Selections from Ovid’s Metamorphoses

BOOK I

¹My intention is to tell of bodies changed

To different forms; the gods, who made the changes,

Will help me—or I hope so—with a poem

That runs from the world's beginning to our own days.

Reading for the Flood Story:  Creation

⁵Before the ocean was, or earth, or heaven,

Nature was all alike, a shapelessness,

Chaos, so-called, all rude and lumpy matter,

Nothing but bulk, inert, in whose confusion

Discordant atoms warred: there was no sun

¹⁰To light the universe; there was no moon

With slender silver crescents filling slowly;

No earth hung balanced in surrounding air;

No sea reached far along the fringe of shore.

Land, to be sure, there was, and air, and ocean,

¹⁵But land on which no man could stand, and water                

No man could swim in, air no man could breathe,

Air without light, substance forever changing,

Forever at war: within a single body

Heat fought with cold, wet fought with dry, the hard

²⁰Fought with the soft, things having weight contended

With weightless things.

Till God, or kindlier Nature,

Settled all argument, and separated

Heaven from earth, water from land, our air

²⁵From the high stratosphere, a liberation

So things evolved, and out of blind confusion

Found each its place, bound in eternal order.

The force of fire, that weightless element,

Leaped up and claimed the highest place in heaven;

³⁰Below it, air; and under them the earth

Sank with its grosser portions; and the water,

Lowest of all, held up, held in, the land.

Whatever god it was, who out of chaos                        

Brought order to the universe, and gave it

³⁵Division, subdivision, he molded earth,

In the beginning, into a great globe,

Even on every side, and bade the waters

To spread and rise, under the rushing winds,

Surrounding earth; he added ponds and marshes,

⁴⁰He banked the river-channels, and the waters

Feed earth or run to sea, and that great flood

Washes on shores, not banks. He made the plains       

Spread wide, the valleys settle, and the forest

Be dressed in leaves; he made the rocky mountains     

⁴⁵Rise to full height, and as the vault of Heaven

Has two zones, left and right, and one between them

Hotter than these, the Lord of all Creation

Marked on the earth the same design and pattern.

The torrid zone too hot for men to live in,

⁵⁰The north and south too cold, but in the middle

Varying climate, temperature and season.

Above all things the air, lighter than earth,

Lighter than water, heavier than fire,

Towers and spreads; there mist and cloud assemble,

⁵⁵And fearful thunder and lightning and cold winds,

But these, by the Creator's order, held

No general dominion; even as it is,

These brothers brawl and quarrel; though each one

Has his own quarter, still, they come near tearing

⁶⁰The universe apart. Eurus is monarch

Of the ₁lands of dawn, the realms of Arabia,     ₁ the east

The Persian ridges under the rays of morning.

Zephyrus holds the west that glows at sunset,

Boreas, who makes men shiver, holds the north,

⁶⁵Warm Auster governs in the misty southland,

And over them all presides the weightless ether,

Pure without taint of earth.

These boundaries given,

Behold, the stars, long hidden under darkness,

⁷⁰Broke through and shone, all over the spangled heaven,         

Their home forever, and the gods lived there,

And shining fish were given the waves for dwelling

And beasts the earth, and birds the moving air.

But something else was needed, a finer being,

⁷⁵More capable of mind, a sage, a ruler,

So Man was born, it may be, in God's image,

Or Earth, perhaps, so newly separated

From the old fire of Heaven, still retained

Some seed of the celestial force which fashioned

⁸⁰Gods out of living clay and running water.

All other animals look downward; Man,

Alone, erect, can raise his face toward Heaven.

Flood, continued:  The Four Ages

The Golden Age was first, a time that cherished

Of its own will, justice and right; no law.

⁸⁵No punishment, was called for; fearfulness

Was quite unknown, and the bronze tablets held

No legal threatening; no suppliant throng

Studied a judge's face; there were no judges,                             

There did not need to be. Trees had not yet

⁹⁰Been cut and hollowed, to visit other shores.

Men were content at home, and had no towns

With moats and walls around them; and no trumpets

Blared out alarums; things like swords and helmets

Had not been heard of. No one needed soldiers.

