ION
A monologue from the
play by Euripides
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NOTE: This monologue is reprinted
from The Plays of Euripides in English, vol. ii. Trans.
Shelley Dean Milman. London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1922. |
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- OLD MAN: My honoured mistress (for with you I grieve),
- We are betrayed by your perfidious lord,
- Wronged by premeditated fraud, and cast
- Forth from Erectheus' house: I speak not this
- Through hatred to your husband, but because
- I love you more than him, who wedding you
- When to the city he a stranger came,
- Your palace too and whole inheritance
- With you receiving, on some other dame
- Appears to have begotten sons by stealth:
- How 'twas by stealth I'll prove; when he perceived
- That you were barren, he was not content
- To share the self-same fate, but on a slave,
- Whom he embraced in secrecy, begot
- And to some Delphic matron gave this son,
- That in a foreign realm he might be nurtured:
- He, to the temple of Apollo sent,
- Is here trained up in secret. But the sire,
- Soon as he knew the stripling had attained
- The years of manhood, hath on you prevailed
- Hither to come, because you had no child.
- The god indeed hath spoken truth; not so
- Xuthus, who from his infancy hath reared
- The boy, and forged these tales; that, if detected,
- His crimes might be imputed to the god:
- But coming hither, and by length of time
- Hoping to screen the fraud, he now resolves
- He will transfer the sceptre to this stripling,
- For whom at length he forges the new name
- Of Ion, to denote that he went forth
- And met him. Ah, how do I ever hate
- Those wicked men who plot unrighteous deeds,
- And then adorn them with delusive art!
- Rather would I possess a virtuous friend
- Of mean abilities, than one more wise
- And profligate. Of all disastrous fates
- Yours is the worst, who to your house admit
- Its future lord, whose mother is unknown,
- A youth selected from th' ignoble crowd,
- The base-born issue of some female slave.
- For this had only been a single ill
- Had he persuaded you, since you are childless,
- T' adopt, and in your place lodged the son
- Of some illustrious dame: but if to you
- This scheme had been disgustful, from the kindred
- Of Æolus his sire should he have sought
- Another consort. Hence is it incumbent
- On you to execute some great revenge
- Worthy of woman: with the lifted sword,
- Or by some stratagem or deadly poison,
- Your husband and his offspring to dispatch
- Ere you by them are murdered: you will lose
- Your life if you delay, for when two foes
- Meet in one house some mischief must befall,
- Or this or that. I therefore will with you
- Partake the danger, and with you conspire
- To slay that stripling, entering the abode
- Where for the sumptuous banquet he is making
- Th' accustomed preparation. While I view
- The sun, and e'en in death, I will repay
- The bounty of those lords who nurtured me.
- For there is one thing only which confers
- Disgrace on slaves--the name; in all beside
- No virtuous slave to freeborn spirit yields.
MORE
MONOLOGUES BY EURIPIDES |
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