Week 3 Story: the Tragedy of Io

    The river god Inachus' daughter, Io, returned from visiting her father's stream one day, completely unaware of the tragedy that was awaiting her. As she was walking away from the stream and towards the woods nearby, she heard a booming voice call out to her, inviting her to take shelter in the forest's shade, with "the protection of a god." She recognized the voice immediately as the voice of Jupiter, and she had heard awful stories about the women who fell into his grasp. Just as Io darted off, away from the direction of the voice, Jupiter pleaded, "Don't run from me!"

    But Io ignored him, and continued to flee. Jupiter, in response, wrapped the world in a thick, gray fog, to better conceal his deeds, and captured the girl. Under the cover of his divine fog, Jupiter raped Io.

    Up in Olympus, Juno looked down upon the Earth, keeping watch over her domain. When a thick fog swept over the land and obscured her view, Juno felt herself tense. She knew this was no natural fog, but the work of her wandering husband.

    "I pray that I am wrong." Juno murmured to herself as she floated down from her godly mountain to the land of Argos, where the fog was thickest, dispersing the fog into the air with a wave of her hand.

    Jupiter had seen his wife coming, and in a panic, had transformed poor Io into a pure white cow. Io herself felt the transformation as the greatest torture she had ever experienced, with her bones themselves shifting and her skin sprouting thick, white hair. She tried to scream, not fully understanding what was happening to her, but found that she could only low and moo. Filled with panic, she stood there as Juno landed on the ground and approached the two of them.

    "What a pretty cow," Juno commented, "Whose is it?" She turned to her husband, seeing straight through the illusion. There was a moment where she almost felt pity for the girl, but that fleeting sympathy was quickly replaced by a more familiar, comfortable rage.  But Juno had learned by now to mask her rage.

    While Jupiter was stumbling over the answer to her question, Juno cut in, "Would you gift this heifer to me, husband?" Jupiter could hardly refuse her. It would raise suspicion to deny such a simple thing to her. So, Jupiter gave Io as a gift to his wife, and she handed the heifer over to Argus, her one-hundred-eyed minion. With so many eyes, Argus could keep constant watch over Juno's rival. During the day, Io was given a certain amount of freedom to roam around the pastures, eating grass and drinking from the river. It was hardly peaceful for her, however. On the inside, she was lonely and miserable, missing her father and her sisters and wishing desperately to see them.

    One day, she came across them all playing in the stream, but they did not recognize her. They were drawn to her, however, because she was just as pretty as a cow as she had been in her human form. Her sisters stroked her fur and her father, Inachus, fed her grass from his hand and let her lick his arm. Overcome with desperation and sadness, Io scratched out in the dust with her hoof the words "I am Io." Her father and sisters read the words, then stared at Io in shock. Her father reached out a hand to rest on her forehead and looked into Io's huge, brown eyes, "Is it you, daughter?" He asked quietly. Io lowed softly in response. Sobbing, Inachus and his daughters fell onto Io, hugging her neck and wetting her fur with their tears.

    While Io's family was lamenting her transformation, Argus returned and dragged Io away, while the naiad-turned-heifer lowed mournfully. 

    Jupiter was watching this, and feeling some measure of sympathy, came up with a plan to rescue Io. He called his son, Mercury, to his side, and asked him to steal Io away from Argus. Mercury, clever as always, planned a trap for the many-eyed shepherd. He appeared one day as a goat herder, playing his reed pipe so prettily that Argus called to him and invited him to rest in the shade with him. Mercury sat, and continued to play until all one hundred of Argus' eyes closed, at which point he swiftly decapitated him and shoved his body down the hill.

Mercury and Argus (1659)  by Diego Velazquez

    Juno, upon discovering the body of her lackey, took his hundred eyes and set them in the feathers of her peacocks. Full of rage once again, she set a Fury upon Io. Io was so tormented that she cried to the heavens for mercy from Jupiter, who, moved by her anguish, intervened. He embraced his wife and pleaded with her to stop.

    "She will trouble us no more, please, end this torture." Jupiter begged, "With the Stygian waters as my witness, she will no longer be a source of pain for you."

    Juno calms herself, and as she does, Io transforms back into her original form. The transformation is just as painful this time, and as Io stands shakily on her two legs once again, she is filled with fear. What will come next? Is it really over? She is trembling, waiting for her next punishment.

    "Io!" One of her sisters steps out of the forest, followed by the rest of her sisters, and then her father. Her sisters wrap a robe around her and embrace their returned sister, taking her hands and leading her back to their father's stream.

Author's note: I tried to stick more or less to the story on this one. The sequence of events and the names match Ovid's version. I did want to explore Io's inner thoughts more, and to emphasize her relationship with her family. I was moved by their interactions in Ovid's original story, the grief they all seemed to feel at thinking Io was lost to them forever. The one part of this story that isn't in Ovid's version is the very end, when Io's family steps out of the forest and welcomes her back into their lives. I wanted to give Io a slightly happier ending than in Ovid's story, because the impression I got from the story was that all Io ever wanted was to get back to her family, and it seemed like it would be a nice ending for her to see them after her transformation to her original form. I added the details of pain in these transformations just because I assume being turned from a human into a cow and then back again cannot be a fun process, and I thought it better to acknowledge the pain and fear Io must have felt more completely.

Bibliography: Ovid's Metamorphoses, Books 1-4, translated by Tony Kline (2000).