⁹⁵People were unaggressive, and unanxious;

The years went by in peace. And Earth, untroubled,

Unharried by hoe or plowshare, brought forth all

That men had need for, and those men were happy,

Gathering berries from the mountain sides,

¹⁰⁰Cherries, or blackcaps, and the edible acorns.

Spring was forever, with a west wind blowing

Softly across the flowers no man had planted,                           

And Earth, unplowed, brought forth rich grain; the field,

Unfallowed, whitened with wheat, and there were rivers

¹⁰⁵Of milk, and rivers of honey, and golden nectar

Dripped from the dark-green oak-trees.

                           After Saturn

Was driven to the shadowy land of death,

And the world was under Jove, the Age of Silver

¹¹⁰Came in, lower than gold, better than bronze.

Jove made the springtime shorter, added winter,

Summer, and autumn, the seasons as we know them.

That was the first time when the burnt air glowed

White-hot, or icicles hung down in winter.

¹¹⁵And men built houses for themselves; the caverns,

The woodland thickets, and the bark-bound shelters   

No longer served; and the seeds of grain were planted                       

In the long furrows, and the oxen struggled

Groaning and laboring under the heavy yoke.

¹²⁰Then came the Age of Bronze, and dispositions

Took on aggressive instincts, quick to arm,

Yet not entirely evil. And last of all

The Iron Age succeeded, whose base vein

Let loose all evil: modesty and truth

¹²⁵And righteousness fled earth, and in their place

Came trickery and slyness, plotting, swindling,

Violence and the damned desire of having.

Men spread their sails to winds unknown to sailors,

The pines came down their mountain-sides, to revel

¹³⁰And leap in the deep waters, and the ground,

Free, once, to everyone, like air and sunshine,

Was stepped off by surveyors. The rich earth,

Good giver of all the bounty of the harvest,

Was asked for more; they dug into her vitals,

¹³⁵Pried out the wealth a kinder lord had hidden

In Stygian shadow, all that precious metal,

The root of evil. They found the guilt of iron,

And gold, more guilty still. And War came forth

That uses both to fight with; bloody hands

¹⁴⁰Brandished the clashing weapons. Men lived on plunder.

Guest was not safe from host, nor brother from brother,

A man would kill his wife, a wife her husband,

Stepmothers, dire and dreadful, stirred their brews

With poisonous aconite, and sons would hustle

¹⁴⁵Fathers to death, and Piety lay vanquished,

And the maiden Justice, last of all immortals,

Fled from the bloody earth.

Heaven was no safer.

Giants attacked the very throne of Heaven,

¹⁵⁰Piled Pelion on Ossa, mountain on mountain

Up to the very stars. Jove struck them down

With thunderbolts, and the bulk of those huge bodies

Lay on the earth, and bled, and Mother Earth,

Made pregnant by that blood, brought forth new bodies,

¹⁵⁵And gave them, to recall her older offspring,

The forms of men. And this new stock was also

Contemptuous of gods, and murder-hungry

¹⁵⁸And violent. You would know they were sons of blood.

Intro to The Flood

He was about to hurl his thunderbolts

¹⁶⁰At the whole world, but halted, fearing Heaven

Would burn from fire so vast, and pole to pole

Break out in flame and smoke, and he remembered

The fates had said that some day land and ocean,

The vault of Heaven, the whole world's mighty fortress,

¹⁶⁵Besieged by fire, would perish. He put aside

The bolts made in Cyclopean workshops; better,

He thought, to drown the world by flooding water.                         

The Flood

So, in the cave of Aeolus, he prisoned

The North-wind, and the West-wind, and such others

¹⁷⁰As ever banish cloud, and he turned loose

The South-wind, and the South-wind came out streaming

With dripping wings, and pitch-black darkness veiling

His terrible countenance. His beard is heavy

With rain-cloud, and his hoary locks a torrent,

¹⁷⁵Mists are his chaplet, and his wings and garments

Run with the rain. His broad hands squeeze together

Low-hanging clouds, and crash and rumble follow

Before the cloudburst, and the rainbow, Iris,

Draws water from the teeming earth, and feeds it

¹⁸⁰Into the clouds again. The crops are ruined,

The farmers' prayers all wasted, all the labor

Of a long year, comes to nothing.

