Ion

Euripides

Euripides. The Plays of Euripides, Translated into English Prose from the Text of Paley. Vol. I. Coleridge, Edward P., translator. London: George Bell and Sons, 1906.

  1. Hast heard how this woman plotted my death?
Pythian Priestess
  1. I have; thou, too, art wrong because of thy harshness.
Ion
  1. Am I not to pay back murderers in their coin?
Pythian Priestess
  1. Wives ever hate the children of a former marriage.
Ion
  1. As I hate step-dames for their evil treatment of me.
Pythian Priestess
  1. Do not so; but leaving, as thou art, the shrine, and setting forth for thy country—
Ion
  1. What then wouldst thou advise me do?
Pythian Priestess
  1. With clean hands seek Athens, attended by good omens.
Ion
  1. Surely any man hath clean hands who slays his enemies.
Pythian Priestess
  1. Do not thou do this; but take the counsel that I have for thee.
Ion
  1. Say on; whate’er thou say’st will be prompted by thy good will.
Pythian Priestess
  1. Dost see this basket that I carry in my arms?
Ion
  1. An ancient ark with chaplets crowned.
Pythian Priestess
  1. Herein I found thee long ago, a newborn babe.
Ion
  1. What sayest thou? there is novelty in the story thou art introducing.
Pythian Priestess
  1. Yea, for I was keeping these relics a secret, but now I show them.
Ion
  1. How earnest thou to hide them on that day, now long ago, when thou didst find me?
Pythian Priestess
  1. The god wished to have thee as his servant in his courts.
Ion
  1. Does he no longer wish it? How am I to know this?
Pythian Priestess
  1. By declaring to thee thy sire, he dismisses thee from this land.