Overview

In Euripides' enchanting play, the young hero, Ion— a foundling engaged to keep the Temple of Apollo tidy— meets the Queen of Athens. The two strike up an instant rapport. She tells him of a "friend" who was seduced by Apollo and gave birth to a child whom she abandoned ... After a series of surprising and disturbing twists, mother and son are reunited and the'story is resolved in a manner which foreshadows a new genre of European drama: the family romance.