And Jove's anger,

Unbounded by his own domain, was given

¹⁸⁵Help by his dark-blue brother. Neptune called

His rivers all, and told them, very briefly,

To loose their violence, open their houses,

Pour over embankments, let the river horses

Run wild as ever they would. And they obeyed him.

¹⁹⁰His trident struck the shuddering earth; it opened

Way for the rush of waters. The leaping rivers

Flood over the great plains. Not only orchards

Are swept away, not only grain and cattle,

Not only men and houses, but altars, temples,

¹⁹⁵And shrines with holy fires. If any building

Stands firm, the waves keep rising over its roof-top,

Its towers are under water, and land and ocean

Are all alike, and everything is ocean,

An ocean with no shore-line.

²⁰⁰                         Some poor fellow

Seizes a hill-top; another, in a dinghy,

Rows where he used to plough, and one goes sailing

Over his fields of grain or over the chimney

Of what was once his cottage. Someone catches

²⁰⁵Fish in the top of an elm-tree, or an anchor

Drags in green meadow-land, or the curved keel brushes

Grape-arbors under water. Ugly sea-cows

Float where the slender she-goats used to nibble

The tender grass, and the Nereids come swimming

²¹⁰With curious wonder, looking, under water,

At houses, cities, parks, and groves. The dolphins

Invade the woods and brush against the oak-trees;

The wolf swims with the lamb; lion and tiger

Are borne along together; the wild boar

²¹⁵Finds all his strength is useless, and the deer

Cannot outspeed that torrent; wandering birds

Look long, in vain, for landing-place, and tumble,

Exhausted, into the sea. The deep's great license

Has buried all the hills, and new waves thunder

²²⁰Against the mountain-tops. The flood has taken

All things, or nearly all, and those whom water,

By chance, has spared, starvation slowly conquers.

Deucalion and Pyrrha

Phocis, a fertile land, while there was land,

Marked off Oetean from Boeotian fields.

²²⁵It was ocean now, a plain of sudden waters.

There Mount Parnassus lifts its twin peaks skyward,

High, steep, cloud-piercing. And Deucalion came there

Rowing his wife. There was no other land,

The sea had drowned it all. And here they worshipped

²³⁰First the Corycian nymphs and native powers,

Then Themis, oracle and f ate-revealer.

There was no better man than this Deucalion,

No one more fond of right; there was no woman

More scrupulously reverent than Pyrrha.

²³⁵So, when Jove saw the world was one great ocean,

Only one woman left of all those thousands,

And only one man left of all those thousands,

Both innocent and worshipful, he parted

The clouds, turned loose the North-wind, swept them off,

²⁴⁰Showed earth to heaven again, and sky to land,

And the sea's anger dwindled, and King Neptune

Put down his trident, calmed the waves, and Triton,

Summoned from far down under, with his shoulders

Barnacle-strewn, loomed up above the waters,

²⁴⁵The blue-green sea-god, whose resounding horn

Is heard from shore to shore. Wet-bearded, Triton

Set lip to that great shell, as Neptune ordered,

Sounding retreat, and all the lands and waters

Heard and obeyed. The sea has shores; the rivers,

²⁵⁰Still running high, have channels; the floods dwindle,

Hill-tops are seen again; the trees, long buried,

Rise with their leaves still muddy. The world returns.

Deucalion saw that world, all desolation,

All emptiness, all silence, and his tears

²⁵⁵Rose as he spoke to Pyrrha: "O my wife,

The only woman, now, on all this earth,

My consort and my cousin and my partner

In these immediate dangers, look! Of all the lands

To East or West, we two, we two alone,

²⁶⁰Are all the population. Ocean holds

Everything else; our foothold, our assurance,

Are small as they can be, the clouds still frightful.

Poor woman—well, we are not all alone—

Suppose you had been, how would you bear your fear?

²⁶⁵Who would console your grief? My wife, believe me,

Had the sea taken you, I would have followed.

