THE BOOK WAS DRENCHED - OUDL Home

ION
Speak on;
Thy words import some glorious fortune to me.
CREUSA
Thee in the tenth revolving month, my son,
A secret pang to Phoebus did I bear.
ION
Thy words, if true, are grateful to my soul.
CREUSA
These swathing bands, thy mother's virgin work,
Wove by my flying shuttle, round thy body
I roll'd; but from thy lips my breast withheld,
A mother's nouriture, nor bathed thy hands
In cleansing lavers; but to death exposed thee,
Laid in the dreary cave, to birds of prey
A feast, rent piecemeal by their ravenous beaks.
ION
Cruel, my mother, was thy deed.
CREUSA
By fear
Constrain'd, my son, I cast thy life away;
Unwillingly I left thee there to die.
ION
And from my hands unholy were thy death.
CREUSA
Dreadful was then my fortune, dreadful here,
Whirl'd by the eddying blast from misery there
To misery here, and back again to joy:
Her boisterous winds are changed; may she remain
In this repose: enough of ills are past:
After the storm soft breathes a favouring gale.
LEADER
From this example, mid the greatest ills
Never let mortal man abandon hope.
ION
O thou, that hast to thousands wrought a change
Of state ere this, involving them in ills,