章节正文
Is this child yet to come, or did the god
Declare one now in being?
LEADER
One advanced
To manhood's prime he gave him: I was present.
CREUSA
What hast thou said? Thy words denounce to me
Sorrows past speech, past utterance.
TUTOR
And to me.
CREUSA
How was this oracle accomplish'd? Tell me
With clearest circumstance: who is this youth?
LEADER
Him as a son Apollo gave, whom first,
Departing from the god, thy lord should meet.
CREUSA
O my unhappy fate! I then am left
Childless to pass my life, childless, alone,
Amid my lonely house! Who was declared?
Whom did the husband of this wretch first meet?
How meet him? Where behold him? Tell me all.
LEADER
Dost thou, my honoured mistress, call to mind
The youth that swept the temple? This is he.
CREUSA
O, through the liquid air that I could fly,
Far from the land of Greece, ev'n to the stars
Fix'd in the western sky! Ah me, what grief,
What piercing grief is mine I
TUTOR
Say, by what name
Did he address his son, if thou hast heard it?
Or does it rest in silence, yet unknown?
LEADER
Ion, for that he first advanced to meet him.
TUTOR
And of what mother?
LEADER
That I could not learn:
Abrupt was his departure (to inform the
Of all I know, old man) to sacrifice,
With hospitable rites, a birthday feast;
And in the hallow'd cave, from her apart,
With his new son to share the common banquet.
TUTOR
Lady, we by thy husband are betrayed,
For I with thee am grieved, with contrived fraud
Insulted, from thy father's house cast forth.
I speak not this in hatred to thy lord,
But that I love thee more: a stranger he
Came to the city and thy royal house,
And wedded thee, all thy inheritance
Receiving, by some other woman now
Discover'd to have children privately:
How privately I'll tell thee: when he saw
Thou hadst no child, it pleased him not to bear
A fate like thine; but by some favourite slave,
His paramour by stealth, he hath a son.
Him to some Delphian gave he, distant far,
To educate; who to this sacred house
Consign'd, as secret here, received his nurture.
He knowing this, and that his son advanced
To manhood, urged thee to attend him hither,
Pleading thy childless state. Nor hath the god
Deceived thee: he deceived thee, and long since
Contrived this wily plan to rear his son,
That, if convicted, he might charge the god,
Himself excusing: should the fraud succeed,
He would observe the times when he might safely
Consign to him the empire of thy land.
And this new name was at his leisure form'd,
Ion, for that he came by chance to meet him.
I hate those ill-designing men, that form
Plans of injustice, and then gild them over
With artificialornament: to me
Far dearer is the honest simple friend,
Than one whose quicker wit is train'd to ill.
And to complete this fraud, thou shalt be urged
To take into thy house, to lord it there,
This low-born youth, this offspring of a slave.
Though ill, it had been open, had he pleaded
Thy want of children, and, thy leave obtain'd,
Brought to thy house a son that could have boasted
His mother noble; or, if that displeased thee,
He might have sought a wife from Aeolus.
Behooves thee then to act a woman's part,
Or grasp the sword, or drug the poison'd bowl,
Or plan some deep design to kill thy husband,
And this his son, before thou find thy death
From them: if thou delay, thy life is lost:
For when beneath one roof two foes are met,
The one must perish. I with ready zeal
Will aid thee in this work, and kill the youth,
Entering the grot where he prepares the feast;
Indifferent in my choice, so that I pay
What to my lords I owe, to live or die.
If there is aught that causes slaves to blush,
It is the name; in all else than the free
The slave is nothing worse, if he be virtuous.
I too, my honour'd queen, with cheerful mind
Will share thy fate, or die, or live with honour.
CREUSA (chanting)
How, o my soul, shall I be silent, how
Disclose this secret? Can I bid farewell
To modesty? What else restrains my tongue?
To how severe a trial am I brought!
