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?
Transformation of Syrinx Into Reeds
Syrinx, a nymph of Arcadia, escapes from the solicitations of the god Pan, and is changed into a reed, called Syrinx, with which the god makes himself a pipe.
Then Hermes thus: “A nymph of late there was,
Whose heavenly form her fellows did surpass;
The pride and joy of fair Arcadia’s plains;
Beloved by deities, adored by swains;
Syrinx her name; by sylvans oft pursued,
As oft she did the lustful gods delude;
The rural and the woodland powers disdain’d;
With Cynthia hunted, and her rites maintain’d;
Like Phoebe clad, even Phoebe’s self she seems,
So tall, so straight, such well-proportion’d limbs:
The nicest eye did no distinction know,
But that the goddess bore a golden bow:
Distinguish’d thus, the sight she cheated too.
Descending from Lycaeus, Pan admires
The matchless nymph, and burns with new desires.
A crown of pine upon his head he wore;
And thus began her pity to implore:—
But ere he thus began, she took her flight,
So swift, she was already out of sight;
Nor stay’d to hear the courtship of the god;
But bent her course to Ladon’s gentle flood;
There by the river stopp’d, and, tired before,
Relief from water-nymphs her prayers implore.
“Now while the amorous god, with speedy pace,
Just thought to strain her in a strict embrace,
He fills his arms with reeds, new rising on the place:
And while he sighs, his ill success to find,
The tender canes were shaken by the wind,
And breathed a mournful air, unheard before,
That, much surprising Pan, yet pleased him more.
Admiring this new music—‘Thou,’ he said,
‘Who canst not be the partner of my bed,
At least shall be the consort of my mind,
And often, often to my lips be join’d.’
He form’d the reeds, proportion’d as they are,
Unequal in their length, and wax’d with care:
They still
