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.
- Thou art right there.
- What more can I desire—
- Thine eyes now open to the sights they should.
- Than from a son of Zeus to spring?
- Which is indeed thy lot.
- May I embrace the author of my being?
- Aye, put thy trust in the god.
- Hail to thee, father mine.
- With joy that title I accept.
- This day—
- Hath made me blest.
- Ah, mother dear! shall I ever see thee too? Now more than ever do I long to gaze upon thee, whoe’er thou art.
- But thou perhaps art dead, and I shall never have the chance.
- We share the good luck of thy house; but still I could have wished my mistress too, and Erechtheus’ line, had been blest with children.
- My son, albeit the god hath for thy discovery brought his oracle
- to a true issue, and united thee to me, while thou, too, hast found what most thou dost desire, till now unconscious of it; still, as touching this anxiety so proper in thee, I feel an equal yearning that thou, my child, mayst find thy mother, and I the wife that bare thee unto me.
- Maybe we shall discover this, if we leave it to time. But now leave the courts of the god, and this homeless life of thine, and come to Athens, in accordance with thy fathers wishes, for there his happy realm and bounteous wealth await thee; nor shalt thou
- be taunted with base origin and poverty to boot, because in one of these respects thou something lackest, but thou shalt be renowned alike for birth and wealth. Art silent? why dost fix thy eyes upon the ground? Thou art lost in thought, and by this sudden change from thy former cheerfulness, thou strikest thy father with dismay.
- Things assume a different form according as we see them before us, or far off. I am glad at what has happened, since I have found in thee a father; but hear me on some points which I am now deciding.
- Athens, I am told,—that glorious city of a native race,—owns no aliens; in which case I shall force my entrance there under a twofold disadvantage, as an alien’s son and base-born as I am. Branded with this reproach, while as yet I am unsupported, I shall get the name of a mere nobody, a son of nobodies;