ion article thesis
A monologue from the play by Euripides
NOTICE: This monologue is reprinted from The Plays of Euripides in English, vol. ii. Trans. Shelley Dean Milman. London: M. M. Dent Sons, 1922.
OLD MAN: My personal honoured mistress (for along I grieve)
We are betrayed by your perfidious lord
Wronged by premeditated fraud, and cast
Out from Erectheus house: My spouse and i speak not this
Through hatred on your husband, but because
I enjoy you more than him, who also wedding you
When to the town he a stranger came up
Your palace too and whole inheritance
With you obtaining, on various other dame
Seems to have begotten sons by stealth:
Just how twas simply by stealth Sick prove, if he perceived
That you just were barren, he was not really content
To talk about the self-same fate, but on a slave
Whom he embraced in secrecy, begot
And to a few Delphic matron gave this kind of son
That in a international realm he may be nurtured:
He, for the temple of Apollo delivered
Is here educated up in top secret. But the maest?
Soon when he knew the stripling experienced attained
The years of manhood, hath upon you prevailed
Hither to come, because you had no kid.
The the almighty indeed hath spoken truth, not so
Xuthus, who by his infancy hath reared
The youngster, and falsified these reports, that, in the event detected
His crimes may be imputed to the god:
Although coming hither, and by period of time
Hoping to screen the fraudulence, he at this point resolves
He can transfer the sceptre to the stripling
Pertaining to whom by length this individual forges the newest name
Of Ion, to denote that this individual went forth
And fulfilled him. Ah, how do I ever hate
Those wicked males who storyline unrighteous deeds
And then embellish them with delusive art!
Rather would We possess a virtuous friend
Of mean skills, than another wise
And profligate. Of disastrous sot
Yours is the worst, who have to your house declare
Its future god, whose mom is not known
A youth selected coming from th grossier crowd
The base-born concern of a few female slave.
For this got only recently been a single unwell
Had this individual persuaded you, since you will be childless
To adopt, and in your place filed the child
Of some illustrious dame: but if for you
This plan had been disgustful, from the kindred
Of? olus his sire should he have desired
Another consort. Hence could it be incumbent
On you to implement some great vengeance
Worthy of woman: with the elevated sword
Or perhaps by some stratagem or deadly poison
Your husband and his children to give
Ere you by choices murdered: you can expect to lose
Your life if you wait, for once two enemies
Meet in a single house several mischief need to befall
Or perhaps this or that. My spouse and i therefore is going to 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 preparing. While I perspective
The sun, and een in death, I will repay
The bounty of people lords who nurtured myself.
For there exists one thing just which confers
Disgrace on slavesthe name, in all beside
No virtuous slave to freeborn soul yields.
