop it!
Get off those cornices; these gilded courts
Are not your lavatories . . . And you, you eagle
Of Zeus—are you back too? Just wait, you
Talon-tearing snatcher, strongest of birds,
I’ll have an arrow at you. And what’s this?
A swan cruising down towards the altar.
Get those crimson feet of yours away
Or your swan song, be it as melodious
As Apollo, will not save you from my arrows.
So, off with you! Away—away
To the lake of Delos, or else your blood
Will flow as musically as your final melody.

 
ANTISTROPHE II

Ha! What’s this new bird arriving?
No doubt you want to make your nest of sticks
And straw under the eaves for your fledglings. Yes?
The twang of my bow will make you keep your distance.
Are you listening? Go and do your breeding
Among the deltas of Alpheus or
Somewhere on the wooded Isthmus, not
Here, besmirching the sacrificial offerings
And temple of Apollo; though to shoot you
Is against my principles, because you birds
Let us know the will of the gods. But I,
Apollo’s servant, have my duties and
Am dedicated to my tasks, especially
To one by whom I get my living here.

 
[End of Parados. From the road that leads into Delphi a congeries of young women appears: they are CREUSA’s attendants. As they scurry about excitedly, commenting on the beauty of the temple buildings, ION with folded arms stands aloof in the shadows, smiling]

CHORAL CONVERSE

STROPHE III

LEADER: So not in holy Athens only
Do the gods have lovely courts with noble
Columns or pay homage to Apollo

As patron of roads,
He features here as well

Does Leto’s son
Gleaming on this twin facade.

 
[The LEADER’s astonishment is echoed severally by the rest of the CHORUS]

 
One: Take a look at this, Zeus’s son
Slaying the monstrous snake of Lerna
With a golden scimitar . . .
Over there, dear.

 
ANTISTROPHE III

Another: Yes, and next to him is someone
Lifting up a blazing torch.

Another: Is that the story I embroidered:
Iolaus,
Pal of Heracles, Zeus’s son,
Who shared . . .

Another: With him his several labors—yes?

Another: Oh, do look at this: a man Astraddle a winged horse, cutting Down a fire-breathing monster With three bodies.

 
STROPHE IV

Another: My eyes are stretched in every direction.
Just look at that battle of giants in marble!
Girls, we could stare forever.

Another: And that woman standing over Enceladus
Shaking her shield of Gorgons’ heads—
See it?

Another: I’m looking at my goddess, Pallas.

Another: Why, so it is!
And isn’t that Zeus with the mighty thunderbolt
Flaring at both ends?

Another: It certainly is—
With Mimas, that nasty man,
Being frizzled to a cinder.

Another: And there’s orgiastic Bacchus
Slaughtering yet another earth-child
With his thyrsus, ivy-crowned
And never meant for battle.

[The women become aware of ION surveying them from the porch of the temple, and they accost him]

ANTISTROPHE IV

LEADER: Sir, you standing by the temple,
Is it all right to enter the sanctuary

With bare feet?

ION: No, my friends.

LEADER: And sir . . .

ION: Yes, say what you have to say.

LEADER: Is it true that this

Shrine of Apollo
Houses the navel of the earth?

ION: Yes, smothered in garlands

And guarded by Gorgons.

LEADER: That’s what we’ve always been told.

ION: If you have offered some blessed cake
At the temple entrance and have questions
For Apollo, you may approach
The altar steps, but you may not pass
Into the shrine itself unless

You have sacrificed a sheep.

LEADER: I understand. And the rules of the god
we are not about to disobey.
Our eyes can feast on what’s outside.

ION: Yes, let them feast on everything.

LEADER: Our mistress allowed us to come out here and gaze at this god’s sanctuary.

ION: You are the servants of—what particular house?

LEADER: She is a queen, our mistress, and
was born and lives in a palace in Athens.
But here she is, the one you ask of.

[CREUSA, with attendants, walks with heavy steps into the temple arena towards ION. She wears a traveling dress and a broad-brimmed hat and is veiled. ION takes a step forward, bowing]

FIRST EPISODE

ION: Lady, whoever you are you have distinction:
a poise that reveals your character . . .
One can always tell if someone’s wellborn just by their bearing.

 
[Taking a closer look]

But what’s this? You surprise me.

Why the downcast eyes, and tears on the noble cheeks?

What troubles you, my lady?

Why, when other eyes rejoice to see this sanctuary, do yours fill with tears?

CREUSA: My friend, I think it no rudeness in one like you to be astonished by my tears.

The truth is, the sight of Apollo’s house
jerked my memory back down an ancient path.
I stood here but my thoughts were back at home.

Ah, what we women endure when the gods go sinning!

Indeed, to whom shall we plead our cause
when our own masters are our ruin?

ION: Such strange sadness, lady! Why?

CREUSA: It’s nothing . . . I just let loose my smart . . .
I’ll be quiet now. Think no more of it.

ION: But who are you? Where do you come from?
What’s your family, and what must we call you?

CREUSA: My name is Creusa. Erechtheus was my father.
The city of Athens is my home.

ION: A famous city and noble parentage!
I’m in awe of you, my lady.

CREUSA: That is where my blessings end, my friend.

ION: Please then tell me this: is the story true that . . . ?

CREUSA: What exactly do you want to know, my friend?

ION: Well, did your father’s father really spring from Earth?

CREUSA: Erichthonius? Yes. Though little good that does me.

ION: But did Athena really lift him out of the Earth?

CREUSA: She did: into her virgin arms. She did not give him birth.

ION: That’s the way he’s usually shown; but did she hand him over . . .

CREUSA: . . . to the daughters of Cecrops? yes, provided they did not look at him.

ION: But the girls went and opened the cradle—so I’ve heard.

CREUSA: And died for it. The rocks ran red with blood.

ION: [pondering this]
Really! . . . And another thing: is it true or false that . . .

CREUSA: Go on. I have time to spare.

ION: . . . that your father Erechtheus sacrificed your sisters?

CREUSA: Without a qualm: for his country’s sake.

ION: How were you the sister that survived?

CREUSA: I was a baby in my mother’s arms.

ION: Then did the Earth really gape and gulp your father down?

CREUSA: Yes, in one stroke the sea god’s trident finished him.¹⁶

ION: [after further thought]

Is there a place there called the Beetling Cliffs?

CREUSA: [drawing in her breath] What makes you ask? . . .

[Aside]

Oh the memory!

ION: It’s a spot honored by the Pythian wild fire of the Pythian god.¹⁷

CREUSA: Honored, indeed! I wish I had never seen the place.

ION: How can you abhor a place the god holds dear?

CREUSA: Let it pass . . . That cave and I are privy to a shameful story.

ION: You are married to a man of Athens, madam, are you not?

CREUSA: Yes, but my husband is no citizen. He’s from abroad.

ION: Who then? He must be of noble birth.

CREUSA: Xuthus, son of Aeolus and descended from Zeus.

ION: But an alien. How could he marry a native?

CREUSA: Well, Euboea is a city-state neighboring Athens and . . .

ION: I know: separated so they say by a sleeve of sea.

CREUSA: . . . and Xuthus sacked it with the help of Cecrops’ sons.

ION: So he came as an ally, and your hand was his reward?

CREUSA: A war dowry, yes: the prize won with his spear.

ION: Is your husband with you or have you come to the oracle alone?

CREUSA: I’m with my husband but he’s visiting the oracle of Trophonius.

ION: As a sightseer or gone to ask a question?

CREUSA: He has a single question for both Trophonius and

Apollo.

ION: Is it about fields and crops or about children?

CREUSA: We’ve long been married but we have no children.

ION: No children? So you’ve never had a child?

CREUSA: [hedging] A childlessness of which Apollo is aware.

ION: Unhappy woman, blest and then unblest by fate!

CREUSA: [surveying him] And you—who are you? Your mother must be proud.

ION: Slave of the god they call me, and, madam, so I am.

CREUSA: A city’s offering, or sold by someone?

ION: All I know is: I belong to Loxias.

CREUSA: Then it’s my turn to pity you, my friend.

ION: For what? Not knowing my parents or where I am from?

CREUSA: Do you live in the temple here or under your own roof?

ION: The god’s house is my home, all of it: I can sleep anywhere.

CREUSA: Did you come to this shrine as a boy or as a young man?

ION: A baby, they say—those who seem to know.

CREUSA: What woman of Delphi suckled you?

ION: I never had a breast to suckle. The woman who cared for me . . .

CREUSA: Yes, poor baby, who? [Aside] How sadness and the sad find each other!

ION: The prophetess of Apollo. I think of her as mother.

CREUSA: But how did you subsist before you came to manhood?

ION: The altars and the stream of pilgrims kept me fed.

CREUSA: And your wretched mother—who on earth was she?

ION: Probably some poor discarded woman.

CREUSA: But you make a living, and you are well dressed.

ION: My clothes come from the god I serve.

CREUSA: And you never set out to find your parents?

ION: Lady, I don’t have a single clue.

CREUSA: How sad! . . . I know another woman who was cheated like your mother.

ION: Who was she? She might help me to bear with things.

CREUSA: She is the reason I came here before my husband did.

ION: So what is your question? I am at your disposal, madam.

