Euripides' ION Complete

Translated by R. Potter.

Euripides Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Euripides in Print

104 pages - You are on Page 72

(strophe 2)

Thou whom the various hymn delights,
Then thy bright choir of beauteous dames among,
Dancing the stream's soft brink along,
Thou seest the guardian of thy mystic rites,
Thy torch its midnight vigils keep,
Thine eye meantime disdaining sleep;
While with thee dances Jove's star-spangled plain.
And the moon dances up the sky:
Ye nymphs, that lead to grots your frolic train,
Beneath the gulfy founts that lie:
Thou gold-crown'd queen, through night's dark regions fear'd,

And thou, her mother, power revered,
How should I blush to see this youth unknown!
This Delphic vagrant, hope to seize the throne.

(antistrophe 2)

You, who the melting soul to move,
In loose, dishonest airs the Muse employ
To celebrate love's wanton joy,
The joy of unallow'd, unholy love,
See how our pure and modest law
Can lavish man's lewd deeds o'erawe!
Ye shameless bards, revoke each wanton air;
No more these melting measures frame;
Bid the chaste muse in Virtue's cause declare,
And mark man's lawless bed with shame!
Ungrateful is this Jove-descended lord;
For, his wife's childless bed abhorr'd,
Lewdly he courts the embrace of other dames,
And with a spurious son his pride inflames.
(An Attendant of Creusa enters.)

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