Metamorphoses, Book I

My intention is to tell of bodies changed into different forms. You gods, who made those changes, favor my undertaking — and, from the very beginning of the world, carry my story down in one unbroken line to my own time.

Before there was any sea or land, before the sky that covers everything, the face of nature was the same all over the world: people called it Chaos — a shapeless, jumbled pile, nothing but dead weight, with the warring seeds of badly matched things crowded together in one body. No Titan yet gave light to the world. The moon did not yet renew her crescent horns. The earth did not hang balanced in the air around her, held by her own weight, and the sea had not stretched her arms along the far edges of the land. Where there was earth, there was also sea and air — but earth stood on nothing, the sea could not be sailed, and the air was dark. Nothing kept its own shape: everything got in everything else's way, because in one body cold fought heat, wet fought dry, soft fought hard, and weightless things fought things of weight.

Then a god — a kinder nature — ended this conflict. He cut the land away from the sky, and the water from the land, and separated the clear heavens from the heavy air. When he had rolled them free of the blind heap, he bound the divided parts together in peaceful harmony. The fiery, weightless energy of the round heaven flashed upward and claimed its place on the height of the citadel; next came the air, lighter than fire in neither place nor weight; then, heavier than both, the earth drew down her great elements and was pressed fast by her own weight — and the water around her took the lowest place and enclosed the solid world.

So when this god — whichever of the gods it was — had cut that heap into order and shaped it into one design, he first rolled the earth into the form of a great sphere, so that it would be the same on every side. Then he commanded the seas to spread and swell with rushing winds, throwing their shores around the girdled lands. He added springs and great standing pools and lakes, and fenced the rivers with sloping banks, so that in some places the waters are drunk up by the earth itself, and in others they reach the sea and, running into a freer plain, beat on shores instead of banks. He commanded the plains to spread out, the valleys to sink, the woods to put on leaf, and the stony mountains to rise. And just as the sky is cut into two zones on the right and two on the left, with a fifth hotter than all the rest, so the god's care marked off the enclosed weight of the earth by that same number: so many zones press upon it. The middle zone cannot be lived in for heat; deep snow covers the two extremes; and between each hot and cold pair he placed the temperate blend, where flame is mixed with frost.

Over all these hangs the air, which weighs as much more than the earth as the earth weighs more than water. There he stationed the mists, there the clouds, there the thunders that shake the minds of men, and the winds that make lightning with their thunderbolts. But the world's maker did not let even the winds blow loose in any direction they pleased: even now they are held apart, each governing his gales in his own separate tract — or else they would tear the world to pieces, so great is the rivalry among brothers. Eurus went off to the dawn, to the Arabian lands, to Persia and the heights that lie beneath the morning light. The evening shore, and the coasts that grow warm in the setting sun, lie next to Zephyrus. Fierce Boreas rushed away to Scythia and the seven Bears; and the land opposite is soaked with constant cloud and rain by the south wind.

Over all these he placed the clear, weightless sky, which has no taint of any earthly dross. Hardly had he marked off all things with fixed limits when the stars, so long buried in blind darkness, began to blaze through the whole of heaven. And so that no region might be without its own creatures, the stars took the ground of heaven, and the fish took the shining waters, the earth took the wild beasts, and the restless air the birds.

But one thing was still wanting — a creature holier and higher, able to rule the rest. Man was born. Whether the maker of all things made him from divine seed — he, the origin of a better world — or whether the new earth, only just separated from the high heavens, still held seeds of her kindred sky, which Prometheus, the son of Iapetus, mixed with fresh rainwater and shaped into the likeness of the gods who rule all things — while every other animal bends its head and stares at the ground, he gave man a face that lifts him upward. He told him to stand erect and look up to heaven, and raised his countenance toward the stars. So the earth, so lately crude and formless, changed, and took on the unknown shapes of humankind.