CREUSA: I want to ask Apollo an oracle in private.

ION: Just tell me, and leave the rest to us.

CREUSA: This is my story, listen . . . No, no, I am ashamed.

ION: Then nothing can be done. Shame is a hopeless deity.

CREUSA: [with a pause to muster courage] I have a friend, and Phoebus lay with her she says.

ION: Phoebus seduced a woman? No, my friend, don’t tell me that.

CREUSA: And she bore the god a child without her father knowing.

ION: It cannot be. Some man got her into trouble and she’s ashamed.

CREUSA: She insists, and what she went through was pitiable.

ION: How so, if her lover was a god?

CREUSA: But the baby she bore she threw out from her home.

ION: Threw out? Then where’s the baby now—still alive?

CREUSA: Nobody knows. That’s what I want to ask the oracle.

ION: If he no longer exists, how did he perish?

CREUSA: Poor mite. Wild beasts killed him—or so she suspects.

ION: What evidence is there for that?

CREUSA: She went to the spot she left him at and found him gone.

ION: Were there any drops of blood along the path?

CREUSA: None, she says, though she scrutinized the ground.

ION: How long ago was the baby killed?

CREUSA: He’d be about your age if he were alive.

ION: It was not fair of the god, and I feel for the mother.

CREUSA: I know. She never had another child.

 
[There is a pause while ION wrestles with his unwillingness to believe Apollo guilty]

 
ION: What if Phoebus took him and brought him up in secret?

CREUSA: That would be unjust: to hug that pleasure to himself.

ION: Sad! Sad! And so very like my own plight.

CREUSA: And I expect your poor mother also pines for you.

ION: Don’t revive a long-forgotten sorrow.

CREUSA: I’ll say no more . . . Now, about my question . . .

ION: Which contains a serious flaw, you know.

CREUSA: What was not a serious flaw for that unhappy woman?

ION: But how can the god’s oracle undo the god’s own secret?

CREUSA: Isn’t his tripod without reserve meant for every Greek?

ION: But you’d only embarrass him—broadcast his shame.

CREUSA: Which is nothing to the shame of the woman he wronged.

ION: No one at this oracle will answer that.
If Apollo were proved guilty in his own house
he’d quite naturally exact some penalty from his critic.

So, my lady, do not proceed.

There cannot be an oracle against the god of oracles.

Any attempt to pressure unwilling gods
to reveal what they do not want to reveal—
whether by the sacrifice of sheep upon their altars
or by the flight of birds—
would be the height of foolishness.

Reluctant gods, my lady, can only give reluctant gifts.

They give nothing well if not willingly.

LEADER: Innumerable the number of human woes
no matter how they differ in their form:
you would be lucky if you found a single happy human being.

CREUSA: [lifting up her arms towards the temple]
And you, Apollo,
how you have misbehaved and misbehave
towards her who is not here herself but pleads!

You did not save your son as save you should.

And you the prophet will not prophesy
and let the questing mother know about her boy,
so raise a monument to him if he no longer lives;
and if he is alive . . . Ah! I must not dwell on that:
the god himself is set against my learning what I want to
know.

 
[CREUSA turns in the direction of the road from the country, where a man is seen approaching]

My friend, I see my noble husband Xuthus coming after his visit to the cavern of Trophonius.

Breathe not a word of what we’ve talked about or I shall be put to shame for meddling in hidden things and our whole design would be misinterpreted.

How hard it is for woman to deal with men!

They lump the good and the bad together and find us all a pest . . . It is our lot.

 
[XUTHUS, followed by servants and retainers, strides in. He has the erect resolute bearing of a soldier, and with his handsome himation thrown over the left shoulder and fastened with a large gold brooch on the right, he cuts something of a swashbuckling figure. Raising his hand in salute to the temple, he then bows to his wife]

 
XUTHUS: All greetings first to the god,
as is his due, and then of course to you, my wife . . .

[He pauses as he sees the anxiety in CREUSA’s eyes]

But has my late coming made you anxious?

CREUSA: No, but you were in my thoughts.
Now tell me, what revelation do you bring
from the oracle of Trophonius?
What hopes of children have we from our seed?

XUTHUS: He did not think fit to anticipate the god,
but this he said: that neither you nor I
would leave the oracle without a child.

CREUSA: [throwing open her arms in appeal] O Lady Mother of
Apollo,
vouchsafe success to this our coming.
May our former dealings with your son
bring about a happier ending soon.

XUTHUS: Amen to that! . . . But who here represents the oracle?

ION: [stepping forward] Outside the temple, I do;
inside, the duty falls on others:
those, sir, who are seated round the tripod—
the noblest citizens of Delphi, chosen by lot.

XUTHUS: Good! That is all I want to know.
Now I’ll go inside,
for I hear that the sacrificial victim for all the pilgrims
already has been felled before the altar.

This day, this auspicious day,
I want to hear the god’s response, the oracle.

 
[Turning to CREUSA]

 
You, my wife,
with sprigs of laurel in your hands,
must visit all the shrines
and pray the gods that from Apollo’s house
I shall return with happy promise of children.

CREUSA: It shall be! It shall!

 
[CREUSA watches XUTHUS enter the temple, then extends her hands in supplication]

If Loxias will redress his former wrongs,
though he can never entirely be my friend,
I shall accept whatever he foretells, for he is a god.

[CREUSA with one or two attendants walks away]

 
ION: What makes this woman
so full of dark and damaging hints against the god?

Is it because she loves the woman for whom she is consulting
or does she hide some guilty secret?

But what concern of mine is Erechtheus’ daughter?

She is nothing to me. No.

So let me go with these golden ewers
and fill the stoops with holy water.

But I must scold Apollo.

What is the matter with him?

Ravishing girls and then deserting them!

Sneakily making babies, then leaving them to die!

That’s not you, Apollo, surely!

You have the power, so follow virtue.

Wicked men the gods punish,
so how can you yourselves flout the laws
you’ve made for mortal man?

If the day ever comes
(I know the notion is absurd)
when you gods must pay the price to human beings
for all your rapings and your whorings,
you and Poseidon, yes and Zeus himself the king of heaven,
will bankrupt every temple to meet the bill.

To chase your fancies without thought is wrong.

One simply can’t go on blaming human beings
for copying the glorious conduct of the gods:
blame the setters of example.

 
[ION goes into the temple. The women of the CHORUS address an impassioned eulogy and plea to Pallas Athena and Artemis as patrons of childbirth to use their influence to get a favorable oracle. Then they sing of the joy of children, ending with an address to Pan, in whose cave CREUSA was raped]

FIRST CHORAL ODE

CHORUS: You, Athena, our own Athena,
Born without the need of birth pangs,
You we beseech, blest Lady of Triumph,
Whom from the lofty forehead of Zeus
Prometheus the Titan brought to birth:
Come from Olympus’ golden mansions
To this shrine of the Pytho, come wafting down
To the town where Apollo’s hearth at the navel
Of earth gives forth infallible futures,
And choristers dance around the tripod.
Come with Leto’s daughter, Artemis:
Both of you, goddesses; both of you, virgins,
Both sacred sisters of Apollo:
Maidens, beseech that the ancient line
Of Erechtheus may have at last

An oracle’s forecast of children.

 
ANTISTROPHE

What a perennial human joy Are children to the parental home! Lighting the rooms with youth and promise, Passing on their father’s stock To offspring of the following age. They are our strength when times are hard, They are bliss when all is well. They are their country’s shield in war. More precious than riches, far more rare, To me are children to care for and raise In the ways of virtue. Life without children Is to me a life that is lacking. I censure anyone choosing such. Let me be modest in possessions

But happily blessed with children.

 
EPODE

O the hidden haunts of Pan: The secret cave by the Beetling Cliffs Where the daughters of Aglaurus dance On the emerald sward in front of the shrine Of Athena to the musical sound

Of your panpipes, Pan,
When you play in your sunless caverns.
In these caves a virgin became
A mother; poor derelict girl

Who bore to Apollo
A baby in these caves
And left him to be fodder for birds
And a gory banquet for beasts.
Bitter the sufferings from that rape,
And never has loom or legend spun

A felicitous story
Of children born of gods to mortals.

[ION enters from the temple]

SECOND EPISODE

ION: Good women of Creusa who keep watch here
by the steps of this fragrant shrine,
has Xuthus left the oracle and holy tripod
or is he still inside waiting for an answer?

LEADER: Sir, he is still inside
and has not crossed the threshold yet . . .

Wait! I hear the creak of gates:
someone is coming out; yes, it is my master.
[XUTHUS in a state of excitement emerges from the temple and
attempts to fling his arms around ION]

XUTHUS: My son! my son! Heaven bless you! How wonderful to greet you so!

ION: [trying to withdraw]
Greetings too, but do be sensible and all will be well with us.

XUTHUS: Your hand, dear boy, and let me hug you.

ION: [backing away] Sir, are you out of your mind? Has some demon struck you mad?

XUTHUS: Mad? When I’ve found my dearest and will not let him go.

ION: Stop it! Stop clutching! You’re crushing the god’s garlands.

XUTHUS: Of course I’ll clutch you. I’m no robber and I’ve found my precious own.