Hath not my husband wrong'd me? Of my house
I am deprived, deprived of children; hope
Is vanish'd, which my heart could not resign,
With many an honest wish this furtive bed
Concealing, this lamented bed concealing.
But by the star-bespangled throne of Jove,
And by the goddess high above my rocks
Enshrined, by the moist banks that bend around
The hallow'd lake by Triton form'd, no longer
Will I conceal this bed, but ease my breast,
The oppressive load discharged. Mine eyes drop tears,
My soul is rent, to wretchedness ensnared
By men, by gods, whom I will now disclose,
Unkind betrayers of the beds they forced.
O thou, that wakest on thy seven-string'd lyre
Sweet notes, that from the rusticlifeless horn
Enchant the ear with heavenly melody,
Son of Latona, thee before this light
Will I reprove. Thou camest to me, with gold
Thy locks all glittering, as the vermeil flowers
I gather'd in my vest to deck my bosom
With the spring's glowing hues; in my white hand
Thy hand enlocking, to the cavern'd rock
Thou led'st me; naught avail'd my cries, that call'd
My mother; on thou led'st me, wanton god,
Immodestly, to Venus paying homage.
A son I bare thee, O my wretched fate!
Him (for I fear'd my mother) in thy cave
I placed, where I unhappy was undone
By thy unhappy love. Woe, woe is me!
And now my son and thine, ill-fated babe,
Is rent by ravenous vultures; thou, meanwhile,
Art to thy lyre attuning strains of joy.
Set of Latona, thee I call aloud
Who from thy golden seat, thy central throne,
Utterest thine oracle: my voice shall reach
Thine ear: ungrateful lover, to my husband,
No grace requiting, thou hast given a son
To bless his house; my son and thine, unown'd,
Perish'd a prey to birds; the robes that wrapp'd
The infant's limbs, his mother's work, lost with him.
Delos abhors thee, and the laurel boughs
With the soft foliage of the palm o'erhung,
Grasping whose round trunk with her hands divine,
Latona thee, her hallow'd offspring, bore.
LEADER
Ah, what a mighty treasury of ills
Is open'd here, a copious source of tears!
TUTOR
Never, my daughter, can I sate my eyes
With looking on thy face: astonishment
Bears me beyond my senses. I had stemm'd
One tide of evils, when another flood
High-surging overwhelm'd me from the words
Which thou hast utter'd, from the present ills
To an ill train of other woes transferr'd.
What say'st thou? Of what charge dost thou implead
The god? What son hast thou brought forth? Where placed him
A feast for vultures? Tell me all again.
CREUSA
Though I must blush, old man, yet I will speak.
TUTOR
I mourn with generous grief at a friend's woes.
CREUSA
Hear then: the northward-pointing cave thou knowest,
And the Cecropian rocks, which we call Macrai.
TUTOR
Where stands a shrine to Pan, and altars nigh.
CREUSA
There in a dreadfulconflict I engaged.
TUTOR
What! my tears rise ready to meet thy words.
CREUSA
By Phoebus drawn reluctant to his bed.
TUTOR
Was this, my daughter, such as I suppose?
CREUSA
I know not: but if truth, I will confess it.
TUTOR
Didst thou in silence mourn this secret ill?
CREUSA
This was the grief I now disclose to thee.
TUTOR
This love of Phoebus how didst thou conceal?
CREUSA
I bore a son. Hear me, old man, with patience.
TUTOR
Where? who assisted? or wast thou alone?
CREUSA
Alone, in the same cave where compress'd.
TUTOR
Where is thy son, that childless now no more
CREUSA
Dead, good old man, to beasts of prey exposed.
Declare one now in being?
LEADER
One advanced
To manhood's prime he gave him: I was present.
CREUSA
What hast thou said? Thy words denounce to me
Sorrows past speech, past utterance.
TUTOR
And to me.
CREUSA
How was this oracle accomplish'd? Tell me
With clearest circumstance: who is this youth?
