Epeisodion 1
Creusa
Why ask that? what memories thou recallest!
Ion
Doth the Pythian god with his flashing fire do honour to the place?
285
Creusa
Honour, yes! Honour, indeed! would I had never seen the spot!
Ion
How now? dost thou abhor that which the god holds dear?
Creusa
No, no; but I and that cave are witnesses of a deed of shame.
Ion
Lady, who is the Athenian lord that calls thee wife?
Creusa
No citizen of Athens, but a stranger from another land.
290
Ion
Who is he? he must have been one of noble birth.
Creusa
Xuthus, son of Aeolus, sprung from Zeus.
Ion
And how did he, a stranger, win thee a native born?
Creusa
Hard by Athens lies a neighbouring township, Euboea.
Ion
With a bounding line of waters in between, so I have heard.
295
Creusa
This did he sack, making common cause with Cecrops’ sons.
Ion
Coming as an ally, maybe; he won thy hand for this?
Creusa
Yes, this was his dower of battle, the prize of his prowess.
Ion
Art thou come to the oracle alone, or with thy lord?
Creusa
With him. But he is now visiting the cavern of Trophonius.
300
Ion
As a spectator merely, or to consult the oracle?
Creusa
’Tis his wish to hear the self-same answer from Trophonius and Phoebus too.
Ion
Is it to seek earth’s produce or fruit of offspring that ye come?
Creusa
We are childless, though wedded these many years.
Ion
Hast thou never been a mother? art thou wholly childless?
305
Creusa
Phoebus knows whether I am childless.
Ion
Unhappy wife! how this doth mar thy fortune else so happy!
Creusa
But who art thou? how blest I count thy mother!
Ion
Lady, I am called the servant of Apollo, and so I am.
Creusa
An offering of thy city, or sold to him by some master?
310
Ion
Naught know I but this, that I am called the slave of Loxias.
Creusa
Then do i in my turn pity thee, sir stranger.
Ion
Because I know not her that bare me, or him that begat me.
