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.
- It cannot be; some man did wrong her, and she is ashamed of it.
- This she denieis herself; and she hath suffered further woe.
- How so, if she was wedded to a god?
- The babe she bare she did expose.
- Where is the child who was thus cast forth? is he yet alive?
- No man knoweth. That is the very thing I would ask the oracle.
- But if he be no more, how did he perish?
- She supposes that beasts devoured the hapless babe.
- What proof led her to form this opinion?
- She came to the place where she exposed him, but found him no longer there.
- Were any drops of blood upon the path?
- None, she says; and yet she ranged the ground to and fro.
- How long is it since the babe was destroyed?
- Thy age and his would measure out the self-same span, were he alive.
- Hath she given birth to no other child since then?
- The god doth wrong her, and wretched is she in having no child.
- But what if Phoebus privily removed her child, and is rearing it?
- Then is he acting unfairly in keeping to himself alone a joy he ought to share.
- Ah me! this misfortune sounds so like my own.
- Thee too, fair sir, thy poor mother misses, I am sure.