The golden age came first, the age that — with no one to compel it — kept the faith and did what was right of its own free will. There was no punishment to fear, no laws engraved on bronze plates, no crowd of suppliants frightened by the face of a judge: they lived safe, without any guard. The tall pine tree had not yet been felled on her mountains and sent down to visit the waves of a foreign world, and mortals knew no shores except their own. The steep towns were not yet ringed by deep moats. There were no straight trumpets, no horns of bent brass, no helmets, no swords. Without soldiers, the gentle nations lived in ease, and the earth herself, untouched, unwounded by any plough or harrow, gave everything freely. Content with food that came without asking, people gathered arbutus berries, wild strawberries, cornel cherries, blackberries hanging on the prickly bushes, and acorns fallen from the wide-spreading tree of Jove. It was spring forever; the soft west wind breathed on flowers that needed no planting, and the unploughed earth brought forth her grain, and the untilled field grew white with heavy ears. Rivers of milk and rivers of nectar flowed, and golden honey dripped from the green holm oak.

After Saturn had been banished to the dark underworld, the world came under Jove, and the silver race arose — worse than gold, dearer than yellow bronze. Jupiter shortened the length of the old springtime, and divided the year into four seasons: winter, summer, a changeable autumn, and a brief spring. Then for the first time the air burned with parching heat, and ice hung frozen in the biting winds. Then people first built houses: before that, caves were their homes, and thick thickets, and huts woven from bark. Then for the first time the seeds of Ceres were buried in long furrows, and the young oxen groaned under the yoke.

Third came the race of bronze, crueler in spirit, readier for savage war — but not yet wicked. Last of all came the hard age of iron. At once every kind of evil burst out into this age of baser metal: modesty, truth, and faith fled the earth, and in their place came trickery and fraud and violence and the wicked love of possessions. Men gave sails to winds they did not yet understand well, and keels that had once stood high on the mountaintops now danced over strange waves. The ground, which had been common to all like the sunlight and the air, was measured out and marked with long boundary lines by careful surveyors. People were not content to ask the rich earth only for crops and the food she owed them: they dug into her very body, and the riches she had hidden away, buried close beside the shades below, were dug out — and became temptations to evil. Iron came — and gold, deadlier than iron — and war was born, which fights with both, shaking its clashing arms in a bloodstained hand. People lived by plunder. A guest was not safe from his host, a father-in-law not safe from his son-in-law; kindness between brothers was rare. Husbands longed for their wives' deaths, wives for their husbands'. Terrible stepmothers mixed deadly poisons; sons asked about their fathers' years before their time. Piety lay vanquished, and virgin Astraea, last of the immortals, abandoned the blood-soaked earth.

And so that the heavens might be no safer than the earth, they say the giants plotted to seize the kingdom of the sky, piling new mountains, range on range, up to the very stars. Then the almighty father hurled his thunderbolt and split Olympus open, and shook Pelion down from underneath Ossa. When the terrible bodies of the giants lay crushed beneath the mountains they had piled, they say the earth was soaked with their blood and warmed it into life, and — so that no trace of that race should be lost — gave it the face of man. But that new race too despised the gods, and thirsted cruelly for blood and violence. You could see they were born of blood.

When the son of Saturn saw this from his high citadel, he groaned — and the deed, not yet made public, still fresh, the filthy banquet of a Lycaonian table filled him with rage worthy of Jove himself. He called a council, and no delay held back those he summoned. There is a highway, plainly visible in a clear sky: they call it the Milky Way, famous for its very whiteness. This is the road the gods take to the halls of the great Thunderer and his royal house. On the right and left, the courts of the noble gods stand open with their doors wide; the common gods live in other quarters. Here the powerful and famous dwellers in heaven have made their homes: this is the place which — if I may give my words such boldness — I would not fear to call the Palatine of high heaven.

So when the gods had taken their seats in the marble hall, Jove himself, highest of all, leaned on his ivory scepter, and three times and four he shook his dreadful head, which shakes earth, sea, and stars together. Then he let his anger speak: "I was not more troubled for the rule of the world even in that season, when each of the hundred-handed serpents tried to throw his captive arms around the sky. Fierce as that enemy was, that war came from one body, one origin. Now, wherever the waters of Nereus sound around the world, the race of men must perish. I swear it by the rivers of hell, that slide beneath the earth through the Stygian grove! But they must all be tried first; only what no cure can mend must be cut away with the knife, so the healthy flesh is not dragged down. I have demigods of my own, and country spirits, nymphs, fauns, satyrs, and the silvani who live in the mountains: since we do not yet think them worthy of heaven, at least let them be allowed to live safely in the lands we gave them. Do you believe they can be safe, o gods, when Lycaon — known to me for his savagery — has laid snares for me, for me who hold the thunderbolt and who hold and rule you?"

