num_pages: 230
description: 'Ion tells the story of Kreousa, queen of Athens, and her son by the god Apollo. Apollo raped Kreousa; she secretly abandoned their child, assuming thereafter that the god had allowed him to die. Ion however, is saved to become a ward of Apollo's temple at Delphi.In the play, Kreousa and her husband Xouthos go to Delphi to seek a remedy for their childlessness; Apollo, speaking through his oracle, gives Ion to Xouthos as a son, enraging the apparently still childless Kreousa. Mother tries to kill son, son traps mother at an altar and is about to do her violence; just then, Apollo's priestess appears to reveal the birth tokens that permit Kreousa to recognize and embrace the child she thought she had lost forever. Ion must accept Apollo's duplicity along with his benevolence toward his son.
language: Greek, Ancient (to 1453)
title: Ion
titlecomplete: Ion
genres: Literature, Classics, Mythology, Drama, Greece, Tragedy, Plays, Fiction, Poetry, Theatre
ratings_count: 882
publisher: Bristol Classical Press