LEADER
Him as a son Apollo gave, whom first,
Departing from the god, thy lord should meet.
CREUSA
O my unhappy fate! I then am left
Childless to pass my life, childless, alone,
Amid my lonely house! Who was declared?
Whom did the husband of this wretch first meet?
How meet him? Where behold him? Tell me all.
LEADER
Dost thou, my honoured mistress, call to mind
The youth that swept the temple? This is he.
CREUSA
O, through the liquid air that I could fly,
Far from the land of Greece, ev'n to the stars
Fix'd in the western sky! Ah me, what grief,
What piercing grief is mine I
TUTOR
Say, by what name
Did he address his son, if thou hast heard it?
Or does it rest in silence, yet unknown?
LEADER
Ion, for that he first advanced to meet him.
TUTOR
And of what mother?
LEADER
That I could not learn:
Abrupt was his departure (to inform the
Of all I know, old man) to sacrifice,
With hospitable rites, a birthday feast;
And in the hallow'd cave, from her apart,
With his new son to share the common banquet.
TUTOR
Lady, we by thy husband are betrayed,
For I with thee am grieved, with contrived fraud
Insulted, from thy father's house cast forth.
I speak not this in hatred to thy lord,
But that I love thee more: a stranger he
Came to the city and thy royal house,
And wedded thee, all thy inheritance
Receiving, by some other woman now
Discover'd to have children privately:
How privately I'll tell thee: when he saw
Thou hadst no child, it pleased him not to bear
A fate like thine; but by some favourite slave,
His paramour by stealth, he hath a son.
Him to some Delphian gave he, distant far,
To educate; who to this sacred house
Consign'd, as secret here, received his nurture.
He knowing this, and that his son advanced
To manhood, urged thee to attend him hither,
Pleading thy childless state. Nor hath the god
Deceived thee: he deceived thee, and long since
Contrived this wily plan to rear his son,
That, if convicted, he might charge the god,
Himself excusing: should the fraud succeed,
He would observe the times when he might safely
Consign to him the empire of thy land.
And this new name was at his leisure form'd,
Ion, for that he came by chance to meet him.
I hate those ill-designing men, that form
Plans of injustice, and then gild them over
With artificialornament: to me
Far dearer is the honest simple friend,
Than one whose quicker wit is train'd to ill.
And to complete this fraud, thou shalt be urged
To take into thy house, to lord it there,
This low-born youth, this offspring of a slave.
Though ill, it had been open, had he pleaded
Thy want of children, and, thy leave obtain'd,
Brought to thy house a son that could have boasted
His mother noble; or, if that displeased thee,
He might have sought a wife from Aeolus.
Behooves thee then to act a woman's part,
Or grasp the sword, or drug the poison'd bowl,
Or plan some deep design to kill thy husband,
And this his son, before thou find thy death
From them: if thou delay, thy life is lost:
For when beneath one roof two foes are met,
The one must perish. I with ready zeal
Will aid thee in this work, and kill the youth,
Entering the grot where he prepares the feast;
Indifferent in my choice, so that I pay
What to my lords I owe, to live or die.
If there is aught that causes slaves to blush,
It is the name; in all else than the free
The slave is nothing worse, if he be virtuous.
I too, my honour'd queen, with cheerful mind
Will share thy fate, or die, or live with honour.
CREUSA (chanting)
How, o my soul, shall I be silent, how
Disclose this secret? Can I bid farewell
To modesty? What else restrains my tongue?
To how severe a trial am I brought!
Hath not my husband wrong'd me? Of my house
I am deprived, deprived of children; hope
Is vanish'd, which my heart could not resign,
With many an honest wish this furtive bed
Concealing, this lamented bed concealing.
But by the star-bespangled throne of Jove,
And by the goddess high above my rocks
Enshrined, by the moist banks that bend around
The hallow'd lake by Triton form'd, no longer
Will I conceal this bed, but ease my breast,
The oppressive load discharged. Mine eyes drop tears,
My soul is rent, to wretchedness ensnared
By men, by gods, whom I will now disclose,
Unkind betrayers of the beds they forced.