ION: Will you let go or do you want an arrow through your ribs?

XUTHUS: Trying to escape me, eh, just when you’ve found your dearest?

ION: Now I don’t like giving lessons to unhinged boorish strangers, but . . .

XUTHUS: Go ahead, kill me. Burn the body and be your father’s murderer.

ION: You—my father—how? Am I to think this joke is funny?

XUTHUS: Wait and you’ll see. I have a long story to tell.

ION: To tell me what? Begin.

XUTHUS: I am your father and you are my son.

ION: Who says so?

XUTHUS: Loxias: he who reared my son.

ION: We’ve only got your word for that.

XUTHUS: No: straight from the mouth of the oracle.

ION: A riddle, and you’ve got it wrong.

XUTHUS: Then I’m not hearing right.

ION: What did Phoebus actually say?

XUTHUS: He said that the first man I met as I . . .

ION: Met?

XUTHUS: . . . as I came out of the god’s temple . . .

ION: Well, what about him?

XUTHUS: . . . would be my own born son.

ION: Your son? Really? Or just a present from someone?

XUTHUS: A present, yes, but still my very own.

ION: And you walked straight into me?

XUTHUS: None other, my child.

ION: [pausing in wonderment] How is this possible?

XUTHUS: I ask myself that as much as you do.

ION: Yes . . . but who was the mother you had me of?

XUTHUS: That I cannot say.

ION: But didn’t Phoebus tell you?

XUTHUS: I was so excited I forgot to ask.

ION: Born from Mother Earth perhaps.

XUTHUS: The ground spawns no offspring.

ION: How exactly am I yours?

XUTHUS: I do not know. I leave that to the god.

ION: [after long thought] Let’s tackle this another way.

XUTHUS: That would be better, my son.

ION: Have you ever had affairs?

XUTHUS: Only when I was young and had no sense.

ION: Before you married Erechtheus’ daughter?

XUTHUS: Yes, but never since.

ION: So that was when you begot me?

XUTHUS: The time fits.

ION: But how on earth did I get here?

XUTHUS: I’m at a loss.

ION: I must have come from far.

XUTHUS: That too puzzles me.

ION: Did you ever come to Delphi before?

XUTHUS: Once for a torchlight festival of Bacchus.

ION: And you put up in the public inn?

XUTHUS: Where I was introduced to some girls from Delphi and . . .

ION: Introduced to their rites, you mean?

XUTHUS: Yes, they were Bacchanalian maenads.

ION: Were you sober or in your cups?

XUTHUS: Well, there was good Bacchic cheer.

ION: That’s it then. That’s how I got begotten.

XUTHUS: And destiny has discovered you, my son.

ION: But how did I come to this shrine?

XUTHUS: Exposed there by the girl, probably.

ION: At least I can’t be slave-born.

XUTHUS: And you have a father, my child.

ION: I suppose I must not doubt the god.

XUTHUS: Now you are being sensible.

ION: What more could I wish for than . . .

XUTHUS: And you are seeing things rightly.

ION:. . . than being born the son of a son of Zeus!

XUTHUS: And how it becomes you!

ION: So I can touch my progenitor?

XUTHUS: Yes, if you believe the god.

ION: [throwing himself into Xuthus’ arms]
Dear, dear father! . . .

XUTHUS: What a joy to hear you say it!

ION: Oh, bless this day!

XUTHUS: How happy you have made me!

ION: [as they separate]
And now, my dear mother, shall I ever see your face too?

Whoever you are, I long to see you more than ever.

Perhaps you are dead and I never shall.

LEADER: We also have a part in this house’s happiness.
If only my mistress could be blessed with children too,
and the whole house of Erechtheus.

XUTHUS: My son, I have found you just as the god has promised:
you and me he has brought together;
and you have found at last the closest to your heart.

As to your other yearning, so natural, I feel it too,
but how shall you, my child, discover your mother
and I discover what sort of woman bore you?
We’ll find out no doubt in time.

Meanwhile, leave this compound of the god,
this rootless life and join your father.
Come to Athens where great wealth and royalty are yours
and the double slur of bastardry and beggary are not.

Quite the contrary,
you’ll lead a rich and distinguished life.

[He waits for an answer]

 
What, silent? Withdrawn in thought and your eyes cast down? This change from gaiety casts gloom upon your father.

ION: Things seen from a distance are different
from things seen close at hand.

I thank providence for finding me a father,
but, Father, if you’ll listen, what worries me is this:

Athens, they say, that famous city,
springs from her own soil, she is indigenous,
but I an intruder will face twin handicaps:
a bastard with a foreign father.

Under such scorn and in this weak position
I shall count for nothing—a nobody.¹⁸
And if I force myself to the forefront in the realm,
I shall be hated by the second-rate—
as the elite are always hated;
while by the sincere and competent
who wisely keep their peace
and do not plunge into the public gaze,
I shall be branded as a nincompoop
who could not keep quiet in a nervous city.

Or if I seek my rightful place
I shall be blocked by the power of the demagogic lobby
which plays fast and loose with the commonwealth.

That is what always happens, Father. Those who control cities and dignities are ruthless to rivals.

 
I shall be intruding into a strange house
whose childless chatelaine shared with you
her disappointment in the past,
but now, alone with her broken hopes,
she will feel the full bitterness of her lot.

How can I escape her hatred
when still without a child
she sees me standing by your side
and gazes with resentment at your happiness?

You will either have to look to her, your wife,
and throw me out,
or respect my position and break up your home.

How many murders, how many deaths by poison,
have wives not effected for their husbands?

I do feel sorry for your consort, Father,
she is getting older and has no child.

It’s a sad thing for the last of a noble line
to be scourged with infertility.

 
As to kingship, it’s not worth considering:
fair of face, full of anguish within.

Who can be happy, who can be envied,
eking out his days in fear of the sidelong glance?
Give me the simple contentment of the common man
and not the cares of power,
in which, for fear of the assassin,
one must fawn upon the unscrupulous and shun the honest.

You may say that gold outweighs these obstacles
and that it’s pleasant to be rich,
but I have no wish to cling to wealth
tense with foreboding at every sound I hear.
Give me a modest role instead, free from worry.

 
Father, listen to the blessings I have had here.

Leisure first of all,
that greatest gift to human beings;
then freedom from turmoil,
without some oaf pushing me off the road
or my having to step aside for some nobody.

I spent my time in prayer to the gods
and converse with my fellow men.

The people I served were cheerful, not cantankerous.

Hardly had I sent one batch of pilgrims on their way
when another would arrive.

There was a gracious intercourse,
with one fresh face following another.

Worship, willy-nilly, is the right thing for man,
and both by duty and by temperament
I was drawn to serve the god.

When I mull these matters over, Father,
I think I am better off here than there.
So let me stay here.

Pleasure is sweet pleasure
whether enjoyed in great or little things.

LEADER: You have chosen well;
may those I love find happiness in those you love.

XUTHUS: Enough of this talk.
Learn to go with your good fortune.

Let us begin with a celebration here
right where I found you:
a dinner together, one of many to come.

I shall offer up those thanksgiving sacrifices
for your birthday that I never made.

I’ll wine and dine you
like some loved one I was bringing home.

I shall take you with me to Athens
pretending you’re a sightseer, not my beloved son.

Like this I’ll not upset my childless wife
with my own happiness.

In time I’ll find a way to win her
and give you title to my scepter in the land.

I name you Ion¹⁹, to match the event,
for it was on my way to the god’s shrine
that our paths crossed.

Now call in a crowd of your comrades
for this sacrifice and happy farewell party
so they can say goodbye to you
on the eve of your leaving Delphi.

 
[Turning to the women of the CHORUS]

Don’t you women breathe a word of this.

It’s death to you if you tell my wife.

ION: All right, I’ll come.
But one thing lacks in all my luck:
finding the mother who gave me birth.

Father, unless I do,
life will not be tolerable.

If I may express a prayer:
may my mother be a woman of Athens
so that on my mother’s side
free speaking is my right.

An alien entering a city of pure blood,
though he be technically a citizen,
does not enjoy free speech—his lips are fettered.

 
[XUTHUS and ION go off arm in arm]

SECOND CHORAL ODE

[The women of the CHORUS in devotion to their mistress have taken a dislike to XUTHUS: somewhat illogically, it would seem, for they imagine that she will be distressed to discover that her husband now has a son while she remains childless. They extend their vicious condemnation of XUTHUS to ION, whom they wish dead]

 
STROPHE

CHORUS: Tears, recriminations, pangs of grief
Are what I foresee when my queen discovers

Her husband is blessed with a son while she is
Without issue and barren.

Prophet Apollo, child of Leto,

What is this prophecy you have chanted?

Where does this boy you have raised in your temple
Stem from? Who is his mother?
I distrust the oracle and I suspect
A cover for something infamous.
I fear the outcome. How will it end?

Weird is the word of the god and weird his story.
It smacks of fraud—something fortuitous—
This tale of a child of unknown blood.
Who will gainsay it?

ANTISTROPHE

[Voices speaking severally]

1. : Girls, ought we to blurt it out In our mistress’ ear? Shouldn’t we tell her That the husband who was her life and soul, The associate of her hopes . . .

