Ion
By Euripides
3.5/5
()
About this ebook
Euripides
Euripides was a tragedian of classical Athens. He was born on Salamis Island around 480 BC to his mother, Cleito, and father, Mnesarchus, a retailer who lived in a village near Athens. He had two disastrous marriages, and both his wives—Melite and Choerine (the latter bearing him three sons)—were unfaithful. He became a recluse, making a home for himself in a cave on Salamis. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. He became, in the Hellenistic Age, a cornerstone of ancient literary education. The details of his death are uncertain.
Read more from Euripides
Yale Required Reading - Collected Works (Vol. 1) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Iphigenia in Aulis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Trojan Women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ten Plays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Harvard Classics: All 71 Volumes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBacchae Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAlcestis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Medea and Other Plays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Trojan women of Euripides Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Phœnician Virgins (Phoenician Virgins): (The Phoenician Women) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Iphigenia in Tauris Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Bacchae and Other Plays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Medea of Euripides Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Medea (NHB Classic Plays) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Electra Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsYale Classics (Vol. 1) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHelen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Medea and Other Plays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hecuba Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Iphigenia in Tauris of Euripides Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Electra and Other Plays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to Ion
Related ebooks
Ion Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Ion: "Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Bacchae and Other Plays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bacchae Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Iphigenia Among the Taurians Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Eumenidies Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEumenides: Unabridged Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Trojan Women Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Trojan Women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Eumenides Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Suppliants Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Furies: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Eumenides: Translaton by E.D.A. Morshead Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Metamorphoses: Selected Stories in Verse Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIphigenia in Tauris Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Furies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bacchae of Euripides Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKing Oedipus: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bacchæ: "The good and the wise lead quiet lives" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHecuba Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Oedipus Trilogy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKing Oedipus Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Divine Comedy, Cary's Translation, Paradise Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Trachinian Maidens (The Trachiniae) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatorio & Paradiso (Illustrated): 3 Classic Translations Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe vision of hell Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Divine Comedy. Longfellow's Translation. Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Classics For You
The Old Man and the Sea: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Learn French! Apprends l'Anglais! THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY: In French and English Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mythos Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5For Whom the Bell Tolls: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fellowship Of The Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wuthering Heights (with an Introduction by Mary Augusta Ward) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Confederacy of Dunces Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iliad: The Fitzgerald Translation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flowers for Algernon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Jungle: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey: (The Stephen Mitchell Translation) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Animal Farm: A Fairy Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Republic by Plato Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Master & Margarita Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Master and Margarita Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ulysses: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Good Man Is Hard To Find And Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Things They Carried Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sense and Sensibility (Centaur Classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Little Women (Seasons Edition -- Winter) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rebecca Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Farewell to Arms Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Persuasion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Edgar Allan Poe Complete Collection - 120+ Tales, Poems Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Count of Monte Cristo (abridged) (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Ion
39 ratings1 review
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5One of the most charming and witty of all the dialogues. Socrates, talking to a self-satisfied rhapsode who specializes exclusively in Homer, concludes that Ion has no knowledge but is instead either dishonest or divinely inspired. This suits Ion just fine and, claiming to be the latter, he treats Socrates' ironic critique as a form of praise.
Book preview
Ion - Euripides
ION
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
MERCURY
ION
CREUSA, daughter of Erechtheus
XUTHUS, husband of CREUSA
TUTOR
ATTENDANT
PRIESTESS OF APOLLO
MINERVA
CHORUS OF HANDMAIDENS OF CREUSA
ION
SCENE
Before the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. The sun is about to rise. MERCURY enters.
MERCURY
Atlas, that on his brazen shoulders rolls
Yon heaven, the ancient mansion of the gods,
Was by a goddess sire to Maia; she
To supreme Jove bore me, and call›d me Hermes;
Attendant on the king, his high behests
I execute. To Delphi am I come,
This land where Phoebus from his central throne
Utters to mortals his high strain, declaring
The present and the future; this is the cause;
Greece hath a city of distinguish›d glory,
Which from the goddess of the golden lance
Received its name; Erechtheus was its king;
His daughter, call›d Creusa, to the embrace
Of nuptial love Apollo strain›d perforce,
Where northward points the rock beneath the heights
Crown›d with the Athenian citadel of Pallas,
Call›d Macrai by the lords of Attica.
Her growing burden, to her sire unknown
(Such was the pleasure of the god,) she bore,
Till in her secret chamber to a son
The rolling months gave birth: to the same cave,
Where by the enamour›d god she was compress›d,
Creusa bore the infant: there for death
Exposed him in a well-compacted ark
Of circular form, observant of the customs
Drawn from her great progenitors, and chief
From Erichthonius, who from the Attic earth
Deriv›d his origin: to him as guards
Minerva gave two dragons, and in charge
Consign›d him to the daughters of Aglauros:
This rite to the Erechthidae hence remains,
Mid serpents wreathed in ductile gold to nurse
Their children. What of ornament she had
She hung around her son, and left him thus
To perish. But to me his earnest prayer
Phoebus applied, «To the high-lineaged sons
Of glorious Athens go, my brother; well
Thou know›st the city of Pallas; from the cave
Deep in the hollow rock a new-born babe,
Laid as he is, and all his vestments with him;
Bring to thy brother to my shrine, and place
At the entrance of my temple; of the rest
(For, know, the child is mine) I will take care.»
To gratify my brother thence I bore
The osier-woven ark, and placed the boy
Here at the temple›s base, the wreathed lid
Uncovering, that the infant might be seen.
It chanced, as the orient sun the steep of heav›n
Ascended, to the god›s oracular seat
The priestess entering, on the infant cast
Her eye, and marvelled, deeming that some nymph
Of Delphi at the fane had dared to lay
The secret burden of her womb: this thought
Prompts her to move it from the shrine: but soon
To pity she resign›d the harsh intent;
The impulse of the god secretly acting
In favour of the child, that in his temple
It might abide; her gentle hand then took it,
And gave it nurture; yet conceived she not
That Phoebus was the sire, nor who the mother
Knew aught, nor of his parents could the child
Give information. All his youthful years
Sportive he wandered round the shrine, and there
Was fed: but when his firmer age advanced
To manhood, o›er the treasures of the god
The Delphians placed him, to his faithful care
Consigning all; and in this royal dome
His hallow›d life he to this hour hath pass›d.
Meantime Creusa, mother of the child,
To Xuthus was espoused, the occasion this:-
On Athens from Euboean Chalcis roll›d
The waves of war; be join›d their martial toil,
And with his spear repell›d the foe; for this
To the proud honour of Creusa›s bed
Advanc›d; no native, in Achaea sprung
From Aeolus, the son of Jove. Long time
Unbless›d with children, to the oracular shrine
Of Phoebus are they come, through fond desire
Of progeny: to this the god hath brought
The fortune of his son, nor, as was deem›d,
Forgets him; but to Xuthus, when he stands
This sacred seat consulting, will he give
That son, declared his offspring; that the child,
When to Creusa›s house brought back, by her
May be agnized; the bridal rites of Phoebus
Kept secret, that the youth