O thou, that wakest on thy seven-string'd lyre
Sweet notes, that from the rusticlifeless horn
Enchant the ear with heavenly melody,
Son of Latona, thee before this light
Will I reprove. Thou camest to me, with gold
Thy locks all glittering, as the vermeil flowers
I gather'd in my vest to deck my bosom
With the spring's glowing hues; in my white hand
Thy hand enlocking, to the cavern'd rock
Thou led'st me; naught avail'd my cries, that call'd
My mother; on thou led'st me, wanton god,
Immodestly, to Venus paying homage.
A son I bare thee, O my wretched fate!
Him (for I fear'd my mother) in thy cave
I placed, where I unhappy was undone
By thy unhappy love. Woe, woe is me!
And now my son and thine, ill-fated babe,
Is rent by ravenous vultures; thou, meanwhile,
Art to thy lyre attuning strains of joy.
Set of Latona, thee I call aloud
Who from thy golden seat, thy central throne,
Utterest thine oracle: my voice shall reach
Thine ear: ungrateful lover, to my husband,
No grace requiting, thou hast given a son
To bless his house; my son and thine, unown'd,
Perish'd a prey to birds; the robes that wrapp'd
The infant's limbs, his mother's work, lost with him.
Delos abhors thee, and the laurel boughs
With the soft foliage of the palm o'erhung,
Grasping whose round trunk with her hands divine,
Latona thee, her hallow'd offspring, bore.
LEADER
Ah, what a mighty treasury of ills
Is open'd here, a copious source of tears!
TUTOR
Never, my daughter, can I sate my eyes
With looking on thy face: astonishment
Bears me beyond my senses. I had stemm'd
One tide of evils, when another flood
High-surging overwhelm'd me from the words
Which thou hast utter'd, from the present ills
To an ill train of other woes transferr'd.
What say'st thou? Of what charge dost thou implead
The god? What son hast thou brought forth? Where placed him
A feast for vultures? Tell me all again.
CREUSA
Though I must blush, old man, yet I will speak.
TUTOR
I mourn with generous grief at a friend's woes.
CREUSA
Hear then: the northward-pointing cave thou knowest,
And the Cecropian rocks, which we call Macrai.
TUTOR
Where stands a shrine to Pan, and altars nigh.
CREUSA
There in a dreadfulconflict I engaged.
TUTOR
What! my tears rise ready to meet thy words.
CREUSA
By Phoebus drawn reluctant to his bed.
TUTOR
Was this, my daughter, such as I suppose?
CREUSA
I know not: but if truth, I will confess it.
TUTOR
Didst thou in silence mourn this secret ill?
CREUSA
This was the grief I now disclose to thee.
TUTOR
This love of Phoebus how didst thou conceal?
CREUSA
I bore a son. Hear me, old man, with patience.
TUTOR
Where? who assisted? or wast thou alone?
CREUSA
Alone, in the same cave where compress'd.
TUTOR
Where is thy son, that childless now no more
CREUSA
Dead, good old man, to beasts of prey exposed.