If only I had the power, I would restore

The nations as my father did, bring clay

To life with breathing. As it is, we two

²⁷⁰Are all the human race, so Heaven has willed it,

Samples of men, mere specimens."

They wept,

And prayed together, and having wept and prayed,

Resolved to make petition to the goddess

²⁷⁵To seek her aid through oracles. Together

They went to the river-water, the stream Cephisus,

Still far from clear, but flowing down its channel,

And they took river-water, sprinkled foreheads,

Sprinkled their garments, and they turned their steps

²⁸⁰To the temple of the goddess, where the altars

Stood with the fires gone dead, and ugly moss

Stained pediment and column. At the stairs

They both fell prone, kissed the chill stone in prayer:

"If the gods' anger ever listens

²⁸⁵To righteous prayers, O Themis, we implore you,

Tell us by what device our wreck and ruin

May be repaired. Bring aid, most gentle goddess,

To sunken circumstance."

And Themis heard them,

²⁹⁰And gave this oracle: "Go from the temple,

Cover your heads, loosen your robes, and throw

Your mother's bones behind you!" Dumb, they stood

In blank amazement, a long silence, broken

By Pyrrha, finally: she would not do it!

²⁹⁵With trembling lips she prays whatever pardon

Her disobedience might merit, but this outrage

She dare not risk, insult her mother's spirit

By throwing her bones around. In utter darkness

They voice the cryptic saying over and over,

³⁰⁰What can it mean? They wonder. At last Deucalion

Finds the way out: "I might be wrong, but surely

The holy oracles would never counsel

A guilty act. The earth is our great mother,

And I suppose those bones the goddess mentions

³⁰⁵Are the stones of earth; the order means to throw them,

The stones, behind us."

She was still uncertain,

And he by no means sure, and both distrustful

Of that command from Heaven; but what damage,

⁴⁰⁰What harm, would there be in trying? They descended,

Covered their heads, loosened their garments, threw

The stones behind them as the goddess ordered.

The stones—who would believe it, had we not

The unimpeachable witness of Tradition?—

⁴⁰⁵Began to lose their hardness, to soften, slowly,

To take on form, to grow in size, a little,

Become less rough, to look like human beings,

Or anyway as much like human beings

As statues do, when the sculptor is only starting,

⁴¹⁰Images half blocked out. The earthy portion,

Damp with some moisture, turned to flesh, the solid

Was bone, the veins were as they always had been.

The stones the man had thrown turned into men,

The stones the woman threw turned into women,

⁴¹⁵Such being the will of God. Hence we derive

The hardness that we have, and our endurance

Gives proof of what we have come from.

Other forms

Of life came into being, generated

⁴²⁰Out of the earth: the sun burnt off the dampness,

Heat made the slimy marshes swell; as seed

Swells in a mother's womb to shape and substance,

So new forms came to life. When the Nile river

Floods and recedes and the mud is warmed by sunshine,

⁴²⁵Men, turning over the earth, find living things,

And some not living, but nearly so, imperfect,

On the verge of life, and often the same substance

Is part alive, part only clay. When moisture

Unites with heat, life is conceived; all things

⁴³⁰Come from this union. Fire may fight with water,

But heat and moisture generate all things,

Their discord being productive. So when earth,

After that flood, still muddy, took the heat,

Felt the warm fire of sunlight, she conceived,

⁴³⁵Brought forth, after their fashion, all the creatures,

Some old, some strange and monstrous.

One, for instance,

She bore unwanted, a gigantic serpent,

Python by name, whom the new people dreaded.

A huge bulk on the mountain-side. Apollo,

⁴⁴⁰God of the glittering bow, took a long time

To bring him down, with arrow after arrow

He had never used before except in hunting

Deer and the skipping goats. Out of the quiver

Sped arrows by the thousand, till the monster,

⁴⁴⁵Dying, poured poisonous blood on those black wounds.

In memory of this, the sacred games,

Called Pythian, were established, and Apollo

Ordained for all young winners in the races,

On foot or chariot, for victorious fighters,

⁴⁵⁰The crown of oak. That was before the laurel,

That was before Apollo wreathed his forehead

With garlands from that tree, or any other.

