Ion. Is it by his command thou keepest these relics, or why?
Pyth. Pr. Loxias put in my heart that day—
Ion. What purpose? Oh! speak, finish thy story.
Pyth. Pr. To preserve what I had found until the present time.
Ion. What weal or woe doth this import to me?
Pyth. Pr. Herein were laid the swaddling-clothes in which thou wert enwrapped.
Ion. These relics thou art producing may help me to find my mother.
Pyth. Pr. Yes, for now the deity so wills it, though not before.
Ion. Hail! thou day of visions lest to me!
Pyth. Pr. Take then the relics and seek thy mother diligently. And when thou hast traversed Asia and the bounds of Europe, thou wilt learn this for thyself; for the god's sake I reared thee, my child, and now to thee do I entrust these relics, which he willed that I should take into my safe keeping, without being bidden; why he willed it I cannot tell thee. For no living soul wist that I had them in my possession, nor yet their hiding-place. And now farewell! as a mother might her child, so I greet thee. The[1] starting-point of thy inquiry for thy mother must be this; first, was it a Delphian maid that gave birth to thee, and exposed thee in this temple; next, was it a daughter of Hellas at all? That is all that I and Phœbus, who shares in thy lot, can do for thee.
[Exit Pythian Priestess.
Ion. Ah me! the tears stream from my eyes when I think of the day my mother bore me, as the fruit of her secret love, only to smuggle her babe away privily, without suckling it; nameless I led a servant's life in the courts of the god. His service truly was kindly, yet was my fortune
- ↑ Lines 1364–1368 were marked by Hirzel as spurious, and Nauck in his text concurs in that opinion.
