An ancient forest in Thessalia grows,
Which Tempe’s pleasing valley does enclose:
Through this the rapid Peneus takes his course,
From Pindus rolling with impetuous force:
Mists from the river’s mighty fall arise,
And deadly damps enclose the cloudy skies;
Perpetual fogs are hanging o’er the wood;
And sounds of waters deaf the neighbourhood.
Deep in a rocky cave he makes abode
(A mansion proper for a mourning god).
Here he gives audience; issuing out decrees
To rivers, his dependant deities.
On this occasion hither they resort,
To pay their homage, and to make their court;
All doubtful whether to congratulate
His daughter’s honour, or lament her fate.
Sperchaeus, crown’d with poplar, first appears;
Then old Apidanus came crown’d with years:
Enipeus turbulent; Amphrysos tame;
And Aeas last, with lagging waters came;
Then of his kindred brooks a numerous throng
Condole his loss, and bring their urns along:
Not one was wanting of the watery train
That fill’d his flood, or mingled with the main,
But, Inachus, who, in his cave alone,
Wept not another’s losses, but his own;
For his dear Io, whether stray’d or dead
To him uncertain, doubtful tears he shed.
He sought her through the world, but sought in vain,
And nowhere finding, rather fear’d her slain.
Her, just returning from her father’s brook,
Jove had beheld, with a desiring look:
“And, O fair daughter of the flood,” he said,
“Worthy alone of Jove’s imperial bed;
Happy whoever shall those charms possess;
The king of gods (nor is thy lover less)
Invites thee to yon cooler shades, to shun
The scorching rays of the meridian sun:
Nor shalt thou tempt the dangers of the grove
Alone, without a guide; thy guide is Jove:
No puny power, but he whose high command
Is unconfined, who rules the seas and land,
And tempers thunder in his awful hand.
O fly not:” for she fled from his embrace,
O’er Lerna’s pastures: he pursued the chase
Along the shades of the Lyrcaean plain.
At length the god, who never asks in vain,
Involved with vapours, imitating night,
Both air and earth; and then suppress’d her flight.
Meantime the jealous Juno, from on high,
Survey’d the fruitful fields of Arcady,
And wonder’d that the mist should overrun
The face of daylight, and obscure the sun.
No natural cause she found, from brooks, or bogs,
Or marshy lowlands, to produce the fogs:
Then round the skies she sought for Jupiter,
Her faithless husband; but no Jove was there.
Suspecting now the worst: “Or I,” she said,
“Am much mistaken, or am much betray’d.”
With fury she precipitates her flight;
Dispels the shadows of dissembled night,
And to the day restores his native light.
The almighty culprit, careful to prevent
The consequence, foreseeing her descent,
Transforms his mistress in a trice; and now
In Io’s place appears a lovely cow.
So sleek her skin, so faultless was her make,
Ev’n Juno did unwilling pleasure take
To see so fair a rival of her love;
And what she was, and whence, inquired of Jove;
Of what fair herd, and from what pedigree?
The god, half caught, was forced upon a lie,
And said she sprung from earth. She took the word,
And begg’d the beauteous heifer of her lord.
What should he do? ’twas equal shame to Jove
Or to relinquish or betray his love;
Yet to refuse so slight a gift would be
But more to increase his consort’s jealousy:
Thus fear and love, by turns, his heart assail’d;
And stronger love had sure, at length, prevail’d:
But some faint hope remain’d, his jealous queen
Had not the mistress through the heifer seen.
The cautious goddess, of her gift possess’d,
Yet harbour’d anxious thoughts within her breast;
As she who knew the falsehood of her Jove,
And justly fear’d some new relapse of love;
Which to prevent, and to secure her care,
To trusty Argus she commits the fair.
The head of Argus (as with stars the skies)
Was compass’d round, and wore a hundred eyes:
But two by turns their lids in slumber steep;
The rest on duty still their station keep;
Nor could the total constellation sleep.
Thus, ever present to his eyes and mind,
His charge was still before him, though behind.
In fields he suffer’d her to feed by day;
But when the setting sun to night gave way,
The captive cow he summon’d with a call,
And drove her back, and tied her to the stall.
On leaves of trees and bitter herbs she fed:
Heaven was her canopy; bare earth her bed:
So hardly lodged:—and to digest her food,
She drank from troubled streams, defiled with mud.
Her woeful story fain she would have told,
With hands upheld; but had no hands to hold.
Her head to her ungentle keeper bow’d,
She strove to speak; she spoke not, but she low’d;
Affrighted with the noise, she look’d around,
And seem’d to inquire the author of the sound.
Once on the banks where often she had play’d
(Her father’s banks) she came, and there survey’d
Her alter’d visage, and her branching head;
And, starting, from herself she would have fled.
Her fellow nymphs, familiar to her eyes,
Beheld, but knew her not in this disguise;
Ev’n Inachus himself was ignorant,
And in his daughter did his daughter want.
She follow’d where her fellows went, as she
Were still a partner of the company:
They stroke her neck; the gentle heifer stands,
And her neck offers to their stroking hands.
Her father gave her grass; the grass she took,
And lick’d his palms, and cast a piteous look,
And in the language of her eyes she spoke.
She would have told her name, and ask’d relief,
But wanting words, in tears she tells her grief;
Which, with her foot she makes him understand,
And prints the name of Io in the sand.
“Ah wretched me!” her mournful father cried;
“She with a sigh to wretched me replied.”
About her milk-white neck his arms he threw,
And wept; and then these tender words ensue;
“And art thou she whom I have sought around
The world, and have at length so sadly found?
So found, is worse than lost: with mutual words
Thou answerest not; no voice thy tongue affords;
But sighs are deeply drawn from out thy breast;
And speech denied by lowing is express’d.
Unknowing, I prepared thy bridal bed,
With empty hopes of happy issue fed:
But now the husband of a herd must be
Thy mate, and bellowing sons thy progeny.
O, were I mortal, death might bring relief;
But now my godhead but extends my grief;
Prolongs my woes, of which no end I see,
And makes me curse my immortality!”
More had he said, but fearful of her stay,
The starry guardian drove his charge away
To some fresh pasture; on a hilly height
He sat himself, and kept her still in sight.
Now Jove no longer could her sufferings bear,
But call’d in haste his airy messenger,
The son of Maia, with severe decree,
To kill the keeper, and to set her free.
With all his harness soon the god was sped,
His flying hat was fasten’d on his head;
Wings on his heels were hung, and in his hand
He holds the virtue of the snaky wand.
The liquid air his moving pinions wound,
And, in the moment, shoot him on the ground.
Before he came in sight, the crafty god
His wings dismiss’d, but still retain’d his rod.
That sleep-procuring wand wise Hermes took,
But made it seem to sight a shepherd’s hook:
With this he did a herd of goats control,
Which by the way he met, and slyly stole:
Clad like a country swain, he piped and sung,
And, playing, drove his jolly troop along.
With pleasure Argus the musician heeds,
But wonders much at those new vocal reeds.
“And whosoe’er thou art, my friend,” said he,
“Up hither drive thy goats, and play by me;
This hill has browse for them and shade for thee.”
The god, who was with ease induced to climb,
Began discourse to pass away the time;
And still, betwixt, his tuneful pipe he plies,
And watch’d his hour, to close the keeper’s eyes.
With much ado, he partly kept awake,
Not suffering all his eyes repose to take;
And ask’d the stranger who did reeds invent;
And whence began so rare an instrument?