Stasimon 4
[Episode]
’Tis fringed with snakes like an aegis.
Ion
Lo! ’tis the very robe; how true we find the voice of God!
Creusa
Ah! woven work that erst my virgin shuttle wrought.
1425
Ion
Is there aught beside, or stays thy lucky guessing here?
Creusa
There be serpents, too, with jaws of gold, an old-world symbol.
Ion
This line is assigned to Creusa in the Greek. Is that Athena’s gift, bidding her race grow up under their guardianship?
Creusa
Yes, to copy our ancestor Erichthonius.
Ion
What is their object? what the use of these golden gauds? pray, tell.
1430
Creusa
Necklaces for the new-born babe to wear, my child.
Ion
Lo! here they lie. Yet would I know the third sign.
Creusa
About thy brow I bound an olive-wreath that day, plucked from the tree Athena first made grow on her own rock.
If haply that is there, it hath not lost its verdure yet, but still is fresh, for it came from the stock that grows not old.
1435
Ion
Mother, dearest mother, with what rapture I behold thee, as on thy cheeks, that share my joy, I press my lips!
Creusa
My son, light that in thy mother’s eye outshinest yonder sun,—
I know the god will pardon me,—in my arms I hold thee, whom I never hoped to find, for I thought thy home was in that nether world, among the ghosts with Queen Persephone.
1440
Ion
Ah, dear mother mine! within thy arms I rest, the dead now brought to light, and dead no more.
Creusa
Hail, thou broad expanse of bright blue sky! What words can I find to utter my joy aloud? Whence comes to me such unexpected rapture? To what do I owe this bliss?
1445
Ion
This is the last thing that ever would have occurred to me, mother, that I was thy child.
1450
Creusa
With fear I tremble still.
Ion
Dost thou doubt my reality?
Creusa
Far from me had I banished these hopes. Whence, O whence, lady, didst thou take my babe
into thy arms? Who carried him to the courts of Loxias?
1455
Ion
’Tis a miracle! Oh! may we for the rest of our career be happy, as we were hapless heretofore.
Creusa
In tears wert thou brought forth, my child,
and with sorrow to thy mother didst thou leave her arms; but now I breathe again as I press my lips to thy cheek, in full enjoyment of happiness.
1460
Ion
Thy words express our mutual feelings.
Creusa
No more am I of son and heir bereft; my house is stablished and my country hath a prince;
Erechtheus groweth young again; no longer is the house of the earth-born race plunged in gloom, but lifts its eyes unto the radiant sun.
1465
Ion
Mother mine, since my father too is here, let him share the joy I have brought to thee.
Creusa
My child, my child, what sayst thou? How is my sin finding me out!
1470
