Ion
Ah me! How the tears fall from my eyes,
[1370]
when I think on that time when my mother, after a hidden union, sold me secretly and did not allow me the breast; but in the temple of the god, without a name, I had a slave's life. All from the god is good, but from fortune
[1375]
harsh; for in the time when I should have luxuriated in a mother's arms and had some pleasure in life, I was deprived of a mother's tender care. And she also is unhappy; how she has suffered, losing the delight of a child.
[1380]
But I will take this vessel, and dedicate it to the god, so that I may find nothing that I do not want. For if my mother happens to be a slave, to find her would be worse than to let it be in silence. O Phoebus, in your temple I dedicate this.
[1385]
But what am I doing? Am I making war against the will of the god, who saved for me these tokens of my mother? I must dare, and open these; for I would not transgress what is fated.
He opens the cradle.
O sacred garlands, what have you so long concealed,
[1390]
and bands, that keep these things so dear to me? See how, from some god's device, the cover of this circular vessel is not worn, and mold is absent from the weave. But much intervening time has passed for these treasures.
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Euripides. The Complete Greek Drama, edited by Whitney J. Oates and Eugene O'Neill, Jr. in two volumes. 1. Ion, translated by Robert Potter. New York. Random House. 1938.
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