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The Ion of Euripides, an entirely new and literal tr. by R. Mongan
The Ion of Euripides an entirely new and literal tr by R Mongan Author:Euripides Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ION. Mercury. Atlas, who on his brazen shoulders supports [lit. is wearing away, i.e. by their rotatory motion] heaven, the ancient dwelling of the gods, from... more » one of the goddesses begot Maia, who to Jupiter supremely great brought forth me, Mercury, the agent of the deities. But I am come to this land of Delphi, where Phoebus, sitting on the central navel [of the world], utters in song prophetic responses to mortals, always oracularly declaring the things that are and the things that are about to be. For there is a not undistinguished city of the Hellenes called [that] of Pallas of the golden lance, where Phoebus by force brought beneath the marriage-yoke Creusa, daughter of Erechtheus, where, beneath the hill of Pallas, the princes of the Attic territory call the northern rocks the Macrsean. But without the knowledge of her father (for thus it was agreeable to the god), she carried the burden of her womb, and, when her time arrived, having brought forth a boy in the mansion, Creusa conveyed the infant to the same cave where she had reposed with the god, and exposes him, as if about to die, in the well-rounded circle of a hollow wicker cradle, keeping up the custom of her ancestors and of earth-born Erich- tbonius. For the daughter of Jove, having joined to him side by side two guardian snakes as protectors of his person, consigns him to the Agraulian virgins to take charge of him. In consequence of which [lit. whence], there is a certain custom there among the Erechthidse, to rear their children encircled with serpents formed of beaten gold. But whatever costly ornaments the maid possessed, having attached them to the child, she left him there, as if he were doomed to perish. And, as being my brother,Phoebus requests this favour from me: ' 0 brother, going to the earth-born...« less