2. : Unhappy woman whose life is ruined!

3. : While blissfully he dishonors his wife, Who is sinking now into gray old age . . .

4. : Despised, and yet she loves him.

5. : Miserable man, he came from outside Into this prosperous house . . .

6. : He doesn’t deserve his luck, the wretch!

7. : He cheated my queen; may the gods when the altars flame Cancel his prayers . . . Let her know that I am Loyal to my lady . . . They’re feasting now,

8. : This new father and son.

 
EPODE

You pinnacles of Parnassus and you crags,

With your sky-high tower, where Bacchus at night

With his maenads holding aloft his two-headed torches of pine
Prances—may that boy never come
To my city, but die on the morning day
Of his new life.
Only if our city were harassed

Would it be right to allow foreigners in:
As was Erechtheus the king
Our leader of old.

THIRD EPISODE

[CREUSA and an OLD MAN—a family retainer—begin laboriously climbing the incline to the sanctuary]

 
CREUSA: Come along, old man,
you my father Erechtheus’ lifelong guardian,
brace yourself for the climb up to the god’s sanctuary.

You’ll share my joy if Loxias foretells the birth of children.

Joy shared with friends is double joy,
and hard times—God forbid!—are halved.

How sweet it is to look
into sympathetic eyes . . . Your mistress I may be
but I feel for you as for a father
as you once felt for mine.

OLD MAN: [stopping to get his breath] My daughter,
how true you are to the fine traditions of your forebears!

Never do you disgrace your ancient line
sprung from Earth itself.

 
[Resuming the climb]

 
Now give me a hand. Help me along.

Up, up, what a climb the oracle is! . . . That’s for sure!

You must support me, be nurse to my decrepitude.

CREUSA: Step after me . . . careful . . . step by step.

OLD MAN: My poor fumbling feet, but, oh, a nimble heart!

CREUSA: Lean on your stick, and watch those twists.

OLD MAN: [nearly stumbling] I’m so shortsighted—walking blind.

CREUSA: I know you are, but don’t give up.

OLD MAN: Not willingly . . . but I don’t have full control.

 
[CREUSA and the OLD MAN arrive at the plateau where the women of the CHORUS are]

CREUSA: Good women of mine,
you trusty associates of my web and spindle,
what news did my husband take away from here?

Was there hope of children:
the reason for our coming to this place?

Do tell me.

If the news is good you’ll make your mistress happy
and she won’t forget.

LEADER: Doom!

CREUSA: A bad opening!

LEADER: Tragedy!

CREUSA: A baleful oracle?

LEADER: [looking at her colleagues] What can we do? It’s death if we . . .

CREUSA: What is this? This terror?

LEADER: Shall we say it or be silent? . . . What can we do?

CREUSA: Say it: the bad news you have for me.

LEADER: Very well, I’ll tell you, though I die a double death.

Madam, you’ll never have a baby in your arms or at your breast.

CREUSA: [sinking to the ground] O ... h! I’d rather die.

OLD MAN: My child!

CREUSA: I’m shattered, my friends. I can’t go on. I’m crushed.

OLD MAN: My child!

CREUSA: No no! It’s agony—stabbed to the heart.

OLD MAN: [putting his arms round her] There there! Don’t cry until you . . .

CREUSA: I am swept by grief.

OLD MAN: . . . until you know whether . . .

CREUSA: What’s left to know?

OLD MAN: . . . whether the master shares your plight or only you are stricken.

LEADER: Old man, Apollo has given him a son and she is not included in the celebrations.

CREUSA: What you have just said caps everything, crowns my sorrow.

OLD MAN: This child? Is he still to be born or did the oracle say he was already born?

LEADER: He’s born, all right! A strapping young man! That’s what Apollo’s given him . . . I was there.

CREUSA: What did you say? No! It’s outrageous. I won’t listen.

OLD MAN: Nor I. What is the sense of the oracle? Explain. Who is this boy?

LEADER: Apollo gave as son to your husband the first person he met on leaving the temple.

CREUSA: [with a bitter cry] I am finished. What is left for me? . . .

A lonely childless life in a barren house.

OLD MAN: But whom did the oracle mean? Who was he that my poor lady’s husband met?

LEADER: Dear mistress, do you recall the youth who was sweeping the temple? He is the child.

CREUSA: [breaking into verse] I wish I could fly through the
liquid sky
To the farthest western stars

Far from the land of Hellas:

So great is my pain, my dears.

OLD MAN: What name did his father give him? Do you know, or must that remain a mystery?

LEADER: The name Ion, because he was the first person he met when going.

OLD MAN: And the mother? What sort of woman is she?

LEADER: I cannot tell. All I know, old man,
is that her husband has gone off secretly
to the sacrificial tents to offer up thanksgivings
and birthday celebrations for the boy.

He sits down to feast with his new son.

OLD MAN: Mistress, we have been cheated, and I grieve with you—cheated by your husband.

It is abominable: a plot to get rid of us from the courts of Erechtheus.

I say this not out of hatred for your husband but out of love for you.

He came an alien to the city, married you and took possession of your house and heritage.

Now his secret is out: his tricking you with a child by another woman.

Let me tell you how the trick was worked.

When he found that you were barren,
scorning to shoulder the burden of this fate with you,
he took some slave girl to his bed
and furtively begot this child,
then gave him to some acquaintance at Delphi to bring up.

There the deception was continued
and the boy was reared in the god’s house—free of it all.

When Xuthus learnt that his son was a grown young man,
he persuaded you to come here to consult about your barrenness.

It was not the god that lied but he.

He has been rearing the boy all these years.

His plan was this:
if discovered, to make the deity responsible for all,
but if the plot succeeded,
to invest the boy with royal status
and put him beyond all criticism.

As to the fancy name of Ion,
that was a ruse to fit the story of their meeting as he went.

LEADER: How I dislike those rascals
who camouflage the wrong they do with lies!
I’d rather have an honest dullard as a friend
than a brilliant scamp.

OLD MAN: [turning to CREUSA] And you, you must put up with
something worse:
take into your house a motherless nonentity—
the whelp of some female slave.

It would be bad enough
if he’d intruded into your home the son of a decent mother,
using your barrenness as excuse and asking your permission.

If this were not to your taste,
he should have gone and married someone from Aeolia.²⁰

 
So now, what you have to do
is steel yourself to an act worthy of womanhood.
Seize a sword, think of a trick, concoct a poison,
and dispatch your husband and the boy
before they do you.

Otherwise you’ll lose your life.

Two antagonists in the same house cannot exist:
one or other of them must go under.

As for me,
I am ready to take part with you in this:
to go into the house where he is junketing
and murder the boy.

That will repay you, my mistress,
for all you have done for me.

Only the name of slave is a slave’s shame.

In all else honest slave
and freeman are the same.

LEADER: I too, dear mistress, am ready to share your lot:

either to live with honor, or die without a blot.

LYRIC APOSTROPHE

CREUSA: O my soul, how can I be quiet?
Yet to uncover that dark affair
Is to say goodbye to honor.
What obstacle remains to stop me?
What point anymore pursuit of virtue?
A husband false, I stripped of home,

Stripped of children.
Hopeless was that struggle to keep

My liaison hidden
And hide that birth so damning.

But I could not.

So, by the star-spangled seat of Zeus,
By the goddess of our mountains,
And by the sacred shores of Triton’s lake,
I vow no longer to keep my lover hidden.

What a relief
To lift the burden from my heart!
Let then the tears drop and the agony rage:

Mortals and immortals
Have schemed against me.
Let me show them up for what they are:

Unsavory bedroom lechers.

You who pluck song from the lifeless horns Of bullocks on the seven-tongued lyre, You melody-making son of Leto,

You Apollo:

Your disgrace I shall drag

Into the glaring light of day.

 
With the gleam of the sun in your golden hair

As gold as the flowers I was gathering there
Into the folds of my skirt,

You swooped and drew me by my white wrists
And pulled me away to that rock cave bed
As I was screaming: “Mother! Mother!”
Ravisher divine, you forced me there
And shamelessly you worked your will:

Aphrodite’s ecstasy.

 
Miserable me, I bore your son,

But fear of my mother drove me
To toss him on that bed of yours:
That ruthless couch for ruthless rape
Of me poor blighted stricken girl.

 
But, oh, my boy is gone, is gone.
The birds of the air have rent and eaten
Him my boy, my boy and yours—
You cruel god, you lyre player,
You singer of exultant songs!

 
Apollo son of Leto, listen:
I call you seated on your throne
Dispensing sanctimonious answers
From earth’s navel . . . I will shout it

Into your ear, you, you

Despicable seducer!

 
To my husband you have given
A son and heir though you owe him nothing.

For me, you heartless one,
You’ve let our child—yes, yours as well—
Be snatched from his swaddling clothes
To be the prey of carrion birds.

 
Delos your very birthplace hates you.
The laurel and the sweet bay hate you
In that spot where Leto bore you

The seed of Zeus in a holy birth
Under the tender palm trees.

[CREUSA sinks to the ground by the temple steps weeping and exhausted. The women of the CHORUS and the OLD MAN begin to comfort her]

FOURTH EPISODE

LEADER: Alas, the lid is lifted
on a casket of tragedies!
Who would not shed a tear?

