800

Given to our lords? Be that as fate requires.
In things, which threaten death, what shall we do?
CREU. What means this strain of wo? Whence are
these fears?

CHO. What! shall we speak, or bury this in silence?
CREU, Speak, though thy words bring wretchedness

to me.

CHO. It shall be spoken, were I twice to die. 805 To thee, my queen, it is not given to clasp

In thy fond arms a child, or at thy breast
To hold it.
TUT.

O my child, would I were dead!
CREU. Yes, this is wretchedness indeed, a grief
That makes life joyless.

TUT.

This is ruin to us.

CREU. Unhappy me! this is a piercing grief, That rends my heart with anguish.

TUT.

CREU. Yet is the affliction present.
TUT.

CREU. To me what tidings?

TUT.

810

Groan not yet.

Till we learn

If a common fate

815

Await our lord, partaker of thy griefs,

Or thou alone art thus unfortunate,

CHO. To him, old man, the god hath given a son,

And happiness is his unknown to her.

CREU. To ill this adds the deepest ill, a grief

For me to mourn.

TUT.

Born of some other woman

820

Is this child yet to come, or did the god

Declare one now in being?

Сно.

One advanced

To manhood's prime he gave him: I was present. CREU. What hast thou said? Thy words denounce

to me

Sorrows past speech, past utterance.

TUT.

And to me. 825 CREU. How was this oracle accomplish'd? Tell me With clearest circumstance: who is this youth? CHO. Him as a son Apollo gave, whom first, Departing from the god, thy lord should meet.

830

CREU. O my unhappy fate! I then am left Childless to pass my life, childless, alone, Amidst my lonely house! Who was declared? Whom did the husband of this wretch first meet? How meet him? Where behold him? Tell me all. CHO. Dost thou, my honor'd mistress, call to mind The youth that swept the temple? This is he. 836 CREU. O, through the liquid air that I could fly, Far from the land of Greece, ev'n to the stars Fix'd in the western sky! Ah me, what grief, What piercing grief is mine!

TUT.

Say, by what name 840

Did he address his son, if thou hast heard it;

Or does it rest in silence, yet unknown?

That I could not learn:

845

CHO. Ion, for that he first advanced to meet him. TUT. And of what mother? Сно. Abrupt was his departure (to inform thee Of all I know, old man) to sacrifice, With hospitable rites, a birth-day feast; And in the hallow'd cave, from her apart,

With his new son to share the common banquet.
TUT. Lady, we by thy husband are betray'd,
For I with thee am grieved, with contrived fraud
Insulted, from thy father's house cast forth.
I speak not this in hatred to thy lord,
But that I love thee more: a stranger he
Came to the city and thy royal house,
And wedded thee, all thy inheritance

850

855

Receiving, by some other woman now
Discover'd to have children privately:

How privately, I'll tell thee: when he saw

Thou hadst no child, it pleased him not to bear
A fate like thine; but by some favorite slave,
His paramour by stealth, he hath a son.
Him to some Delphian gave he, distant far
To educate; who to this sacred house
Consign'd, as secret here, received his nurture.
He knowing this, and that his son advanced
To manhood, urged thee to attend him hither,
Pleading thy childless state. Nor hath the god
Deceived thee: he deceived thee, and long since
Contrived this wily plan to rear his son,

860

865

870

That, if convicted, he might charge the god,

Himself excusing: should the fraud succeed,

He would observe the times when he might safely

Consign to him the empire of thy land.

And this new name was at his leisure form'd,

875

Ion, for that he came by chance to meet him.

I hate those ill-designing men, that form
Plans of injustice, and then gild them over
With artificial ornament: to me

Far dearer is the honest simple friend,
Than one, whose quicker wit is train'd to ill.
And to complete this fraud, thou shalt be urged
To take into thy house, to lord it there,
This low-born youth, this offspring of a slave..
Though ill, it had been open, had he pleaded
Thy want of children, and, thy leave obtain❜d,
Brought to thy house a son that could have boasted
His mother noble; or, if that displeased thee,
He might have sought a wife from Æolus.
Behoves thee then to act a woman's part,
Or grasp the sword, or drug the poison'd bowl,

880

885

890

895

Or plan some deep design to kill thy husband,
And this his son, before thou find thy death
From them: if thou delay, thy life is lost :
For when beneath one roof two foes are met,
The one must perish. I with ready zeal
Will aid thee in this work, and kill the youth,
Entering the grot where he prepares the feast;
Indifferent in my choice, so that I pay
What to my lords I owe, to live or die.
If there is aught that causes slaves to blush,
It is the name; in all else than the free
The slave is nothing worse, if he be virtuous.
Cuo. I too, my honor'd queen, with cheerful mind
Will share thy fate, or die, or live with honor.
CREU. HOW, O my soul, shall I be silent, how
Disclose this secret? Can I bid farewell

To modesty? What else restrains my tongue?
To how severe a trial am I brought!

900

905

Hath not my husband wrong'd me? Of my house 910
I am deprived, deprived of children; hope

Is vanish'd, which my heart could not resign,
With many an honest wish this furtive bed
Concealing, this lamented bed concealing.
But by the star-bespangled throne of Jove,
And by the goddess high above my rocks
Enshrined, by the moist banks that bend around
The hallow'd lake by Triton form'd, no longer
Will I conceal this bed, but ease my breast,

915

The oppressive load discharged. Mine eyes drop

tears,

920

My soul is rent, to wretchedness ensnared
By men, by gods, whom I will now disclose,
Unkind betrayers of the beds they forced.

O thou, that wakest on thy seven-string'd lyre
Sweet notes, that from the rustic lifeless horn

925

Enchant the ear with heavenly melody,
Son of Latona, thee before this light

Will I reprove. Thou camest to me, with gold
Thy locks all glittering, as the vermeil flowers
I gather'd in my vest to deck my bosom

930

With the spring's glowing hues: in my white hand
Thy hand enlocking, to the cavern'd rock

935

Thou ledd'st me; naught avail'd my cries, that call'd
My mother: on thou ledd'st me, wanton god,
Immodestly, to Venus paying homage.
A son I bear thee, O my wretched fate!
Him (for I fear'd my mother) in thy cave
I placed, where I unhappy was undone
By thy unhappy love. Wo, wo is me!
And now my son and thine, ill-fated babe,

940

Is rent by ravenous vultures; thou, meanwhile,

Art to thy lyre attuning strains of joy.
Son of Latona, thee I call aloud,

Who from thy golden seat, thy central throne,

945

Utterest thine oracle: my voice shall reach
Thine ear: ungrateful lover, to my husband,
No grace requiting, thou hast given a son

To bless his house; my son and thine, unown'd,
Perish'd a prey to birds; the robes that wrapp'd
The infant's limbs, his mother's work, lost with him.
Delos abhors thee, and the laurel boughs
With the soft foliage of the palm o'erhung,
Grasping whose round trunk with her hands divine,
Latona thee, her hallow'd offspring, bore.

951

952 The palm-tree was by various nations esteemed an emblem of honor, and even of royalty. The Jews used to carry boughs of it at some of their festivals; and particularly at the celebration of their nuptials; and it was thought to have an influence at the birth. Euripides alludes to this in his Ion, where he makes Latona recline herself against a palm-tree, when she is going to produce Apollo and Diana.