All of them roared their agreement, and with burning zeal called down punishment on the daring man. Just so, when an impious band raged to wipe out the Roman name in Caesar's blood, mankind was struck dumb with terror at so great a fall, and the whole world shuddered; nor was the loyalty of your own people less pleasing to you, Augustus, than theirs was to Jove. And when with voice and hand he had pressed down their murmur, all were silent. Then, as the uproar, quelled by the weight of the ruler, died away, Jove broke the silence a second time: "He has paid the penalty — set that care aside. But hear the deed, and what the punishment was. The infamy of the age had reached my ears. Wanting to disprove it, I slipped down from high Olympus and traveled over the earth as a man. It would take too long to count the evils found everywhere: the rumor was smaller than the truth. I had crossed Maenala, dense with the lairs of wild beasts, and the pine forests of Cyllene and cold Lycaeus, and from there entered the Arcadian home of the tyrant just as late dusk was bringing on the night. I let the signs of a god be seen; the common people began to pray. Lycaon laughed at their prayers, and said: 'I will find out by an open test whether this is a god or a mortal — the proof will not be long.' He planned to destroy me in the night, asleep, by an unexpected death: that was his test of the truth. And not content with that, with a knife he cut the throat of a hostage sent from the Molossian nation, and softened part of the still-living flesh in boiling water and roasted the rest on fires below. No sooner had he served it up on the table than I brought the roof down on the household gods with a bolt of vengeance — a god repaid as he deserved. Lycaon himself fled in terror, and reaching the silent fields, howled, and tried in vain to speak: his mouth filled with rabid rage, and true to his old love of slaughter, he turned against the flocks, and even now delights in blood. His clothing turns to shaggy hair, his arms to legs: he is a wolf, keeping the traces of his old shape — the same grey hair, the same violent face, the same gleaming eyes, the same picture of ferocity. One house has fallen — but only one house deserved to fall. Wherever the earth stretches, savage Fury holds its throne. You would think they had all sworn the same oath! Let them all, quickly, pay the penalties they have earned — such is my decree."

Some approved the words of Jove and added fuel to his hot anger; others filled out the speech with signs of approval. But all of them grieved at the loss of humankind, and asked what the world would be like without mortals: who would carry incense to the altars? Or was Jove going to hand the lands over to be torn apart by wild beasts? As they asked these things — the rest, they said, was his own care — the king of the gods told them not to worry, and promised he would people the world with a race of wondrous origin, different from the first. And he was even now ready to scatter his thunderbolts over all the lands — but he was afraid the holy ether might catch fire from so many flames and the long axis of the sky blaze up. He remembered too that the fates had ordained a time when sea, land, and the palace of the sky, caught in the flames, would burn, and the whole mass of the world would labor, besieged. The weapons forged by the Cyclops' hands were put away. A different punishment pleased him: to destroy the human race beneath the waves, and let loose the rains from every quarter of the sky.