OLD MAN: [reaching down to help her up] My daughter,
I see nothing in your glance to reassure me.
My mind boggles.

Hardly had I bailed out from one billow of sorrows
when a surge at the stern swamps me with your story.

Just when you had surmounted one tribulation,
a new avenue of horrors has opened up.

Do you really mean what you say:
this charge against Apollo? . . . And a child you gave birth to?

 
[He pauses for a reply]

 
Where in the surroundings of this city
did you say you put him:
this welcome dinner for wild animals?

Explain it all to me again. CREUSA: Old man, you heap my shame upon me, but I shall tell you.

OLD MAN: The sorrows of a loved one have all my sympathy.

CREUSA: Then listen.
You know the cave to the north of Cecrops’ rocks,
called the Beetling Cliffs?

OLD MAN: I do. Nearby stands the altar and shrine of Pan.

CREUSA: It was there that I suffered the appalling outrage.

OLD MAN: Outrage? Let my tears in full measure flow.

CREUSA: Against my will I . . . coupled with Apollo.

OLD MAN: My daughter, was that when I began to notice something?

CREUSA: I don’t know . . . Speak quite openly and so shall I.

OLD MAN: You were stifling your sighs against some mysterious ill.

CREUSA: Exactly that: the tragedy I am revealing to you now.

OLD MAN: But how did you keep hidden this union with Apollo?

CREUSA: I gave birth . . . but wait, old man, before I tell you . . .

OLD MAN: Where was it? Who delivered you, or did you go through this alone?

CREUSA: All by myself: in the very cave where I was raped.

OLD MAN: But the baby? Where is he now?

He could be the answer to your barrenness.

CREUSA: Dead, old man: exposed to beasts of the wild.

OLD MAN: Dead? And that cad Apollo did nothing to help?

CREUSA: Nothing. The boy is in Hades now, eking out his days.

OLD MAN: Who exposed him? Surely it was not you?

CREUSA: It was . . . in darkness . . . swaddling him in the clothes I wore.

OLD MAN: But the exposure—was no one privy to the secret?

CREUSA: Only wretchedness and furtiveness.

OLD MAN: But how could you bear to leave your baby in a cave?

CREUSA: I know, how could I! Bitter the cries that sprang from my lips.

OLD MAN: How wretched and how reckless! But the god was even worse.

CREUSA: If you’d seen how the little thing stretched out his hands to me!

OLD MAN: Searching for your breast . . . to curl up in your arms . . .

CREUSA: Where he belonged. And I deprived him of it.

OLD MAN: What good did you imagine could come of tossing out your child?

CREUSA: I thought the god would rescue his own son.

OLD MAN: How sad! What a winter has fallen on your house!

 
[There is a pause and CREUSA surveys the OLD MAN with concern]

CREUSA: But what’s this? Your head droops, old man, and you are crying.

OLD MAN: Yes, to see you and your father brought so low.

CREUSA: It is the way of mortals. Nothing good endures.

OLD MAN: My daughter, let us not cling to these adversities.

CREUSA: Then what must we do? There’s no escape from hopelessness.

OLD MAN:

 
[sweeping his hands over the whole temple scene]

Revenge yourself on the god who started it all.

CREUSA: But how can I a mortal take on stronger powers?

OLD MAN: Burn down Apollo’s holy oracle.

CREUSA: I am afraid. I have troubles enough already.

OLD MAN: Have the courage . . . you can . . . kill your husband.

CREUSA: But I revere the wonderful love that once was ours.

OLD MAN: At least kill the boy who has come into your life.

CREUSA: But how? If that were only possible I’d give anything to do it.

OLD MAN: Put swords into your attendants’ hands.

CREUSA: Very well! But where is it to be done?

OLD MAN: In the hallowed tents where he banquets with his friends.

CREUSA: Blatant murder! And such weak support from slaves!

OLD MAN: [throwing up his hands] Oh dear! Oh dear! So fainthearted!

 
[After a pause]

 
What would you devise?

 
[CREUSA leads the OLD MAN to the temple steps and sits him down. Breathlessly she begins to spell out her scheme]

CREUSA: Yes, a ruse . . . I have it. And I think it will work.

OLD MAN: [pointing to his head and displaying his hands] Both these are at your service.

CREUSA: Listen then. Do you recall the Battle of the Giants?

OLD MAN: I do. The battle they waged with the gods at Phlegra.

CREUSA: When Earth gave birth to Gorgon—a terrifying freak.

OLD MAN: To come to the aid of her sons and topple the gods?

CREUSA: Yes, and the goddess Pallas, Zeus’s daughter, killed her.

OLD MAN: What was she like, that fearsome Gorgon?

CREUSA: Her bosom was armed with crawling snakes.

OLD MAN: Is this the story I heard so long ago?

CREUSA: Yes, and Athena wears the hideous creature’s skin over her breast.

OLD MAN: Is that what is called the “Aegis”: Athena’s breastplate?

CREUSA: It is: because she charged with the gods into battle.²¹

OLD MAN: My daughter, how can that help us against our enemies?

CREUSA: You know Erichthonius? . . . Of course you do, old man . . .

OLD MAN: Your first forebear, whom Earth gave birth to?

CREUSA: Yes, and when he was just a baby, Pallas gave him . . .

 
[She breaks off ]

 
OLD MAN: Well, why are you waiting?

CREUSA: . . . gave him two droplets of the Gorgon’s blood, which . . .

OLD MAN: Have some potency over human beings?

CREUSA: Yes: one is deadly, the other heals.

OLD MAN: And she armed the child with these? But how?

CREUSA: On a gold chain which Erichthonius gave my father.

OLD MAN: And when he died it came to you?

CREUSA: Exactly . . . Look, I wear it on my wrist.

OLD MAN: But how does this gift from heaven do its double work?

CREUSA: The droplet from the open vein at the killing . . .

OLD MAN: Yes yes, but how do you use it? How does it work?

CREUSA: It keeps disease away and sustains life.

OLD MAN: And the other drop? What does that do?

CREUSA: It kills. It is poison from the Gorgon’s snakes.

OLD MAN: Are they together or do you keep them separate?

CREUSA: Separate. Good and evil do not mix.

OLD MAN: Dearest child, you have all you need.

CREUSA: [holding out one of the phials]

This is the one to kill the boy, and you will do it.

OLD MAN: Where and how? Just tell me and I shall.

CREUSA: In Athens, when he comes into my house.

OLD MAN: [after a pause]

That’s not such a good idea . . . My turn to find fault.

CREUSA: Why not . . . Ah yes, I think I know! . . .

OLD MAN: Because you’d be thought to have killed the boy, even if you didn’t.

CREUSA: You have a point. Stepmothers are notorious children- haters.

OLD MAN: Kill him right here, and now; then deny it.

CREUSA: That would get me a sweet satisfaction faster.

OLD MAN: And you’ll snare your husband in his own snare.

CREUSA: [rising] So you know what to do?
Here is Athena’s golden bauble,
a trinket of great age, take it,
and go to the place where my husband furtively
is having his sacrificial feast,
and when the banqueting is done and the libations start,
slip it from under your gown and drop it deftly
into the young man’s cup—but only his, no one else’s,
and make sure his drink is on its own—
this young man who would be master in my house!

Once he swallows it
he’ll never reach our glorious Athens.
He’ll remain right here—a corpse.

OLD MAN: Go your way then to the pilgrim’s guest house
and I shall carry out my assignment.

 
[The OLD MAN watches CREUSA walk away, then, rising slowly from the steps, he jauntily addresses his feet]

Come on, old decrepit foot, get young:
there’s work ahead in spite of your years.
Full march against the foe!
Help your mistress kill her enemy and rid her home of him.

It’s a fine thing to be law-abiding when things go well
but when it comes to enemies the law’s an obstacle.

 
[As the OLD MAN plods off, the women of the CHORUS chant for divine help in furthering the murder of ION. He has no more right to the beauty of Athens than the Muse of poetry has to broadcast the sins of women. For the sins of men are far worse: witness the infidelity of XUTHUS]

THIRD CHORAL ODE

You, Enodia, Demeter’s daughter, queen

Guiding the spirits of night and day,

Guide the cup that my dearest mistress
Has filled with the deadly drops

From the slashed throat of the earth-spawned Gorgon: Guide it towards the man

Who reached for the house of Erechtheus.

Never let an alien from an alien home
Reign over my city.
Let none but the noble clan
Of Erechtheus rule it.

 
ANTISTROPHE I

If this murder misses its mark and my mistress

Misses her aim and all the hopes

Of this business falter, then will there enter

Her soul a compulsion to stab

Her throat with the keen blade of a sword

Or hang her neck in a halter,

So end her sorrows but only to suffer

Others on her way to another

World . . . Never, oh, never

On this light-filled earth will she

Let a stranger lord her house.

STROPHE II

I blush for Bacchus that many-hymned god

Should ever this youth be allowed among those

Who go to the springs and beautiful dances

Where all through the night they wait for the day,

That twentieth day when the torches flare And the stars in the holy empyrean

Prefigure the dance with the moon taking part,

And the fifty daughters of Nereus swirl

In the deeps of the sea, the ripple of streams,

Dancing to honor the goldenly crowned Maid and her mother.²²

How dare he aspire to be there as king,
Usurping the labor of others:
Phoebus’ vagabond.