The Story of Apollo and Daphne

Now the first girl Apollo loved was Daphne,      
Whose father was the river-god Peneus,                                                     '
⁴⁵⁵And this was no blind chance, but Cupid's malice.
Apollo, with pride and glory still upon him
Over the Python slain, saw Cupid bending

His tight-strung little bow. "O silly youngster,"

He said, "What are you doing with such weapons?

⁴⁶⁰Those are for grown-ups! The bow is for my shoulders;

I never fail in wounding beast or mortal,

And not so long ago I slew the Python

With countless darts; his bloated body covered

Acre on endless acre, and I slew him!

⁴⁶⁵The torch, my boy, is enough for you to play with,

To get the love-fires burning. Do not meddle

With honors that are mine!" And Cupid answered:

"Your bow shoots everything, Apollo—maybe—

But mine will fix you! You are far above

⁴⁷⁰All creatures living, and by just that distance

Your glory less than mine." He shook his wings,

Soared high, came down to the shadows of Parnassus,

Drew from his quiver different kinds of arrows,

One causing love, golden and sharp and gleaming,

⁴⁷⁵The other blunt, and tipped with lead, and serving

To drive all love away, and this blunt arrow

He used on Daphne, but he fired the other,

The sharp and golden shaft, piercing Apollo

Through bones, through marrow, and at once he loved

⁴⁸⁰And she at once fled from the name of lover,

Rejoicing in the woodland hiding places

And spoils of beasts which she had taken captive,

A rival of Diana, virgin goddess.

She had many suitors, but she scorned them all;

⁴⁸⁵Wanting no part of any man, she travelled

The pathless groves, and had no care whatever

For husband, love, or marriage. Her father often

Said, "Daughter, give me a son-in-law!" and "Daughter,

Give me some grandsons!" But the marriage torches

⁴⁹⁰Were something hateful, criminal, to Daphne,

So she would blush, and put her arms around him,

And coax him: "Let me be a virgin always;

Diana's father said she might. Dear father!

Dear father—please!" He yielded, but her beauty

⁴⁹⁵Kept arguing against her prayer. Apollo

Loves at first sight; he wants to marry Daphne,

He hopes for what he wants—all wishful thinking!—

Is fooled by his own oracles. As stubble

Burns when the grain is harvested, as hedges

⁵⁰⁰Catch fire from torches that a passer-by

Has brought too near, or left behind in the morning,

So the god burned, with all his heart, and burning

Nourished that futile love of his by hoping.

He sees the long hair hanging down her neck

⁵⁰⁵Uncared for, says, "But what if it were combed?"

He gazes at her eyes—they shine like stars!

He gazes at her lips, and knows that gazing

Is not enough. He marvels at her fingers,

Her hands, her wrists, her arms, bare to the shoulder,

⁵¹⁰And what he does not see he thinks is better.

But still she flees him, swifter than the wind,

And when he calls she does not even listen:

"Don't run away, dear nymph! Daughter of Peneus,

Don't run away! I am no enemy,

⁵¹⁵Only your follower: don't run away!

The lamb flees from the wolf, the deer the lion,

The dove, on trembling wing, flees from the eagle.

All creatures flee their foes. But I, who follow,

Am not a foe at all. Love makes me follow,

⁵²⁰Unhappy fellow that I am, and fearful

You may fall down, perhaps, or have the briars

Make scratches on those lovely legs, unworthy

To be hurt so, and I would be the reason.

The ground is rough here. Run a little slower,

⁵²⁵And I will run, I promise, a little slower.

Or wait a minute: be a little curious

Just who it is you charm. I am no shepherd,

No mountain-dweller, I am not a ploughboy,

Uncouth and stinking of cattle. You foolish girl,

⁵³⁰You don't know who it is you run away from,

That must be why you run. I am lord of Delphi

And Tenedos and Claros and Patara.

Jove is my father. I am the revealer

Of present, past and future; through my power

⁵³⁵The lyre and song make harmony; my arrow

Is sure in aim—there is only one arrow surer,

The one that wounds my heart. The power of healing

Is my discovery; I am called the Healer

Through all the world: all herbs are subject to me.

⁵⁴⁰Alas for me, love is incurable

With any herb; the arts which cure the others

Do me, their lord, no good!"

