n the days when Prometheus had given fire to man and he was bound to the rocky peak on Caucasus, he had a strange visitor. A distracted, fleeing creature came clambering awkwardly up over the cliffs and crags to where he lay. It looked like a heifer, but talked like a girl who seemed to mad with misery. The sight of Prometheus stopped her short. She cried,

"Who is this I see, you who are storm beaten and bound to a rock, what did you do wrong? Is this your punishment? Where am I? Please speak to a wretched wanderer. I have been wandering for so long, so long, and have found nowhere to leave my misery. I am a girl who speaks to you, but horns are upon my head!"

Prometheus recognised her. He knew her story and he spoke her name, "I know you girl, Inachus’ daughter, Io. You made Zeus’ heart hot, and Hera hated you for that, it is her who drives you away in a torment that is never ending"

Wonder checked Io’s frenzy, and she stood still, amazed at the stranger who was speaking the truth in this, one of the loneliest of places: "Who are you sufferer, who speaks the truth to another who suffers also?". To which Prometheus replied, "You see Prometheus, who gave mortals fire." Io then knew him, and his story, "You - he that succoured the whole race of men, that Prometheus, the daring and the enduring?"

The two spoke freely to each other for a while. Prometheus told Io how Zeus had treated him, and Io told Prometheus that it was Zeus whom was the cause of her unhappiness, a once happy girl, once a princess now changed into a bull. "A beast, a starving beast, running clumsy and frenzied, oh shame…"

Zeus' wife, Hera was the direct cause of of Io's misfortunes, but behind them all was Zeus himself. He fell in love with her, and sent for her at night, many times and with gentle persuading words, woed her into his arms; "The arrow of desire has pierced Zeus' heart, for you he is on fire. With you it is his will to capture love"

But greater than Zeus' love for Io, was his fear of his wife Hera's jealousy. Zeus acted, however, with very little wisdom for the Father of Gods and Men when he tried to hide Io and himself by wrapping the earth in a cloud so thick and dark that a sudden night seemed to drive clear daylight away. Hera knew perfectly well that there was a reason for this odd occurrence, and instantly suspected her husband. When she could not find him anywhere in heaven, she glided swiftly down to the earth and ordered the cloud off. But Zeus too, had been quick. As she caught sight of him, he was standing beside a most lovely heifer - Io, of course. He swore that he had never seen her until just now when she had sprung forth, new-born, from the earth. And this shows that the lies lovers tell do not anger the gods. However, it also shows that they are not very useful, for Hera did not believe a word of it. She said the heifer was very pretty and would Zeus please make her a present of it. Sorry as he was, he saw at once that to refuse would give the whole thing away. What excuse could he make? An insignificant little cow... He turned Io reluctantly over to his wife and Hera knew very well how to keep her away from him.

Hera gave Io into the charge of Argus, an excellent arrangement for Hera's purpose, since Argus had a hundred eyes. Before such a watchman, who could sleep with some eyes and keep on guard with the rest, Zeus seemed helpless. He watched Io's misery, turned into a beast, driven from her home; he dared not come to her help. At last, however, he went to his son Hermes, the messenger of the gods, and told him he must find a way to kill Argus. There was no god cleverer thatn Hermes. As soon as he had sprung to earth from heaven he laid aside everything that marked him as a god and approached Argus like a country fellow, playing very sweetly on a pipe of reeds. Argus was pleased at the sound and called to the musician to come nearer. "You might as well sit by me on this rock," he said, "you see it's shady - just right for shepherds." Nothing could have been better for Hermes' plan, and yet nothing happened. He played and then he talked on and on, as drowsily and monotonously as he could; some of the hundred eyes would go to sleep, but some were always awake. At last, however, one story was successful - about Pan, how he loved a nymph named Syrinx who fled from him and just as he was about to seize her was turned into a tuft of reeds by her sister nymphs. Pan said, "Still you shall be mine," and he made from what she had become, "A shepherd's pipe, of reeds with beeswax joined"

The story of Pan was not very tiresome, but Argus found it so, enough to put to sleep all of the wakened eyes. Hermes swiftly and surely did kill Argus. Hera took the eyes and set them into the Peacock's tail, her favourite bird.

It seemed that after this, that Io was once again free, but no; Hera at once turned on her again. She sent a gadfly to plague her, which stung her to madness. Io told Prometheus that the fly drove her all along the long sea strand, and did not allow her to stop for food or drink, and for sleep no rest was taken.

Prometheus tried to comfort her, but he could only point her into the distant future. What lay immediately before her was still more wandering and in fearsome lands. To be sure, the part of the sea she first ran along in her frenzy would be called the Ionian, after her, and the Bosphorus, which means the Ford of the Cow, would preserve her memory of when she went through it, but her real consolation must be that at long last she would reach the Nile, where Zeus would restore her to her human form. She would bear him a son named Epaphus, and live happily ever after, honoured. And from the race of people that were to rise from her son, "One glorious immortal with the bow, bold-hearted, shall release me (Prometheus)". The bold-hearted one, of course, was to be Herecles, the greatest of heroes, a man whom the gods were only just greater, it would be he that would release Prometheus from his torment.