At once he shut the north wind in the Aeolian caves, and every gale that scatters storm clouds, and set the south wind free. The south wind flew out on dripping wings, his terrible face wrapped in pitch-black fog. His beard hung heavy with storm; water streamed from his long hair; mist settled on his brow; his feathers and his robe dripped rain. He squeezed the hanging clouds with his broad hand, and with the crash the clouds burst and poured down their rain. Iris, the rainbow, dressed in her many colors, carried water up to feed the clouds. The standing crops were drowned, and the farmer's hopes, swallowed in the flood, lay betrayed: the long labor of the year grieved in vain. Nor could the anger of the sky be matched by Jove's own fury — his brother's sea came out to help. The rivers rushed down and flowed out across the open plains, sweeping away orchards and crops and cattle, men and houses, temples and shrines with all they held. If any house resisted and held against so great a flood, its rooftop buried the waves, and the highest towers sank beneath the tide. And now land and sea were no longer different: everything was sea — a sea without a shore. One man clung to a hilltop; another sat in his bent boat, rowing over his ploughed fields and his drowned vineyard; another fished from over his own rooftop, letting down his line. Where the tall elm had stood, an anchor hooked; keels plowed through the waving grain and swept over drowned meadows; and where goats had grazed a moment before, shapeless seals lay stretched out. The nereids marveled under the waves at groves and cities and the houses of men. Dolphins got into the woods and dashed their bodies against the high branches, knocking the trees as they beat the air. The wolf swims beside the lamb; the tigers ride the same flood; the wild boar's strength is useless; the stag's swift legs fail; the wandering bird, after long searching for land, falls into the sea, its wings worn out. The richness of the level lands lay under water; the waves swallowed the hills; and most of the men died where the sea caught them. Those it spared, slow famine overcame, for want of food.

One man survived — Deucalion of Phocis — just, and a lover of what is right. He came to his father's temple, and Pyrrha came with him, his wife, dearest of all women to his heart. "What shall we do?" they said. "Where shall we hide, in so great a terror? Our hopes are small." And the great goddess pitied them and said: "Leave the temple. Veil your heads. Untie the belts of your robes, and throw the bones of your great mother behind your backs." They stood amazed, in silence; Pyrrha was the first to break it, and begged the goddess, with trembling lips, to forgive her — she was afraid to offend her shade by touching her bones. Meanwhile they turned the words over: the words were dark, the oracle obscure. Then Deucalion answered Pyrrha gently: "Either my judgment is wrong, or the oracles are holy, and no command tells us to offend our mother's bones. The earth is the great mother; I believe the stones in the body of the earth are what we are told to throw behind us." Pyrrha's heart was warmed by his reading, though the hope was faint. They did not yet believe — but what harm could it do? So they went out, veiled, their robes loosened, and threw the stones behind their steps, as they were told. And the stones — who would believe it, if ancient tradition did not tell it? — began to lose their hardness and their stony look, and after a while grew soft, and softer still, and their weight wore away. As they were carried along, the mass of them grew gentle, and took on shape: what looked like the form of man and woman was not yet clear — then each became flesh, and the stony parts turned to bone, and the veins kept the old name and shape of their stones. And in a moment, the stones the man had thrown took the forms of men, and the woman's stones were born again as women. From this comes the hardness of our race, and our endurance of labor, and the proof in us that we descend from stone.

And when the giver of all things saw that the earth was green again and the world stood out above the deep, he called the winds and told them to leave the lands and let the clouds go and show the sky. The ground, still wet with the scattered rain, shone in the sun, the heavens grew bright, and out of the sodden earth came the grasses; in a moment the branches put on fresh leaves, and the standing forest was green over all the world. Then the wild beasts returned to their homes and the open fields, and suddenly the earth was filled with every kind of wandering creature.

Here Deucalion — for everything else was sea — landed with the partner of his bed in a small boat, and worshipped the Corycian nymphs and the mountain gods, and Themis of the oracles, who then kept faith: no man was better than he, none loved what was right more, none feared the gods as she did. When Jove saw the world was one still lake, and that from many thousands one man was left, and one woman from those thousands, both innocent, both worshippers of god, he scattered the clouds, and, the north wind driving off the rains, showed the earth to heaven and heaven to the earth. The anger of the sea was over. The ruler of the deep laid down his three-pronged spear, smoothed the waters, and called the blue Triton, rising from the deep, his shoulders covered with his native shells, and told him to sound his echoing conch and give the sign to call back flood and river. Triton took the hollow shell that spirals wide and wide from its lowest coil, and blew: the seas and all the rivers heard and heard the sign, and ran away. The sea found shores again; the swollen rivers ran within their banks; the earth appeared, the ground soft like fresh mud, holding the water in its widening cracks; and after a little while the trees came back, and put fresh green leaves over all the world.

