At Athens friendly to you,and no less Here.From that land I come,so named from me,By Phoebus sent with speed:unmeet he deems it To show himself before you,lest with blame The past be mention'd;this he gave in charge,To tell thee that she bore thee,and to him,Phoebus thy father;he to whom he gave thee,Not as to the author of thy being gives thee,But to the inheritance of a noble house.
This declaration made,lest thou shouldst die,Kill'd by thy mother's wily trains,or she By thee,these means to save you he devised.
These things in silence long conceal'd,at Athens The royal Phoebus would have made it known That thou art sprung from her,thy father he:
But to discharge my office,and unfold The oracle of the god,for which you yoked Your chariots,hear:Creusa,take thy son,Go to the land of Cecrops:let him mount The royal throne;for,from Erechtheus sprung,That honour is his due,the sovereignty Over my country:through the states of Greece Wide his renown shall spread;for from his root Four sons shall spring,that to the land,the tribes,The dwellers on my rock,shall give their names.
Geleon the first,Hopletes,Argades,And from my aegis named Aegicores:
Their sons in fate's appointed time shall fix Their seats along the coast,or in the isles Girt by the Aegean sea,and to my land Give strength;extending thence the opposite plains Of either continent shall make their own,Europe and Asia,and shall boast their name Ionians,from the honour'd Ion call'd.
To thee by Xuthus shall a son be born,Dorus,from whom the Dorian state shall rise To high renown;in the Pelopian land,Another near the Rhian cliffs,along The sea-wash'd coast,his potent monarchy Shall stretch,Achaeus;and his subject realms Shall glory in their chief's illustrious name.
Well hath Apollo quitted him in all:
First,without pain he caused thee bear a son.
That from thy friends thou mightst conceal his birth;After the birth,soon as his infant limbs Thy hands had clothed,to Mercury he gave The charge to take the babe,and in his arms Convey him hither;here with tenderness He nurtured him,nor suffer'd him to perish.
Guard now the secret that he is thy son,That his opinion Xuthus may enjoy Delighted:thou too hast thy blessings,lady.
And now,farewell:from this relief from ills A prosperous fortune I to both announce.
ION
O Pallas,daughter of all-powerful Jove!
Not with distrust shall we receive thy words:
I am convinced that Phoebus is my father,My mother she,not unassured before.
CREUSA
Hear me too,now:Phoebus I praise,before Unpraised;my son he now restores,of whom Till now I deem'd him heedless.Now these gates Are beauteous to mine eyes;his oracles Now grateful to my soul,unpleasant late.
With rapture on these sounding rings my hands Now hang;with rapture I address the gates.
MINERVA
This I approve,thy former wayward thoughts Resign'd,with honour that thou name the god.
Slow are the gifts of Heaven,but found at length Not void of power.
CREUSA
My son,let us now go To Athens.
MINERVA
Go;myself will follow you.
CREUSA
A noble guard,and friendly to the state.
MINERVA
But seat him high on thy paternal throne.
CREUSA
A rich possession,and I glory in him.
(MINERVA disappears.)
CHORUS (singing)
Son of Latona and all-powerful Jove,Apollo,hail!Though fortune's blackest storms Rage on his house,the man whose pious soul Reveres the gods,assumes a confidence,And justly:for the good at length obtain The meed of virtue;but the unholy wretch (Such is his nature)never can be happy.
-THE END-