- apollo [ə´pɔləu]
n.阿波罗 (初中英语单词) - unhappy [ʌn´hæpi] a.不幸的；不快乐的 (初中英语单词)
- lonely [´ləunli] a.孤独的；无人烟的 (初中英语单词)
- mistress [´mistris] n.女主人；情妇；女能手 (初中英语单词)
- temple [´tempəl] n.庙宇；寺院；太阳穴 (初中英语单词)
- liquid [´likwid] n.液体 a.流动的 (初中英语单词)
- greece [gri:s] n.希腊 (初中英语单词)
- western [´westən] a.西的；西方的 (初中英语单词)
- advanced [əd´vɑ:nst] a.先进的；高级的 (初中英语单词)
- departure [di´pɑ:tʃə] n.离开，出发 (初中英语单词)
- hatred [´heitrid] n.憎恨，敌意 (初中英语单词)
- educate [´edjukeit] vt.教育；培养；训练 (初中英语单词)
- sacred [´seikrid] a.神圣的；庄严的 (初中英语单词)
- knowing [´nəuiŋ] a.会意的，心照不宣的 (初中英语单词)
- charge [tʃɑ:dʒ] v.收费；冲锋 n.费用 (初中英语单词)
- artificial [,ɑ:ti´fiʃəl] a.人工的；模拟的 (初中英语单词)
- ornament [´ɔ:nəmənt] n.装饰(物) vt.装饰 (初中英语单词)
- perish [´periʃ] v.灭亡；消灭；(使)死去 (初中英语单词)
- cheerful [´tʃiəful] a.快乐的；高兴的 (初中英语单词)
- severe [si´viə] a.严厉的；苛刻的 (初中英语单词)
- goddess [´gɔdis] n.女神 (初中英语单词)
- conceal [kən´si:l] vt.藏；隐瞒 (初中英语单词)
- wretched [´retʃid] a.可怜的；倒霉的 (初中英语单词)
- generous [´dʒenərəs] a.慷慨的；丰盛的 (初中英语单词)
- dreadful [´dredful] a.可怕的；讨厌的 (初中英语单词)
- conflict [´kɔnflikt, kən´flikt] n.&vi.战斗；抵触 (初中英语单词)
- confess [kən´fes] vt.供认；坦白；承认 (初中英语单词)
- denounce [di´nauns] vt.指责；告发；揭发 (高中英语单词)
- oracle [´ɔrəkl] n.预言(者)；圣理名言 (高中英语单词)
- manhood [´mænhud] n.人格；男子气概 (高中英语单词)
- leisure [´leʒə] n.空闲；悠闲；安定 (高中英语单词)
- injustice [in´dʒʌstis] n.不公正，不公平 (高中英语单词)
- throne [θrəun] n.宝座；王位 (高中英语单词)
- rustic [´rʌstik] a.田野的；质朴的 (高中英语单词)
- heavenly [´hevənli] a.天的，天空的 (高中英语单词)
- naught [nɔ:t] n.无；零 (高中英语单词)
- laurel [´lɔrəl] n.月桂树(叶)；桂冠 (高中英语单词)
- foliage [´fəuli-idʒ] n.叶子，簇叶 (高中英语单词)
- mighty [´maiti] a.强有力的 ad.很 (高中英语单词)
- shrine [ʃrain] n.神龛；神殿；圣地 (高中英语单词)
- disclose [dis´kləuz] vt.揭露；透露；泄露 (高中英语单词)
- wretch [retʃ] n.不幸的人；卑鄙的人 (英语四级单词)
- hospitable [´hɔspitəbəl] a.好客的；招待周到的 (英语四级单词)
- wedded [´wedid] a.(已)结婚的；献身的 (英语四级单词)
- modesty [´mɔdisti] n.谨慎；端庄；羞怯 (英语四级单词)
- lifeless [´laifləs] a.无生命的，无生气的 (英语四级单词)
- wanton [´wɔntən, ´wɑ:n-] a.顽皮的 n.&vi.荡妇 (英语四级单词)
- reluctant [ri´lʌktənt] a.勉强的；难得到的 (英语四级单词)
- piercing [´piəsiŋ] a.刺(贯)穿的；尖刻的 (英语六级单词)
- privately [´praivitli] ad.秘密，一个人 (英语六级单词)
- oppressive [ə´presiv] a.压制的；沉重的 (英语六级单词)
- reprove [ri´pru:v] vt.责骂，谴责；非难 (英语六级单词)
- copious [´kəupiəs] a.丰富的；冗长的 (英语六级单词)
- phoebus [´fi:bəs] n.太阳神 (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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