Io & Jove

When Mercury was just about to tell

these things, he saw that Argus’ hundred eyes

had given in to sleep; they all were closed.

At once he checks his talk; and to abet

the power of sleep, with his enchanted wand

he touches lightly Argus’ drowsing eyes;

and then, unhesitatingly, he strikes

 

Latin [695–717]

 

the watchman with a sword curved like a scythe;

he strikes the nodding head just where the neck

and body join; he knocks it off the rock

and sends it tumbling, bleeding, down the steep

descent, and stains the cliffside with that blood.

 

O Argus, you lie low; the light that glowed

in many pupils now is spent; one night

alone now holds in sway your hundred eyes.

 

And Juno took the hundred eyes of Argus

and set them on her sacred bird: she filled

the feathers of the peacock’s tail with jewels

that glittered like the stars. And then the goddess

unleashed her rage; she struck her Grecian rival

at once: she sent a Fury to harass

poor Io’s eyes and mind; she pierced her breast

with an invisible, relentless goad;

she drove the frightened girl across the world—

a fugitive.

 

           And nothing else was left

for way-worn Io on her endless path

but to seek refuge on your banks, o Nile.

And there she knelt and, drawing back her head,

lifted her eyes—she had no other way

to plead or pray—up to the stars, with moans

and tears and wretched lowings, as if she,

beseeching Jove, asked him to end her grief.

At that, Jove threw his arms round Juno’s neck;

he begged his wife to end this punishment.

“You need not fear the future,” so he pledged;

“she’ll never cause you harm or grief again—”

and as his witness for the oath he’d sworn,

it was the Stygian marsh he called upon.

Now Io, with the goddess’ rage appeased,

regains the form she had before: she sheds

the rough hairs on her body, and her horns

 

Latin [717–40]

 

recede; her round eyes shrink, her mouth retracts,

her arms and hands appear again; and each

of lo’s hoofs is changed into five nails.

There’s no trace of the heifer that is left,

except the lovely whiteness of her flesh.

Content that just two feet now meet her needs,

the nymph stands up but hesitates to speak

for fear that, like a heifer, she will low;

then, timidly, she once again employs

the power of speech she had—for so long—lost.

And now she is a celebrated goddess,

revered by crowds clothed in white linen: Isis.