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.
- Who art thou and whence? who is the father that begat thee? by what name are we to call thee?
- Creusa is my name, the daughter of Erechtheus I; my native land is Athens.
- A glorious city thine, lady, a noble line of ancestry! with what reverence I behold thee!
- Thus far, no further goes my luck, good sir.
- Pray, is the current legend true—
- What is thy question? I fain would learn.
- Was thy father’s grandsire really sprung from Earth?
- Yes, Erichthonius was; but my high birth avails me not
- Is it true Athena reared him from the ground?
- Aye, and into maidens’ hands, though not his mother’s—
- Consigned him, did she? as ’tis wont to be set forth in painting.
- Yes, to the daughters of Cecrops, to keep him safe unseen.
- I have heard the maidens opened the ark wherein the goddess laid him.
- And so they died, dabbling with their blood the rocky cliff.
- Even so. But what of this next story? Is it true or groundless?
- What is thy question? Ask on, I have no calls upon my leisure.
- Did thy sire Erechtheus offer thy sisters as a sacrifice?
- For his country’s sake he did endure to slay the maids as victims.
- And how didst thou, alone of al thy sisters, escape?
- I was still a tender babe in my mother’s arms.