Ion by Euripides

Phoebus (aka Apollo) forces himself on a young mortal woman named Creusa.  She finds herself pregnant and manages to hide this from her family.  She delivers the baby alone in a cave and decides that she must abandon him.  Unknown to her, Phoebus is watching out for the baby, and he is transported to a shrine for Phoebus where he grows up in service to the god.

Many years pass.  Creusa has been married to Xuthus for some time, but they have not been able to have children.  They travel together to the temple of Phoebus to plead their case for a child.  Creusa meets her lost child, but of course, does not recognize him.  While she talks with him, Xuthus has gone into the temple.  He comes out saying that he was promised that the first person he saw on leaving the temple would be his son.  Ion, who is actually Creusa’s son, is the first person he sees.

When Creusa learns that Xuthus now has a “son” and that he plans to take him back to Athens with them, she is upset.  She feels that he has a son, but she doesn’t, and that this young man will now ascend to the prominent place that her own offspring should have had.  On the advice of an old servant, she decides to kill Ion.  She possesses vials of the blood of a Gorgon, and one of these is a death potion.

Creusa arranges for the death potion to be placed in the goblet of Ion which will be used in the celebration Xuthus is giving in honor of Ion becoming his son.  Fortunately, the first round of drinks is spilled out as an offering to the gods.  A bird laps up some of Ion’s drink and dies.

Ion now decides that he must kill Creusa, who he thinks is his step-mother, because she intended to kill him.  In the nick of time an old prophetess arrives with a chest containing items found with Ion when he was a baby.  Creusa realizes that Ion must be her son and is able to describe in detail the contents of the chest.  Ion now believes she is his mother.  The two are ecstatic to find one another after all these years, and the fact that they just recently were intending to kill one another is forgiven and forgotten.

This is a pretty tangled and convoluted plot.  Lies and misunderstandings abound.  I suppose if one were to have actually seen this performed as a play there would have been great suspense wondering if either the mother or son would kill the other before figuring out their relationship.  Tragedy seems inevitable until the very end.

As the goddess Athena comments in conclusion:  ‘Tis ever thus; Heaven’s justice may tarry awhile, yet comes it at the last in no wise weakened.

And the chorus responds:  It is only right that he, whose house is sore beset with trouble, should reverence God and keep good heart; for at the last the righteous find their just reward, but the wicked, as their nature is, will never prosper.

I’m a bit surprised to hear this from the Greeks whose gods seem so capricious and flawed.  In fact, earlier in the play Ion comments to Phoebus:  How, then, can it be just that you should enact your laws for men, and yourselves incur the charge of breaking them?.....For when ye pursue pleasure in preference to the claims of prudence, ye act unjustly; no longer is it fair to call men wicked, if we are imitating the evil deed of gods, but rather those who give us such examples.

Thankfully, as Christians we have a God who is a good example.  Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.  For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are---yet was without sin.  Hebrews 4:14, 15