Then Python, the serpent of the open vale, unknown to the new peoples, filled them with terror — so vast a stretch of mountain ground he held. The archer god, who had never before used his deadly arms except on fleeing does and roes, destroyed him with a thousand shafts, his quiver almost emptied, pouring black poison through his wounds. And so that the fame of the deed might not be lost with time, he founded sacred games in solemn contest, called Pythian, from the name of the serpent he had slain. There, whoever won with hand, or foot, or wheel, received the honor of the oak's green leaves. There was no laurel yet, and Phoebus girded his brows, fair in their long hair, with any bough he pleased.

His first love was Daphne, daughter of Peneus — not given by blind chance, but by the cruel anger of Cupid. The Delian god, still proud from his conquest of the serpent, had seen the boy bending his bow with a tightened cord, and said: "What business has a wanton boy with warlike arms? Arms like these befit my shoulders — shoulders sure of aim, that never miss wild beasts, never miss the enemy — I who just now destroyed the swollen Python with countless arrows, covering acres of ground. Be content to kindle whatever hidden fires your little torch holds, and leave glory to me." The son of Venus answered: "May your bow strike everything, Phoebus — but my bow shall strike you. And as much as all living things fall short of gods, by that much is my glory greater." He spoke, and flicking his wings through the parted air, a stubborn archer, he came to the shaded height of Parnassus, and took from his quiver two arrows of opposite work: one drives love away, one kindles it. The one that kindles is of gleaming gold, sharp-pointed, finely polished; the other is blunt, with lead beneath its reed. With that one he struck the daughter of Peneus; with this he pierced Apollo to the marrow of the bone. At once the one loves and longs to be united; the other flees the very name of lover, rejoicing in the depths of shaded woods, in the spoils of wild beasts — a second Diana, a fillet binding her barely-lying hair. Many wished her; she wished no suitor, unmoved, knowing no man, wandering the pathless thickets, caring nothing for Hymen or what love means. Often her father would say: "You owe me a son-in-law, my child." Often her father: "You owe me grandchildren, my daughter." She, hating the wedding torch like a crime, would hang her fair head on her father's neck, and beg him with one word: "Let me be a maiden forever — Diana's father, grant me this." Yet her beauty forbade what she desired: her body glowed with a loveliness that could not hide.

She was seen, and loved, and seized upon by him who loved; and he follows her flight with hope — and his hope flies faster than his words. The lover is lover and pursuer. As when a Gallic hound has seen a hare on the open plain and runs with flying feet toward his promised prey, while the hare flees — he is close upon her, he thinks he has her, his muzzle is almost in her flanks — while she wonders whether she is caught, and twists away from his snapping jaws, and is behind him still; because the others stand around her, cheering, barking out their hopes, and she flees through the very middle of the teeth. So the god and the girl: his speed is hope, hers is fear. But he who follows, carried on the wings of love, gives her no rest — presses her flight, ever closer, his breath hot on her scattered hair. Her strength is gone; pale, drained by the effort of the wild flight, she sees the waters of her father Peneus, and cries: "Help me, father! If your waters hold divinity, destroy this beauty by which I have pleased too well." Her prayer was hardly finished when a heavy numbness seized her limbs: her soft breasts were girded with thin bark, her hair grew into leaves, her arms into branches; her feet, so swift a moment ago, held fast in sluggish roots; her face became the tree's top. Only her shining grace remained. And Phoebus loved her still. He laid his hand upon the trunk and felt her bosom trembling still in the bark, beneath the new wood; he embraced the branches as if they were limbs, and kissed the wood — and the wood shrank from his kisses. And the god said: "But since you cannot be my bride, you shall at least be my tree. My hair, my lyre, my quiver will always hold you, laurel. You will attend the Roman leaders, when the joyful voice sings triumph, and the Capitol watches the long processions. You will stand the surest guardian at Augustus' gates, before his doors, keeping watch over the oak between. And as my head is ever-young with unshorn hair, so wear, forever, the fresh honor of your leaves." Paean had finished: the laurel nodded her new-made branches, and seemed to shake her treetop like a head.

