Euripides' ION Complete

Translated by R. Potter.

Euripides Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Euripides in Print

104 pages - You are on Page 47

Ion: Let us then go; yet one thing to my fortune
Is wanting: if I find not her that bore me,
Life hath no joy. Might I indulge a wish,
It were to find her an Athenian dame,
That from my mother I might dare to assume
Some confidence; for he whose fortune leads him
To a free state proud of their unmix'd race,
Though call'd a citizen, must close his lips
With servile awe, for freedom is not his. (Xuthus and Ion go out.)

Chorus: (singing, strophe)

Yes, sisters, yes, the streaming eye,
The swelling heart I see, the bursting sigh,
When thus rejoicing in his son
Our queen her royal lord shall find,
And give to grief her anguish'd mind,
Afflicted, childless, and alone.
What means this voice divine,
Son of Latona, fate-declaring power?
Whence is this youth, so fondly graced,
That to ripe manhood, from his infant hour,
Hath in thy hallow'd courts been plac'd
And nurtured at thy shrine?
Thy dark reply delights not me;
Lurking beneath close fraud I see:
Where will this end? I fear, I fear-
'Tis strange, and strange events must hence ensue:
But grateful sounds it to his ear,
The youth, that in another's state
(Who sees not that my words are true?)
Enjoys the fraud, and triumphs in his fate.

Previous Page / First / Next Page of Ion

Euripides Home Page ||| Elpenor's Free Greek Lessons
Aeschylus ||| Sophocles

Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/ancient-greece/euripides/ion.asp?pg=47