Stasimon 4
[Episode]
What meanest thou?
Creusa
Thou art of a different, for different stock.
Ion
Alas for me! Am I a bastard, then, bom in thy maiden days?
Creusa
Nor nuptial torch nor dance,
my child, ushered in my wedding and thy birth.
1475
Ion
O mother, mother! whence do I draw my base origin?
Creusa
Be witness she who slew the Gorgon,
Creusa
She that on my native rocks
makes the olive-clad hill her seat.
1480
Ion
Thy words to me are but as cunning riddles. I cannot read them.
Creusa
Hard by the rock with nightingales melodious, Phoebus,
Ion
Why dost thou mention Phoebus?
Creusa
Forced on me his secret love.
Ion
Say on; for thy story will crown me with fame and fortune.
1485
Creusa
And as the tenth month came round I bore a child to Phoebus in secret.
Ion
Oh! thy happy tidings, if thy story is true.
Creusa
And about thee as swaddling-clothes I fastened this my maiden work,
the faulty efforts of my loom. But to my breast I never held thy lips, or suckled or washed thee with a mother’s care; but in a desert cave wert thou cast out
1490
to die, for taloned kites to rend and feast upon.
1495
Ion
An awful deed! O mother!
Creusa
Fear held me captive, and I cast thy life away, my child;
I would, though loth, have slain thee too.
1500
Ion
Thou too wert all but slain by me most impiously.
1500
Creusa
O the horror of all I suffered then! O the horror of what is to follow now! To and fro
from bad to good we toss, though now the gale is shifting round. May it remain steady! the past brought sorrows enough; but now hath a fair breeze sprung up, my son, to waft us out of woe.
1505
Chorus
Let no man ever deem a thing past hoping for, when he turns an eye towards what is happening now.
1510
Ion
O Fortune! who ere now hast changed the lot of countless mortals first to grief, and then to joy again, to what a goal my life had come,
even to staining my hands with a mother’s blood and enduring sufferings ill-deserved! Ah well! may we not learn these truths daily in all that the bright sun embraces? O mother, in thee have I made a happy discovery, and from my point of view there is no fault to find with my birth;
1515
but what remains I fain would speak to thee apart. Come hither, for I would say a word in thine ear, and o’er these matters cast the veil of silence. Bethink thee, mother, carefully; didst thou make the fatal slip, that maidens will, as touching secret amours,
1520