 
ANTISTROPHE II

All you poets that follow the Muse

With your slanderous songs about the passions

And sinful lusts of woman, acknowledge

That we are far more virtuous than

Brutish and lascivious man; So Muse sing us

A canceling ode that shows the damage

Which men do to women. Look at this son

Of a son of Zeus: his perfidy

And his begetting not in the bed Of my mistress, an heir.

He charmed his way with another woman And made for himself An illegitimate son.

 
[A distraught MANSERVANT of CREUSA hurries in]

FIFTH EPISODE

SERVANT: Good women, where can I find our mistress, Erechtheus’
daughter?
I have searched the city everywhere and cannot find her.

LEADER: Good slave-mate, is something wrong?
What are you in such a hurry to tell us?

SERVANT: They’re hunting for her.
The country’s rulers want to stone her.

LEADER: That’s terrible!
Has someone divulged our plot to kill the boy?

SERVANT: Exactly so,
And you’ll not be the last to pay for being involved.

LEADER: How was our dark plan discovered?

SERVANT: The god let it out, to prevent his temple being defiled.

LEADER: What happened?
On my knees I beg you tell me.
If die I must, I’ll die more happily for knowing . . .
unless, of course, we are let off.

 
[The women press round the SERVANT in a circle]

SERVANT: When Creusa’s husband left Apollo’s shrine,
taking with him his newfound son
to celebrate with feast and sacrifice to deity,
he was on his way to the double crags of Dionysus,
where the consecrated fires of Bacchus leap,
to sprinkle a victim’s blood
in thanksgiving for the present of his son.

Then Xuthus said:
“Stay here, my boy,
and have the workmen set up a spacious tent.

If I am gone long,
sacrificing to the gods of birth,
proceed with the feasting for our friends that come.”

At which he left, together with his heifers,
while the young man conscientiously
set up the poles that hold the canvas tent walls,
taking particular care to keep the face of the tent
away from the fierce glare of the sun
from noon till sundown.

He marked out a hundred feet
for each side of a quadrangle,
making—according to those who know—
a space of ten thousand square feet;
for he wanted to invite all the people of Delphi to the feast.

Then he hung a series of religious tapestries
from the treasury as backdrops.

They were amazing.

 
To begin with,
stretching over the tent’s ceiling was the drape
dedicated to the god by Heracles son of Zeus
as part of the spoils from the Amazons.

On it were woven designs
such as Uranus herding the stars in the vault of the sky,
with Helios driving his coursers into the sunset,
trailing Hesperus behind him, the bright evening star.

There was Night, swathed in black,
hurtling onwards in her chariot
drawn by two untraced horses, the stars her escort;

and the Pleiades in mid-heaven pursuing their path
with Orion and his sword, and over all the Bear
rearing around with his golden tail;

and the disc of the full moon,
dividing the months and beaming out her arrows of light;

and the Hyades, the sailors’ guide,
and Dawn, forerunner of day, stampeding the stars.

 
Then on the walls he hung tapestries from abroad:
ships bristling with oars bearing down on a Greek flotilla;
freakish creatures half-man, half-beast;
horsemen pursuing stags or stalking ferocious lions.

In the vestibule he hung a tapestry given by some Athenian:
Cecrops with his daughters,
his limbs coiling with snakes.

In the center of the banquet table
he laid the golden mixing bowls.

 
When a herald strode in
announcing that any native of Delphi who wanted
was welcome to the feast,
the pavilion filled with people,
who decked themselves with garlands
and helped themselves sumptuously from the rich board.

When they had replenished themselves to their heart’s content,
an old man came forward
and stood in the middle of the floor.

He made the guests laugh at his punctiliousness:
for out of the urns he solemnly poured water
for washing the hands;
he swung thuribles of incense;
he busied himself over the golden cups—
a self-appointed majordomo.

 
When the feast had reached the point when the flutes start up
and the communion bowl is set out for all,
the old man said: “Away with these puny wine cups
and bring out larger ones,
then you gentry can get merry sooner.”

 
There was much bustle fetching and carrying
the gold and silver goblets,
and he, grasping a distinctive chalice
in a gesture of service to his new master,
handed it to Ion filled to the brim,
having first however dropped into the wine the lethal drug
which—so it is said—our mistress gave him
with a view to killing her husband’s new son.

 
Of course nobody knew this,
but just as the newly disclosed son
and all the company were poised with their cups,
one of the servants made a suspicious remark
and the young man, trained in the temple
among professional diviners,
interpreted this as a bad omen
and insisted on a fresh filling as he poured his drink
onto the floor at the first libation,
bidding everyone to do the same.

 
So, in a hushed solemnity,
we filled the ritual bowls with water, and wine from Byblus.

But as we were doing this
a flutter of tame doves descended
(doves are at home in the temple precincts)
and they began to dip their beaks in the libations
poured on to the ground by the guests—
greedily sucking them up into their feathery throats.

 
The god’s libations did the birds no harm,
except for one.

This dove alighted on the spot
where Ion had drained his cup,
and no sooner had she imbibed the wine
when a shudder went through every feather of her frame.

Screeching, she hobbled
in an uncanny cacophony of pain,
leaving the whole assembly of banqueters stunned.
Finally, in convulsions, she expired:
her pinkish claws and feet all limp.

 
Ion, the oracle child,
flinging his cloak back from his shoulders,
vaulted over the table shouting:
“Who is the one that wanted to kill me?
Say it, old man—you who were so attentive.
Yes, it was from you that I took the cup.”

At which, grabbing the old wrinkled arm,
he began to search and caught the old man with the poison on
him.

He, thus detected,
was compelled willy-nilly to disclose
Creusa’s dastardly ruse of poisoning the cup.

 
At once the young man,
he whom Apollo’s oracle had revealed,
ran off with all the banqueters
and stood before the Delphinian authorities.

“O hallowed Earth,” he exclaimed,
“a foreign woman, the daughter of Erechtheus
has tried to murder me with poison.”

The rulers of Delphi, by a majority vote,
decreed that my mistress, for attempting to kill the temple
child
and commit murder in the sanctuary,
be thrown from the precipice.

The whole town is searching for her now:
a woman whom sheer sorrow has reduced to this.

She came to Apollo’s temple with children as her quest.

All hope of children she has lost, and her life not least.

[The SERVANT turns and walks dolefully away as the women of the CHORUS begin a lament for the tragedy about to befall their mistress, and they bemoan a penalty they themselves cannot escape]

FIFTH CHORAL ODE

None! None! There is no way
For us to escape from dying.
Wide, wide open—the secret is out:
The lethal draft discovered—
The juice of the Bacchic grape
Infused with the viper’s venom.
Our bribes to the gods below
Are known and lead to disaster
For us, and death from the rock for our mistress.
Oh for the wings to fly far away!
Oh for a cranny deep in the earth
To evade a stony destruction!
Set me in a chariot propelled by chargers,
Set me in a ship to sail afar.
There’s nowhere to hide unless
A deity deigns to hide us.
And for you, poor mistress, what horror
Lies in wait for your spirit?
Does it mean that those who attempt
To damage a fellow human

Must rightly suffer?

 
[CREUSA, heavily veiled and distraught, rushes in]

SIXTH EPISODE

CREUSA: Women, they’re hunting me down. They mean to butcher me. The Pythian vote condemns me: I am marked for extinction.

LEADER: Alas, we know your doom, unhappy lady!

CREUSA: Where can I find shelter? . . . Hardly was I out of the
house
before the lynchers got there . . . I gave them the slip and here
I am.

LEADER: Shelter? Where but the altar.

CREUSA: What good is that?

LEADER: To kill in the sanctuary is sacrilege.

CREUSA: Not if I die by law.

LEADER: And only if they catch you.

CREUSA: O ... h! Here they come charging, swords at the ready. What a cruel race we run!

LEADER: Sit on the altar. If they kill you there
your blood will be on your killers . . .
With fate we must take our chances.

 
[CREUSA hurriedly seats herself on the altar and crouches by the effigy of Apollo. ION bursts in with a band of armed supporters. At first he does not notice or recognize the heavily veiled woman]

 
ION: O father Cephisus,²³ you bull-shaped avatar,
what viper have you begotten?
What dragon with eyes of burning murder! . . . She . . .
She—ready for any crime:
venomous as those beads of Gorgon’s blood
she would have used for my extinction.

 
[He sees and recognizes CREUSA]

 
Seize her.
Fling her like a discus down the ravine
and let the crags of Parnassus comb her pretty hair.

 
[Taking a step towards her]

How lucky that this took place before I came to Athens,
before I fell into a stepmother’s clutches.

When I found out how dangerous you were
my friends were with me, but trapped in your house
you would have sent me packing down to Hades.

Neither Apollo’s altar nor his shrine will save you.

I pity you,
but my feelings are for my mother and for myself.
She is not here in person, but her image is.

[He turns to the bystanders and points derisively at CREUSA]

Just look at her: she stops at nothing—
trick after tricking . . . cringing at the altar of the god,
hoping this will get her off due punishment
for all her machinations.

