Euripides, Ion
Robert Potter, Ed.

In the following scene, most of Ion's lines are spoken, most of Creusa's are sung.

Ion
O my dearest mother! I see you with joy, I am held to your joyful face.They embrace.

Creusa
O child, o light dearer to your mother than the sun [1440] —the god will forgive me—I hold you in my arms, unexpectedly found, when I thought you lived in the world below, with the dead and Persephone.

Ion
But, my dear mother, in your arms I seem to be both one who has died and one who is not dead.

Creusa
[1445] Oh, oh, wide expanse of the bright sky, what shall I say, what shall I cry aloud? From where did this unexpected pleasure come to me? Where have I found this joy?

Ion
[1450] There was nothing further from my thoughts than this, mother, to be found your son.

Creusa
I am still trembling with fear.

Ion
Thinking that you do not have me, although you are holding me?

Creusa
Yes, for I had cast these hopes far away. O lady, from whom did you take my child into your arms? [1455] What hand brought him to Apollo's shrine?

Ion
It was a god's action; but may the rest of our fortune be happy, as the past was unfortunate.

Creusa
My child, you were brought forth in tears; with laments you were separated from a mother's hands. [1460] But now I breathe beside your cheeks, with most blessed delight.

Ion
You are speaking for me, when you speak your thoughts.

Creusa
I am no longer childless; the house is established, the land has a king; [1465] Erechtheus has come back; and the house of the earth-born no longer gazes upon night, but looks up into the rays of the sun.