Epeisodion 1
Creusa
I would fain obtain a secret answer from Apollo’s oracle.
Ion
Name it, then; the rest will I undertake for thee.
335
Creusa
Hear, then, this story. Yet am I ashamed.
Ion
Thus wilt thou accomplish naught, for shame is a goddess slow to act.
Creusa
A friend of mine asserts that Phoebus lay with her.
Ion
Phoebus with a mortal woman? Stranger lady, say not so.
Creusa
Yea, and she bare the god a child without her father’s knowledge.
340
Ion
It cannot be; some man did wrong her, and she is ashamed of it.
Creusa
This she denieis herself; and she hath suffered further woe.
Ion
How so, if she was wedded to a god?
Creusa
The babe she bare she did expose.
Ion
Where is the child who was thus cast forth? is he yet alive?
345
Creusa
No man knoweth. That is the very thing I would ask the oracle.
Ion
But if he be no more, how did he perish?
Creusa
She supposes that beasts devoured the hapless babe.
Ion
What proof led her to form this opinion?
Creusa
She came to the place where she exposed him, but found him no longer there.
350
Ion
Were any drops of blood upon the path?
Creusa
None, she says; and yet she ranged the ground to and fro.
Ion
How long is it since the babe was destroyed?