 
[ION signals to the guards to seize her. CREUSA lifts her veil and speaks, not without a certain dignity and doomed authority]

CREUSA: I warn you not to kill me.
I speak in my own name.
I speak in the god’s name where I stand.

ION: Phoebus? What do you have in common with him?

CREUSA: My body. I give it to the god.

ION: Really? After attempting to poison his servant!

CREUSA: Servant you are no longer. You are your father’s.

ION: Born from my father, yes, but belonging to Apollo.

CREUSA: And now no longer. It is I who belong.

ION: Minus the true devotion that was mine.

CREUSA: You were death to my house. I had to kill you.

ION: Why? I was not marching in arms against the house of Erechtheus.

CREUSA: You were, and you would have made a bonfire of it.

ION: Where were my torches? Where were my firebrands?

CREUSA: You meant to seize my house by force.

ION: A land in the gift of my father, which he had earned.

CREUSA: His? What fraction of the soil of Pallas do Aeolians own?

ION: He saved it with his arms, not with his tongue.

CREUSA: A common mercenary has no rights to ownership.

ION: You planned my death because you were afraid.

CREUSA: Yes, afraid for my life: if the chance came your way.

ION: A childless murderess all because a father finds a child!

CREUSA: Just because I’m childless must my house be plundered?

ION: You should offer me at least my father’s heritage.

CREUSA: A buckler and a javelin—that’s your heritage.

ION: [angrily] Get off that altar. Leave the hallowed seat.

CREUSA: Go give lessons to your mother, wherever she may be.

ION: And let you go scot free after trying to murder me?

CREUSA: Then why not put an end to me right here in this sacred

spot?

 
[CREUSA seizes the flowers and garlands adorning the altar and drapes them round her]

ION: Will dying in the god’s garlands make you happy? CREUSA: It will strike a blow at the god who struck at me.

ION: [in accents of impatience and despair]
The world is mad:
the divine dispensation neither good nor wise.

It ought not to be religiously correct
for criminals to find sanctuary at altars:
criminals should be rooted out.

It is not right that gods be touched by dirty hands.

Only the innocent should sit on sacred altars.

Instead, good and bad are made one and the same:
equal treatment to the gods’ acclaim.

 
[As ION advances on CREUSA, the PYTHIAN PRIESTESS enters from the temple carrying a cradle swathed in bands of wool. She wears a long white alb reaching down to her ankles and her head is crowned with bay leaves and a chaplet of ribbons. Her demeanor is one of solemnity, wisdom, and age]

 
PRIESTESS: [lifting a hand in admonition]
Hold there, my son! I have left the tripod and the oracle
and stepped across the boundary line:
I Apollo’s prophetess, I the chosen one
from all the women of Delphi to maintain
the venerable rubrics of the tripod.

ION: [bowing] Welcome dearest mother, though not my mother!

PRIESTESS: But call me that: a name I do not shun.

ION: Are you aware this woman hatched a plot to kill me?

PRIESTESS: I am, and that you are sinning too by ruthlessness.

ION: But surely murder must be met with murdering?

PRIESTESS: Stepmothers are always harsh to stepchildren.

ION: And so are we when they treat us badly.

PRIESTESS: Enough of this . . . Now when you leave the sanctuary for your native land . . .

ION: Leave? What do you mean?

PRIESTESS: . . . you must go to Athens with unsullied hands, fruitful auguries.

ION: Hands are quite unsullied that strike an enemy down.

PRIESTESS: Not so. Now listen. I have something to tell you.

ION: Speak on. I know you’ll only tell me what is for my good.

PRIESTESS: Do you see this basket I am carrying?

ION: I see an antique sort of cradle, all beribboned.

PRIESTESS: The cradle I took you from so long ago—a newborn babe.

ION: What do you mean? I’ve never heard this news before.

PRIESTESS: A secret once, but now to be divulged.

ION: A secret? How could you keep it all these years?

PRIESTESS: The god designed you for service in his house.

ION: And now no longer, is that it? How can I know?

PRIESTESS: Having revealed your father, he is sending you from here.

ION: But these items you hold, were you commanded to keep them? Why?

PRIESTESS: Apollo put the idea into my head to . . .

ION: To do what? Tell me. Please go on.

PRIESTESS: . . . to preserve this curious find until today.

ION: For my good . . . or is it for my bad?

PRIESTESS: In it are the swaddling clothes in which you were wrapped.

[CREUSA, still seated on the altar, thinks she has seen the basket before. She listens, riveted]

ION: Are these clues to help me find my mother?

PRIESTESS: Precisely that, for the god now wishes it but not before.

ION: Oh what a blessed day that will be!

PRIESTESS: [handing him the cradle] So take this now and go and find your mother.

ION: For that I’ll comb all Asia and all Europe.

PRIESTESS: It’s up to you.

 
[She pauses as if wondering whether to say more]

My son, on behalf of the god I reared you
and now I return these things to you
which he asked me—without commanding it—to take and
keep.

Why he wanted this, I cannot tell.
No living human being knew I had them nor where they were
hidden.

 
[She advances and takes ION in her arms]

 
Goodbye . . . I give you a mother’s kiss.

 
[She begins to walk away, then turns]

 
This search for your mother,
you must go about it in the proper way.

First inquire whether it was a girl from Delphi
who gave you birth and left you in this shrine,
or if not, was she at least Greek.

That is all you will hear from me or from Apollo.

He is interested in your destiny.

 
[The PRIESTESS moves into the temple. ION walks forward a few steps uncertainly, then stops. CREUSA watches fascinated and perplexed. She sees him break down in tears as he fondles the cradle]

 
ION: Strange! Strange! My eyes well with tears
when I picture the woman who bore me,
her clandestine affair
and her getting rid of me unsuckled at her breast.

My life and home have been under the god’s roof
and I a nameless servant.

Fate was cruel but the god good.

All those years I might have had the happiness
of nestling in a mother’s arms
but was cheated of her love and care.

And she was cheated too, she who gave me birth:
bereft of the joy of a son.

[Carrying the basket, ION walks towards the temple thinking aloud ]

I shall take this cradle now
and consecrate it to the god.
I don’t want it to reveal something shattering.
What if my mother turned out to be a slave?
It’s better not to pry than to unearth such a mother.

 
[He turns towards the statue of Apollo, holding out the still unopened basket]

 
“To your shrine, O Phoebus, I dedicate this . . .”

[He stops and scrutinizes the basket, trembling]

 
What is the matter with me?

I am evading the god’s design.

He kept these tokens of my mother for me.

I must open them. I must have the courage.

One cannot sidestep fate.

 
[He begins to undo the ribbons and bands that enclose the basket. CREUSA watches, spellbound with premonition]

 
Yes, holy laggings and holy bindings, what secret have you locked away from me?

Look, a wicker cradle—and marvelously preserved!

After being stowed away all these years there’s not a spot of mildew on the braiding.

 
[CREUSA springs to her feet, shouting]

CREUSA: A miracle! A miracle! beyond my wildest dreams.

ION: [surprised and annoyed] Oh be quiet! You’ve just shown that you can.

CREUSA: No no, I can’t be quiet. Don’t scold me,
for what I see is the very cradle in which I left you—
O my boy, my baby—abandoned you
in Cecrops’ cave under the ceilings of rock
hard by the Beetling Cliffs.

I’ll leave this altar now. I don’t care if I die.

[She runs to ION and throws her arms around him]

ION: Grab her. She’s raving,
and she’s left the effigies and altar. Bind her arms.

CREUSA: Slay me, don’t hesitate, but I’ll not let go
of this cradle or you and these scraps of all your secret.

ION: This is outrageous. I’m being jibbered off my course.

CREUSA: No, my love, you’re being found by those who love you.

ION: You, you love me? And you tried to kill me?

CREUSA: You are my child: a mother’s supremest love.

ION: [attempting to free himself] Stop clinging . . . I’m going to deal with you.

CREUSA: Oh please do! That’s why I’m here, my son.

ION: [wrenching the basket from her] Is this basket empty? What does it contain?

CREUSA: The swaddling clothes in which I left you once.

ION: Then itemize them, and don’t look inside.

CREUSA: If I cannot list them, I agree to die.

ION: Go on, name them . . . Your confidence is strange.

[ION opens the basket and CREUSA turns her head away so as not to look]

CREUSA: Item one, check: some fabric that I wove while still a girl.

ION: What sort of fabric? Girls weave lots of things.

CREUSA: It’s unfinished: a beginner’s effort on the loom.

ION: But the design? You won’t catch me there!

CREUSA: A Gorgon, woven at the center of the cloth which . . .

ION: [shaken] Great Zeus! the hounds of destiny are on me.

CREUSA: . . . is fringed with snakes—like the aegis.

 
[ ION pulls out the fabric so that CREUSA can see it]

ION: The weave—take a look. [Aside] Things seem to be coming
together,
like an oracle.

CREUSA: [ fingering the material]
How wonderfully it has kept the work of my girlhood!

ION: What else is there? Was that a lucky guess?

CREUSA: Snakes in gold—an antique—a present from Athena.
She likes children to have them in memory of Erichthonius.

ION: What is it for, tell me? This golden bauble? What use is it?