He would have said

Much more than this, but Daphne, frightened, left him

⁵⁴⁵With many words unsaid, and she was lovely

Even in flight, her limbs bare in the wind,

Her garments fluttering, and her soft hair streaming,

More beautiful than ever. But Apollo,

Too young a god to waste his time in coaxing,

⁵⁵⁰Came following fast. When a hound starts a rabbit

In an open field, one runs for game, one safety,

He has her, or thinks he has, and she is doubtful

Whether she's caught or not, so close the margin,

So ran the god and girl, one swift in hope,

⁵⁵⁵The other in terror, but he ran more swiftly,

Borne on the wings of love, gave her no rest,

Shadowed her shoulder, breathed on her streaming hair.

Her strength was gone, worn out by the long effort

Of the long flight; she was deathly pale, and seeing

⁵⁶⁰The river of her father, cried "O help me,

If there is any power in the rivers,

Change and destroy the body which has given

Too much delight!" And hardly had she finished,

When her limbs grew numb and heavy, her soft breasts

⁵⁶⁵Were closed with delicate bark, her hair was leaves,

Her arms were branches, and her speedy feet

Rooted and held, and her head became a tree top,

Everything gone except her grace, her shining.

Apollo loved her still. He placed his hand

⁵⁷⁰Where he had hoped and felt the heart still beating

Under the bark; and he embraced the branches

As if they still were limbs, and kissed the wood,

And the wood shrank from his kisses, and the god

Exclaimed: "Since you can never be my bride,

⁵⁷⁵My tree at least you shall be! Let the laurel

Adorn, henceforth, my hair, my lyre, my quiver:

Let Roman victors, in the long procession,

Wear laurel wreaths for triumph and ovation.

Beside Augustus' portals let the laurel

⁵⁸⁰Guard and watch over the oak, and as my head

Is always youthful, let the laurel always

Be green and shining!" He said no more. The laurel,

Stirring, seemed to consent, to be saying Yes.

Introduction to the Jove and Io Story

There is a grove in Thessaly, surrounded

⁵⁸⁵By woodlands -with steep slopes; men call it Tempe.

Through this the Peneus River's foamy waters

Rise below Pindus mountain. The cascades

Drive a fine smoky mist along the tree tops,

Frail clouds, or so it seems, and the roar of the water

⁵⁹⁰Carries beyond the neighborhood. Here dwells

The mighty god himself, his holy of holies

Is under a hanging rock; it is here he gives

Laws to the nymphs, laws to the very water.

And here came first the streams of his own country

⁵⁹⁵Not knowing what to offer, consolation

Or something like rejoicing: crowned with poplars

Sperchios came, and restless Enipeus,

Old Apidanus, Aeas, and Amphrysos

The easy-going. And all the other rivers

⁶⁰⁰That take their weary waters into oceans

All over the world, came there, and only one

Was absent, Inachus, hiding in his cavern,

Salting his stream with tears, oh, most unhappy,

Mourning a daughter lost. Her name was lo,

⁶⁰⁵Who might, for all he knew, be dead or living,

But since he can not find her anywhere

He thinks she must be nowhere, and his sorrow

Fears for the worst.

The Jove and lo Story

Jove had seen Io coming

⁶¹⁰From the river of her father, and had spoken:

"O maiden, worthy of the love of Jove,

And sure to make some lover happy,

Come to the shade of these deep woods" (he showed them)

"Come to the shade, the sun is hot and burning,

⁶¹⁵No beasts will hurt you there, I will go with you,

If a god is at your side, you will walk safely

In the very deepest woods. I am a god,

And no plebeian godling, either, but the holder

Of Heaven's scepter, hurler of the thunder.

⁶²⁰Oh, do not flee me!" She had fled already

Leaving Lyrcea's plains, and Lerna's meadows,

When the god hid the lands in murk and darkness

And stayed her flight, and took her.

Meanwhile Juno

⁶²⁵Looked down on Argos: what could those clouds be doing

In the bright light of day? They were not mists

Rising from rivers or damp ground. She wondered,

Took a quick look around to see her husband,

Or see where he might be—she knew his cheating!

