Euripides, Ion
Robert Potter, Ed.

Chorus Leader
We feel the good fortune of the house in common with you; yet I wish that my mistress too, and the race of Erechtheus, were happy in children.

Xuthus
My son, the god has rightly brought about your discovery, [570] and joined you to me; and you in turn have found your closest relationship, which you had not known before. And what you are rightly eager for is also my desire, that you, my boy, may find your mother, and I may find the woman who bore you to me. [575] If we leave it to time, perhaps we may discover it. But abandon the god's precinct and your service of him, and come to Athens in agreement with your father, where his scepter awaits you, and abundant wealth; although you suffer from one of these two conditions, [580] you will not be called ill-born and poor, but well-born and rich. You are silent? Why do you cast your eyes down to the earth? You have gone into deep thought, and your change from joy frightens your father.

Ion

Ion
[585] Matters do not have the same appearance from far off as when seen close up. I welcome my fortune, finding my father in you. But hear, father, what I have in mind. It is said that the famous Athenians are natives of the land, [590] not a foreign race, so that I shall burst in on them with two ailments, my father a foreigner, and myself of bastard birth. And with this reproach, if I am insignificant, [I shall be called no one and nothing] [595] If I rush into the highest rank of the city, and seek to be someone, I will be hated by the powerless; those above them are troublesome to them. Those who are good and able to be wise keep silent, and are not eager for public affairs; [600] to them I will seem laughable and foolish if I am not at rest in a city full of fear. If I attain the reputation of those who are . . . and useful in the city, the more I will be guarded against, in the votes. It is likely to be this way, father; [605] those who hold cities and high rank are most hostile to their rivals.