CREUSA: To hang around the necks of newborn babies, my son.

ION: [pulling it out of the basket]

Here it is . . . Now what about the third thing inside?

CREUSA: A chaplet of the olive I crowned you with
from the one Athena first planted on our rock.

If that is here
it will not have lost its greenness;
it’ll still be vigorous
because it comes from a holy tree.

 
[ION, amazed, brings the fresh-looking olive chaplet out of the basket, then flings himself into his mother’s arms]

ION: My own dearest mother, what bliss to see you!
And what bliss I see in the face I kiss!

CREUSA: My child, my light, more dazzling to a mother than the
sun
(as the god will know),
I hold you in my arms,
the treasure I never hoped to find,

I thought you had gone long ago
to dwell among the shades with Persephone.

ION: Instead, dearest mother, here I am and in your arms:
you see one resurrected from the dead.
CREUSA: [breaking into verse]
O bright heavenly spaces,
What words can I find to shout?
Where did this happiness spring from,

This rapture and surprise?

ION: An impossible undared for hope, to discover I am yours.

CREUSA: I am still trembling.

ION: Lest you don’t have me, but you do.

CREUSA: I’d banished every hope from me.

 
[Turning to the PRIESTESS]

 
Madam, how did you, how ever did you
Come to take my baby in your arms?
By what hand did he come to Loxias?

ION: By providence divine . . . Oh may our future
be as happy as our past was sad!

CREUSA: My son, in tears were you born,
And from me in tears were you torn.
But now against your cheek
Blessed and blissful, I breathe.

ION: What you say of yourself you say for me.

CREUSA: No longer childless or sonless
My house has a spark, a flame.
My country has a prince,
Erechtheus is young again.
His halls are loosed from night
And fixed on the shine of the sun.

ION: Mother, let my father share our happiness.

CREUSA: My son, you don’t know what you say . . . The truth must out.

ION: What?

CREUSA: You came from . . . someone else . . . someone very else.

ION: No, don’t tell me: not a bastard born?

CREUSA: Not with dancing and the flaring of torches
Were you conceived, my dear one;
Were you born, dear son.

ION: O ... h! I am baseborn, then, Mother—but of whom?

CREUSA: Think of the Gorgon-killer,²⁴ whose . . .

ION: Meaning what?

CREUSA: . . . whose seat on the hill of olives High above my house . . .

ION: You’re talking in riddles . . . I don’t follow.

CREUSA: . . . near the Rock of the Nightingales Where Apollo . . .

ION: Apollo? Why speak of him?

CREUSA: . . . with me lying on a hidden couch . . .

ION: Go on. This presages good news for me.

CREUSA: After a ten-month passage I bore you in secret to Apollo.

ION: Oh tidings of joy, if what you say is true!

CREUSA: Afraid of my mother, I wrapped you around
In these swaddling clothes so rough-and-ready,

A young girl’s fumbling.
No mother’s breast to give you milk,
No mother’s hands to bathe you:
Tossed into a derelict cave,
A morsel for birds to tear and eat,

You were left to die.

ION: What appalling bravery, Mother!

CREUSA: No, dread, my son It was dread that made me cast you out:

I was your unwilling killer.

ION: And I yours.

CREUSA: Dire indeed was our destiny then
And dire our destiny to follow:
Flung to and fro, baubles of fate
Sometimes fair, sometimes foul.

But winds veer.
May a fair wind stay—
A calm after storm, my child.
We have suffered enough.

LEADER: Never let anyone suppose,
in view of what has happened then,
that something good can’t happen now.

ION: Oh the topsy-turvy vicissitudes of chance,
twisting between failure and success!

How nearly did I kill my mother
unwittingly and face disaster!

What nightmare!

How in the space of a single day can we make sense
of the sun’s golden and unrolling scroll?

[He turns to CREUSA]

Be that as it may, in you, my mother,
I have unearthed a treasure, and as to my birth,
I cannot quarrel with that.

[He pauses, then beckons CREUSA]

There is however something I must say to you alone.
Come closer, Mother.

Let me whisper it in your ear and swaddle it in dark.

Are you certain
that like any fragile girl
you did not succumb to a secret lover
and then lay it on the god?

Could you perhaps be trying to escape the disgrace
of bearing me by claiming that Apollo,
no mortal man, had sired me?

CREUSA: No, by Athena goddess of victory,
who in days of old fought side by side with Zeus
in her chariot against the Giants,
no living mortal is your father
other than he that reared you,
the lord Apollo.

ION: Why then did he hand over his son to another father
and declare that I was the born son of Xuthus?

CREUSA: No, not born son but given son: born of Apollo, given to
Xuthus;
just as a friend might give a friend his son to be a son and heir.

[ION pauses, as if seeking courage to ask the next question]

 
ION: Is the god genuine or are his oracles a fraud?
I am troubled, Mother, and with good reason.

CREUSA: Listen, my son, this is what I’ve come to think.
It was for your good that Loxias established you in a noble
house.

Had you been known as the god’s
you wouldn’t have inherited a home or father’s name.

How could you, when I myself kept the union secret
and slyly tried to kill you?

For your well-being he bequeathed you to another father.

ION: This cannot be passed so lightly. I must pursue it.
I shall walk into the temple and question Loxias.
Either I am from a mortal man, or from Apollo.

 
[ION strides towards the temple but halts amazed, for above the temple buildings PALLAS ATHENA has appeared in majesty, riding in a small chariot. Some fall to their knees, some cower, some prepare to run]

Oh look! a godlike vision more brilliant than the sun.

Mother, we must fly, not gaze on deity without the given grace.

 
[PALLAS ATHENA signals to all to stay]

 
ATHENA: Do not run away. I am no adversary
that you should run from me.

I am your friend here as I am in Athens.

I am Pallas who has come to you, I who gave your land my name.

I hasten here on Phoebus’ behalf,
who did not think it fitting to confront you both
lest bickerings about the past be tossed back and forth,
so he sent me to give his message. To whit:

 
[Directing her gaze on ION]

This lady is your mother,
and Apollo is your father.

He bequeathed you to another not your father
just to let you have a noble home.

Once the truth was out and Creusa knew,
he feared you might die by your mother’s hand
or she be killed by you,
and so he set himself to save you.

The lord Apollo meant to keep this quiet
until you went to Athens,
then tell you that this woman is your mother
and that you are her and Apollo’s son.

 
[ATHENA waits for this statement to sink in]

 
Now to complete my errand:
listen, the two of you, to the god’s oracles,
which I harnessed my chaise just to bring you.

Take this boy, Creusa, and go to the land of Cecrops²⁵
and set him on the kingly throne.

Scion of the sons of Erechtheus, he is fit to rule my land.

His fame shall spread through all Hellas.

And the four sons born to him,
stemming from a single stock,
shall give their names to the four clans of my country:
those natives of my tableland:

The Gelions first, then come the Hoplites,
followed by the Argades, and last the Aegicores:
clan-named from my aegis.

Their children in due time
shall colonize the island cities of the Cyclades
and the mainland coasts, thus strengthening my land.

On opposite sides of the straits
they shall occupy the terrains of two continents—
Europe and Asia’s territories—
and be called the Ionians after this young boy here,
and they shall achieve fame.

[Looking at CREUSA]

 
To you and Xuthus shall be born two sons:
Dorus, from whom in the land of Pelops,
the glory and renown of the Dorian nation
shall take its rise;

and Achaeus,
who shall rule over the coastal lands of Rhion,
whose people will take their name from him and their distinction.

 
Apollo has arranged all things well.

First, he gave you an easy lying-in,
which kept all your friends from knowing;
then, after you had given birth to this boy
and wrapped him in his swaddling clothes,
he had Hermes gather him up
and waft him here in his arms,
feed him and not let his life go out.

Now, as to his being yours, say nothing.

Let Xuthus enjoy his wishful thinking,
as you your blessings.

So, farewell,
after this relief from your ordeals
I predict for you a happy time.

ION: O Pallas, daughter of Zeus Supreme,
we lack no faith in what you tell us.

I firmly believe that my father is Apollo
and this lady is my mother.

Even before you said it I wanted to believe it.

CREUSA: And from me, hear this:
I now praise Apollo, whom I would not praise before,
because he gives me back the child he once ignored.

Beautiful now are the portals that I face,
and the god’s shrine—once so loathsome.

Now I pay homage before his gates
and clasp with joy the knocker on these doors.

ATHENA: And I praise your change of heart
now that you praise the god.

Oh yes, the gods act slowly,
but finally with power and surely.

CREUSA: [turning to ION] Let us go home, my son.

ATHENA: Go. I shall be with you.

CREUSA: The champion guardian of our way.

ATHENA: And your city’s friend.

[To ION]

Yours is to sit on the ancient throne.
ION: A priceless possession.

[There is a reverent hush as ATHENA fades from view. CREUSA and ION and all their attendants begin to move away. The women of the CHORUS muster for the exodus march]

EXODUS

WHOLE CHORUS: Praised be Apollo, son of Zeus and Leto.
Those whom misfortune undermines
Should reverence the gods and take courage.
The virtuous in the end will win,
The wicked, by their nature, not:

Because of sin.