There is a grove in Thessaly, ringed on every side by a wall of hanging cliff: they call it Tempe. Through it the river Peneus, pouring down from the foot of Pindus, rolls in foaming waves, and with its heavy fall sweeps up thin wisps of cloud, gathers them onto the tops of the woods, sprinkles them with spray, and wearies with its roar the country round about. This is the house, the home, the inner shrine of the great river; and seated in a cavern carved from the rock, he gave laws to the waters and the nymphs that lived among them. First came the neighboring rivers — not knowing whether to congratulate or console their parent — the poplar-bearing Sperchios, the restless Enipeus, the old Apidanus, the gentle Amphrysos, and Aeas; and soon the other rivers, which, wherever their current carried them, lead their weary waters wandering down to the sea. Inachus alone is absent, hidden in a deep cave, swelling its waters with his tears, weeping, most wretched, for his daughter Io — unable to know whether she lived, or whether she was among the shades; and not finding her anywhere, believing her nowhere — fearing worse than the worst.

For Jupiter had seen her returning from her father's stream, and said: "Maiden, worthy of Jove himself, and not of any mortal husband — come to the shady woods, where the great heat of noon is softened, and while the sun is at his fiercest, hide in the deepest shade of the woods." She had fled — leaving behind the pastures of Lerna and the fields of Lycae, rich in flocks — driven before him like a wild beast; and he drew around her the wide boundaries of a far-stretched mist, stopped her flight, and forced her. Meanwhile Juno looked down into the heart of the clear heavens, and marveled that the drifting mists had made such darkness where the air shone bright. She knew it was no marsh breathing up the clouds, nor the earth itself; she looked around — she knew so well the adulteries of a husband so often caught. She swept down from heaven and stood upon the earth, and bade the clouds depart. Jupiter had foreseen her coming, and changed the face of his rival into a sleek white heifer. Even as a heifer she was beautiful. The daughter of Saturn looked at her, unwillingly, and said: "Whose is this lovely creature?" — as though she did not know — and asked from what herd, from where. Jove, so it would not seem a lie, answered that she was born of the earth. Then Saturn's daughter begged her as a gift. What could her rival do? Cruel to give his own love away, suspicious to refuse; shame persuaded him, and the brother and husband of the same woman handed over the heifer. The daughter of Saturn did not stop caring at once — fearing Jove, and dreading some sweet trick — and gave her to Argus, son of Aristor, to be kept away. His head was ringed with a hundred shining eyes, and two at a time took their turns at sleep while the rest kept watch on every side and stayed at their posts however far away. Some of them stood open, wherever he might look.

