Page:Euripides (Mahaffy).djvu/55

IV.] the lot of women; alas! the violences of the gods; what then? whither shall we refer our plaint, if we are ruined by the injustice of heaven?" She then, in reply to his questioning, tells of her home and marriage, and of her mission to Delphi in relief of childlessness, hut with many allusions to her sad fortune which do not escape the audience. Again in turn Ion answers her of his origin, how he was a foundling in the temple, and brought up to minister within its precincts. His reply that he has no clue to find his parents leads her to question him on her own case, hidden under the guise of a friend's misfortune, who had born a child to Apollo, and exposed it in his cave, from which it had disappeared. Would the god reveal its fate? Ion thinks he will be ashamed, and will not confess his fault. But the story suggests to both that Ion's mother may have endured a similar sorrow. While Creusa is expostulating with the god, her husband Xuthus enters with good news from the oracle of Trophonius, whither he had turned aside for advice on the way. They were not to leave the Delphic shrine childless. While they prepare for the solemn inquiry, Ion speaks a curious and familiar soliloquy (429–451) of expostulation with the god for his conduct in the case reported by Creusa.

The chorus pray to Athena Nike, and to Artemis, that the old house of Erechtheus may not be left childless. The epode (a passage of rare picturesqueness) sings of the grotto of Pan and the shrine of Aglauros on the Acropolis, and the violence attributed to Apollo.

Xuthus now reappears and hails Ion, whom he forthwith meets, as his child, but the latter resents his affection till, on inquiry, he finds that the oracle has declared him to be so, and that Xuthus can explain