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.
- Ah, what further news is there for me?
- Whether our master is in the same plight and shares thy misfortune, or thou art alone in thy misery.
- On him, old sir, Loxias hath bestowed a son,
- and he is enjoying his good fortune apart from her.
- Herein hast thou declared a further evil crowning all, a grief for me to mourn.
- The child of whom thou speakest—is he some woman’s destined babe, or did the god declare the fate of one already born?
- A youth already born and grown to man’s estate doth Phoebus give to him; for I was there myself.
- What sayest thou? nor tongue nor lip should speak the word thou tellest me.
- And me. But declare more clearly how this oracle is finding its fulfilment, and say who is the child.
- Whomso thy husband first should meet as he issued from the shrine, him the god gave him for his son.
- Ah me! my fate, it seems, has doomed me to a childless
- life, and all forlorn am I to dwell in ray halls, without an heir.
- To whom did the oracle refer? whom did our poor lady’s husband meet? how and where did he see him?
- Dear mistress mine, dost know that youth
- that was sweeping yonder shrine? He is that son.
- Oh! for wings to cleave the liquid air beyond the land of Hellas, away to the western stars, so keen the anguish of my soul, my friends!
- Dost know the name his father gave to him, or is that left as yet unsettled and unsaid?
- He called him Ion, because he was the first to cross his path.
- Who is his mother?
- That I cannot say. But,—to tell thee all I know, old sir,—