He watched Io: and now, though he had her taken away from Jupiter, he would still often lead her to new pastures, drive her away, and change her place. The king of the gods could no longer bear his pain. He called his son, whom the bright Pleiades, daughter of Atlas, bore, and bade him do away with Argus. Mercury took his sleep-bringing wand and his winged sandals, shook them from his heels, brushed his hair, set his cap upon it, and leapt from his father's citadel to the earth. There he took off his cap and wings; only the wand he kept. With it, as a shepherd drives his goats along the winding pathless way, he played on pipes he had joined together, playing songs. Argus, charmed by the new sound and by the pipes themselves, said: "Whoever you are, sit beside me on this stone. No grass is wanting to your flock, and there is shade enough here for the shepherd." The son of Atlas sat down, and while the day went by he wore away the waiting hours with talk, and took up his joined reed-pipes, and tried to close the watching eyes with his soft piping. Argus fought with sleep, and, though sleep took some of his eyes, asked again and again who had first made the pipes — for he had not yet heard of them. And the god said: "In the cold mountains of Arcadia, among the nymphs of Nonacris, there was a famous maiden: Syrene was her name among the people. She refused every suitor, and would not listen to any man, god or mortal, but wandered the pathless woods, a maiden devoted to her virgin goddess. They say the god, girt with his wealth of gold, the god of the bent bow, saw her, and said many things, and tried to soften her with hope, with promises, with lies. All this she despised; and she came to no man's arms, until her goddess Diana, girt in her own robes, came down over the ridges of Laconia, from Erymanthus, and saw her, and called her — a friend of her choruses. The maiden thought her robes would be lighter than her own, and compared her goddess with herself, and said: 'Come with me to the mountain tops, my companions, where the hunted deer turns from the hounds, to these shady glades.' Diana consented. They came to a great grove; and there was a spring, with silver ripples in its narrow bed, and grass around its edges. Diana, praised by all, went down to the water; and when she had stripped her robes, she called her companions, and they stood naked, their bodies bare. Only in Syrene's body was shame missing. She tried to hide herself by flight, and fled to the pool of the standing water; and as she fled, she saw the horns of the rising goddess on her own head, and her wide eyes, and her gaping mouth, and her long hanging neck, and her ears rough with hard new horns. Her own hands, as they fled, began to turn into forelegs, and she felt her legs join close in one mass, and the swift wind of her flight was only a breath. Her other beauty sank below her horns. And as she looked at herself, she tried to beat her arms — but her arms had no sound, they only tried to sound. As often as she tried to speak, her fear cut off her words, and only lowing came out of her trembling lips, a sound unknown to her. She looked at her own horns as at a horror, and turned away her ears pinned back by her own hard horns. She could not run away — the whole of her was now a body; and yet her mind remained, and she was often stretched upon the cold ground in her own shade, and let her eyes fall into the water, and looked at her own horns; and, turning from them, dreaded her own face. The satyrs, whom the country held, did not know who she was, and often drove her away with shouts; the hideous Faunus did not know her, and hunted her. But you, Inachus, did not know your daughter, and she followed you, rejoicing to be followed, and stretched out her neck for you to take the flowers and leaves from your own hands. When you gave them, she licked your palms, and kissed your hands, and could not hold back her tears; and if only words had followed, she would have asked her name, and begged for help: but she breathed out, in place of words, her moan, and stamped the ground with her hoof, and turned away.

Then Argus dragged her away — the great watcher — and led her far from her own father to other pastures; and, far away, sat down upon the ridge, and turned his watchful eyes on every side. Jove could not bear the sorrows of Io longer. He called his son, whom the shining Pleiades, daughter of Atlas, bore, and showed him the watcher with his sleepless eyes, and bade him do away with him. Mercury took his sleep-bringing wand and his winged sandals, shook them from his heels, brushed his hair, set his cap upon it, and leapt down from his father's citadel to earth. There he took off his cap and his wings; only the wand he kept. With it, as a shepherd drives his goats along the winding pathless way, he played on pipes he had joined together. Argus, charmed by the new sound and by the pipes themselves, said: "Whoever you are, sit by me on this stone; there is no better grass for your flock, and shade enough here for the shepherd." The son of Atlas sat, and wore away the day with talk, and piped, trying to close the watching eyes. Argus fought sleep, and though sleep took some of his eyes, still asked who had first made those pipes. And the god told him the story of the pipe, newly invented. As he told it, he watched, and saw Argus's eyes giving way, all of them, to sleep: he stopped, raised his voice, fixed the wand on the nodding head, and struck it as it fell. The hundred eyes, all overcome by the night, were darkened, and he struck the neck again, and laid it open, and rolled the body down the rocks, and stained the jagged cliff with blood. You fell, Argus: all the light of your many eyes was darkened, and you slept the one eternal sleep. But Saturn's daughter took the eyes, and set them in the feathers of her own bird, and filled his tail with stars of fire. At once her anger blazed: she threw a terrible fury before the eyes and heart of the heifer — the Erinys, made from the stakes of her own torch. Driven by fear and by the goad, Io wandered through the whole world — you, Nile, were the last end of her wandering. And when she had come there, and put her head, wearied out, upon the bank, lying on her knees, and turned her neck back to the stars, she groaned, and sent up her moans to heaven, and sounds of complaint; and, as far as her wretchedness could, she pleaded for help with her own kind of moaning. Jupiter put his arms around his rival's neck, and said: "Put away these fears forever; she shall be no heifer." He told Juno of Itone, and swore by the hateful streams of Styx — the greatest bond of the gods — and hardly had he finished, when the rough hair fell from the heifer's body, and her horns were drawn in, and her great eyes grew small again, her gaping mouth grew small, her arms and hands came back, and her hooves changed to nails; and every shape of the heifer passed away, except the beautiful whiteness of her body. And the daughter of Inachus, content to walk on her own two feet, and fearing to speak like a woman again, would, if anyone said "Io," forget her fear, and answer him. She became a goddess, worshipped by the crowds in linen robes.

