Mercury and Argos

In Argos lived Inachus' most famous daughter Io, a beautiful girl who became a priestess of Hera and attracted the amorous attention of Zeus himself. Zeus lay with her, but Hera, seeing them in each others arms, flew into a rage with Io and turned her into a cow. Then she tied the cow to an olive-tree in the sacred grove of Mycenae and set Argus the All-seeing, of the line of Phoroneus - a beast with eyes all over his body and tremendous strength - to keep watch on it. But Zeus set Hermes to steal Io, which he did by lulling Argus to sleep with the music of his pipes. But no sooner was this done than Hera sent a gadfly to persecute the unfortunate Io whom it caused to run madly from one country to another. After crossing the Ionian sea, Io wandered through Illyria, Aenus, the Bosporus (= "ox-crossing" ), the Crimea and Asia, coming ultimately to Egypt and resuming human form. There she maried king Telegonus and, after her death, was worshipped as a goddess under the name Isis.

copyright, 2002: Dr. Hugo H. van der Molen; http://www.scripophily.nl