Ah me!the moist tear trickles from mine eye,When I reflect that she who gave me birth,By stealth espoused,may with like secrecy Have sold me,to my infant lips her breast Denied:but in the temple of the god Without a name,a servile life I led.
All from the god was gracious,but from fortune Harsh;for the time when in a mother's arms I in her fondness should have known some joy Of life,from that sweet care was I estranged,A mother's nurture:nor less wretched she,Thus forced to lose the pleasure in her son.
But I will take this vase,and to the god Bear it,a hallow'd offering;that from thence I may find nothing which I would not find.
Should she,that gave me being,chance to be A slave,to find her were a greater ill,Than to rest silent in this ignorance.
O Phoebus,in thy temple hang I this.
What am I doing?War I not against The pleasure of the god,who saved for me These pledges of my mother?I must dare,And open these:my fate cannot be shunn'd.
(He opens the ark.)
Ye sacred garlands,what have you so long Conceal'd:ye bands,that keep these precious relics?
Behold the cover of this circular vase;
Its freshness knows no change,as if a god So will'd;this osier-woven ark yet keeps Its soundness undecay'd;yet many a year,Since it contain'd this treasured charge,has pass'd.
CREUSA
What an unhoped-for sight do I behold!
ION
I thought thou long hadst known to keep thee silent.
CREUSA
Silence is mine no more;instruct not me;
For I behold the ark,wherein of old I laid thee,O my son,an infant babe;And in the caves of Cecrops,with the rocks Of Macrai roof'd,exposed thee:I will quit This altar,though I run on certain death.
ION
Seize her;for by the impulse of the god She leaves the sculptured altar:bind her bands.
CREUSA
Instantly kill me,so that I embrace This vase,and thee,and these thy conceal'd pledges.
ION
Is not this strange?I take thee at thy word.
CREUSA
Not strange:a friend thou by thy friends art found.
ION
Thy friend!Yet wouldst thou kill me secretly.
CREUSA
My son:if that to parents is most dear.
ION
Forbear thy wiles;I shall refute them well.