The god could not bear the sorrows of Io longer, and called his son, whom the shining Pleiades, daughter of Atlas, bore, and bade him do away with Argus. He took his sleep-bringing wand and his winged sandals, shook them from his heels, brushed his hair, set his cap upon it, and leapt down from his father's citadel to earth. There he took off his cap and his wings; only the wand he kept. With it, as a shepherd drives his goats along the winding pathless way, he played on pipes he had joined together. Argus, charmed by the new sound and by the pipes themselves, said: "Whoever you are, sit by me on this stone; there is no better grass for your flock, and shade enough here for the shepherd." The son of Atlas sat, and wore away the day with talk, and piped, trying to close the watching eyes. Argus fought sleep, and though sleep took some of his eyes, still asked who had first made those pipes. And the god told him the story of the pipe, newly invented. As he told it, he watched, and saw Argus's eyes giving way, all of them, to sleep: he stopped, raised his voice, fixed the wand on the nodding head, and struck it as it fell. The hundred eyes, all overcome by the night, were darkened, and he struck the neck again, and laid it open, and rolled the body down the rocks, and stained the jagged cliff with blood. You fell, Argus: all the light of your many eyes was darkened, and you slept the one eternal sleep. But Saturn's daughter took the eyes, and set them in the feathers of her own bird, and filled his tail with stars of fire. At once her anger blazed: she threw a terrible fury before the eyes and heart of the heifer — the Erinys, made from the stakes of her own torch. Driven by fear and by the goad, Io wandered through the whole world — you, Nile, were the last end of her wandering. And when she had come there, and put her head, wearied out, upon the bank, lying on her knees, and turned her neck back to the stars, she groaned, and sent up her moans to heaven, and sounds of complaint; and, as far as her wretchedness could, she pleaded for help with her own kind of moaning. Jupiter put his arms around his rival's neck, and said: "Put away these fears forever; she shall be no heifer." He told Juno of Itone, and swore by the hateful streams of Styx — the greatest bond of the gods — and hardly had he finished, when the rough hair fell from the heifer's body, and her horns were drawn in, and her great eyes grew small again, her gaping mouth grew small, her arms and hands came back, and her hooves changed to nails; and every shape of the heifer passed away, except the beautiful whiteness of her body. And the daughter of Inachus, content to walk on her own two feet, and fearing to speak like a woman again, would, if anyone said "Io," forget her fear, and answer him. She became a goddess, worshipped by the crowds in linen robes. Her son, Epaphus, born at last of Jupiter's great seed, was believed to be his son, and held temples joined to his mother's name through all the cities. He had a friend, equal to him in years and spirit: Phaethon, child of the Sun. Once, when Io's son was boasting of his father, and would not yield to Phoebus in his pride, Phaethon could not endure it, and said, mad with pride: "Does your mother believe everything you tell her — you, swelling with the false image of your father?" Io's son blushed, and hid the anger of his shame under fear, and carried the taunts of Epaphus to his mother Clymene. "The more it grieves you, mother," he said, "that I was silent — I, your child, I, the proud one! — it is a shame to me that such a reproach could be spoken, and could not be answered. But if I am born of you — if I am truly of your blood — then give me some proof of my great birth, and give the right of that name to me who ask it." And he threw his arms around his mother's neck, and begged her, by his own life and hers, and by the marriage bed of the Sun, to prove his birth to him. And Clymene, whether she was moved by Phaethon's prayers, or by anger, or both, called on the Sun by his great name to be her witness: "By that light," she said, "that hears and sees us both, that light you see, and that which rules the world — my son, the god of the bright fire is your father. If I lie, let him refuse to look on me again, and let this be the last light of my eyes. It is no labor to see your father's halls yourself: the house where he rises stands beside our lands." And she embraced her weeping son, and kissed him, and bade him cross the lands of the Ethiopians, where the sun's horses are nearest to their rising.