In those days when Prometheus had just given fire to men and when he was first bound to the rocky peak on Caucasus, he had 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 mad with misery. The sight of Prometheus stopped her short. She cried,

This that I see----A form storm-beaten,

Bound to the rockDid you do wrong?

Is this your punishment?

Heifer means young cow

Where am I?Speak to a wretched wanderer.

Enough—I have been tried enough-My wandering-long wandering.

Yet I have found nowhereTo leave my misery

I am a girl who speak to you But horns are on my head.

Wandering means travel without destination

Prometheus recognized her. He knew the story and he spoke her name.

I know you, girl, Inachus’ daughter, IOYou made the god’s heart hot with love

And hera hates you. She it isWho drives you on this flight that never ends.

She knew him, then, his story,You – he who succored the whole race of men?You, that Prometheus, the daring, the enduring?

They talked freely to each other. He told her how Zeus was the reason why she, once a princess and

a happy girl, had been changed into,

Succored means help something or somebody

A beast, a starving beast,That frenzied ruins with clumsy leaps and bounds, Oh, shame …

Zeus’s jealous wife, Hera, was the direct cause of my misfortunes, but back of them all was Zeus himself. He fell in love with her, and sent

Ever to my maiden chamber

Starving means dying of hunger

Visions of the nightPersuading me with gentle words:

“O happy, happy girl.Why are you all too long a maid?

The arrow of desire has pierced Zeus For you he is on fire

With you it is his will to capture loveAlways, each night, such dreams possessed me.

Pierce means bore into something

But still greater that zeus love was his fear of hera’s jealousy. He 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 the clear daylight away.

Wrap means cover something up

She caught sight of him he was standing beside a most lovely white heifer- IO, of course.

Ovid says, shows that the lies lovers tell do not anger the gods. However , it also shows that they are not useful, for Hera did not believe a word of it.

she gave her 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 of the eyes and keep some on the guard with the rest.

Zeus seemed helpless. He watched IO’s misery, turned into beast, driven from her home

Seem means appear to something

Zeus went to his son Hermes, the messenger of the gods, and told him he must find a way to kill Argus.

Approached Argus like a country fellow , playing very sweetly upon a pipe of reeds. Argus pleased at the sound and called the musician to come nearer.

Reeds means tall water plant

“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 then he talk on and on, as drowsily and monotonously as he could.

Drowsily means be half asleep

At last however, one story was successful – about the god 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 by her sister nymphs.

Pan said, “still you shall be mine,” and he made from what she become.

Tuft means bunch of fibers and grass

A shepherd’s pipeOf reeds with beeswax joined

The little story does not seem especially tiresome, as such stories go, but Argus found it so. All of his eyes went to sleep Hermes killed him at once, of course, but hera took his eyes and set them in the tail of peacock his favorite bird.

Tiresome means annoying or causing fatigue

It seemed IO was free but no , Hera at once turned on her again. She sent a gad – fly to plague her, which stung her to madness. IO told Prometheus,

He drives me all along the long sea strandI may not stop for food or drink

He will not let me sleep.

Plague means appearance of something in large numbers

To be sure, the part of the sea she first ran along in her frenzy would called Ionian and the Bosphorus, which means the ford of the cow.

But her real consolation must be that at long last she would reach Nile, where Zeus would restore her to human form.

Consolation means source of comfort

She would bear a son named Epaphus, and live for ever after happy and honored. And,

Know this, that from your race will springOne glorious with bow, bold- hearted,

And he shall set me free

Io’s descendant would be Hercules, greatest of heroes

Glorious means Extremely lovely

EUROPA

This story, so like the renaissance idea of the classical – fantastic, delicately decorated, bright – colored is taken entirely from a poem of the third-century Alexandrian poet Moschus, by far the best account of it.

Delicately means finely

Europa the daughter of king of Sidon

The story does not say what hera was about that time, but it is clear that she was off guard and her husband free to do so as he pleased.

Up in heaven one spring moment as he idly watched the earth, Zeus suddenly saw a charming spectacle.

Spring means relating to or growing of something

Europa had waked early, troubled by dream not by god who loved her but of two continents who each in shape of a woman tried to possess her.

Asia saying that she had given her birth and therefore owned her, and other yet nameless, declaring that Zeus would give the maiden to her.

Maiden means young unmarried woman

Europa decided not to sleep again and summoned her companions, girls born in the same year as herself and all noble birth, to go out with her to lovely blooming meadows near the sea.

Europa shone out among them as the goddess of love outshines the sister Graces

Meadows means grassy field

As Zeus in heaven watched the pretty scene, she who alone can conquer Zeus – along with her son, the mischievous boy cupid – shot one of her shafts into his hearts and instantly fell madly in love with Europa

Before appearing to Europa he Changed into a bull.

Shaft means long handle

One beautiful bull, bright chestnut in color, with silver circle his brow and horns like crescent moon.

For surely he will bear us on his back,He is so mild and dear and gentle to behold.He is not like a bull, but like a good, true man

Except he cannot speak

As He went the waves grew smooth before him and a whole procession rose up from deep and accompanied him – the strange gods, Nereids riding upon dolphins and tritons blowing horns and the mighty master of sea.

No bull could this be, certainly God

Nereids means see nymp

Europa spoke pleadingly to zeus, begging him to pity her and not leave her in some strange place.

Zeus answered and showed her what he really was. He was Zeus, greatest of Gods and all he was doing is to love her.

Pleading means big earnestly

He was taking her to crete, his own island .

Glorious sons whose sceptres shall hold swayOver all men on earth

Everything happened, of course as Zeus said. Her sons were famous men not only in this world

but in next

Minos and Rhadamanthus were rewarded for their justice upon the earth by being made the judges of dead.