⁶³⁰So when she did not find him in the heaven,

She said, "I am either wrong, or being wronged,"

Came gliding down from Heaven, stood on earth,

Broke up the clouds. But Jove, ahead of time,

Could tell that she was coming; he changed lo

⁶³⁵Into a heifer, white and shining, lovely

Even in altered form, and even Juno

Looked on, though hating to, with admiration,

And asked whom she belonged to, from what pasture,

As if she did not know! And Jove, the liar,

⁶⁴⁰To put a stop to questions, said she had sprung

Out of the earth, full-grown. Then Juno asked him,

"Could I have her, as a present?" What could he do?

To give his love away was surely cruel,

To keep her most suspicious. Shame on one side

⁶⁴⁵Says Give her up! and love says Don't! and shame

Might have been beaten by love's argument,

But then, if he refused his wife the heifer,

So slight a present—if he should refuse it,

Juno might think perhaps it was no heifer!

⁶⁵⁰Her rival thus disposed of, still the goddess

Did not at once abandon all suspicion.

Afraid of Jove, and worried over his cheating,

She turned her over to the keeping of Argus

Who had a hundred eyes; two at a time,

⁶⁵⁵No more than two, would ever close in slumber,

The rest kept watch. No matter how he stood,

Which way he turned, he always looked at Io,

Always had lo in sight. He let her graze

By daylight, but at sundown locked her in,

⁶⁶⁰Hobbled and haltered. She would feed on leaves

And bitter grasses, and her couch, poor creature,

Was ground, not always grassy, and the water

She drank was muddy, often. When she wanted

To reach toward Argus her imploring arms,

⁶⁶⁵She had no arms to reach with; when she tried

To plead, she only lowed, and her own voice

Filled her with terror. When she came to the river.

Her father's, where she used to play, and saw,

Reflected in the stream, her jaws and horns,

⁶⁷⁰She fled in panic. None of her sisters knew her,

And Inachus, her father, did not know her,

But following them, she let them pet and praise her.

Old Inachus pulled grass and gave it to her,

And she licked his hand and tried to give it kisses,

⁶⁷⁵Could not restrain her tears. If she could talk,

She would ask for help, and tell her name and sorrow,

But as it was, all she could do was furrow

The dust with one forefoot, and make an I,

And then an O beside it, spelling her name,

⁶⁸⁰Telling the story of her changed condition.

Her father knew her, cried, "Alas for me!"

Clung to her horns and snowy neck, poor heifer,

Crying, "Alas for me! I have sought you, daughter,

All over the world, and now that I have found you,

⁶⁸⁵I have found a greater grief. You do not answer,

And what you think is sighing comes out mooing!

And all the while I, in my ignorance, counted

On marriage for you, wanting, first, a son,

Then, later, grandsons; now your mate must be

⁶⁹⁰Selected from some herd, your son a bullock.

Not even death can end my heavy sorrow.

It hurts to be a god; the door of death,

Shut in my face, prolongs my grief forever."

And both of them were weeping, but their guardian,

⁶⁹⁵Argus the star-eyed, drove her from her father

To different pasture-land, and sat there, watching,

Perched on a mountain-top above the valley.

Jove could not bear her sorrows any longer;

He called his son, born of the shining Pleiad,

⁷⁰⁰Told him Kill Argus! And Mercury came flying

On winged sandals, wearing the magic helmet,

Bearing the sleep-producing wand, and lighted

On earth, and put aside the wings and helmet

Keeping the wand. With this he plays the shepherd

⁷⁰⁵Across the pathless countryside, a driver

Of goats, collected somewhere, and he goes

Playing a little tune on a pipe of reeds,

And this new sound is wonderful to Argus.

"Whoever you are, come here and sit beside me,"

⁷¹⁰He says, "This rock is in the shade; the grass

Is nowhere any better." And Mercury joins him,

Whiling the time away with conversation

And soothing little melodies, and Argus

Has a hard fight with drowsiness; his eyes,

⁷¹⁵Some of them, close, but some of them stay open.

To keep himself awake by listening,

He asks about the pipe of reeds, how was it

This new invention came about?