until his heart was utterly afire,
and hope sustained his unrequited passion.
He gazes on her hair without adornment:
“What if it were done up a bit?” he asks,
and gazes on her eyes, as bright as stars,
and on that darling little mouth of hers,
though sight is not enough to satisfy;
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he praises everything that he can see—
her fingers, hands, and arms, bare to her shoulders—
and what is hidden prizes even more.
She flees more swiftly than the lightest breeze,
nor will she halt when he calls out to her:
“Daughter of Peneus, I pray, hold still,
hold still! I’m not a foe in grim pursuit!
Thus lamb flees wolf, thus dove from eagle flies
on trembling wings, thus deer from lioness,
thus any creature flees its enemy,
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but I am stalking you because of love!
“Wretch that I am: I’m fearful that you’ll fall,
brambles will tear your flesh because of me!
The ground you’re racing over’s very rocky,
slow down, I beg you, restrain yourself in flight,
and I will follow at a lesser speed.
“Just ask yourself who finds you so attractive!
I’m not a caveman, not some shepherd boy,
no shaggy guardian of flocks and herds—
you’ve no idea, rash girl, you’ve no idea
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whom you are fleeing, that is why you flee!
“Delphi, Claros, Tenedos are all mine,
I’m worshiped in the city of Patara!
Jove is my father, I alone reveal
what was, what is, and what will come to be!
The plucked strings answer my demand with song!
“Although my aim is sure, another’s arrow
proved even more so, and my careless heart
was badly wounded—the art of medicine
is my invention, by the way, the source
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of my worldwide fame as a practitioner
of healing through the natural strength of herbs.
“Alas, there is no herbal remedy
for the love that I must suffer, and the arts
that heal all others cannot heal their lord—”
He had much more to say to her, but Daphne
pursued her fearful course and left him speechless,
though no less lovely fleeing him; indeed,
disheveled by the wind that bared her limbs
and pressed the blown robes to her straining body
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even as it whipped up her hair behind her,
the maiden was more beautiful in flight!
But the young god had no further interest
in wasting his fine words on her; admonished
by his own passion, he accelerates,
and runs as swiftly as a Gallic hound
chasing a rabbit through an open field;
the one seeks shelter and the other, prey—
he clings to her, is just about to spring,
with his long muzzle straining at her heels,
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while she, not knowing whether she’s been caught,
in one swift burst, eludes those snapping jaws,
no longer the anticipated feast;
so he in hope and she in terror race.
But her pursuer, driven by his passion,
out speeds the girl, giving her no pause,
one step behind her, breathing down her neck;
her strength is gone; she blanches at the thought
of the effort of her swift flight overcome,
but at the sight of Peneus, she cries,
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“Help me, dear father! If your waters hold
divinity, transform me and destroy
that beauty by which I have too well pleased!”
Her prayer was scarcely finished when she feels
a torpor take possession of her limbs—
her supple trunk is girdled with a thin
layer of fine bark over her smooth skin;
her hair turns into foliage, her arms
grow into branches, sluggish roots adhere
to feet that were so recently so swift,
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her head becomes the summit of a tree;
all that remains of her is a warm glow.
Loving her still, the god puts his right hand
against the trunk, and even now can feel
her heart as it beats under the new bark;
he hugs her limbs as if they were still human,
and then he puts his lips against the wood,
which, even now, is adverse to his kiss.
“Although you cannot be my bride,” he says,
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O Laurel, and will always find yourself
girding my locks, my lyre, and my quiver too—
you will adorn great Roman generals
when every voice cries out in joyful triumph
along the route up to the Capitol;
you will protect the portals of Augustus,
guarding, on either side, his crown of oak;
and as I am—perpetually youthful,
my flowing locks unknown to the barber’s shears—
so you will be an evergreen forever
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bearing your brilliant foliage with glory!”
Phoebus concluded. Laurel shook her branches
and seemed to nod her summit in assent.
Jove and Io (1)
There is a grove in Thessaly, enclosed
on every side by high and wooded hills:
they call it Tempe. The river Peneus,
which rises deep within the Pindus range,
pours its turbulent waters through this gorge
and over a cataract that deafens all
its neighbors far and near, creating clouds
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that drive a fine, cool mist along, until
it drips down through the summits of the trees.
Here is the house, the seat, the inner chambers
of the great river; here Peneus holds court
in his rocky cavern and lays down the law
to water nymphs and tributary streams.
First to assemble were the native rivers,
uncertain whether to congratulate,
or to commiserate with Daphne’s father:
the Sperchios, whose banks are lined with poplars,
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the ancient Apidanus and the mild
Aeas and Amprysus; others came later—
rivers who, by whatever course they take,
eventually bring their flowing streams,
weary of their meandering, to sea.
Inachus was the only river absent,
concealed in the recesses of his cave:
he added to his volume with the tears
he grimly wept for his lost daughter Io,
not knowing whether she still lived or not;
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but since he couldn’t find her anywhere,
assumed that she was nowhere to be found—
and in his heart, he feared a fate far worse.
For Jupiter had seen the girl returning
from her father’s banks and had accosted her:
“O maiden worthy of almighty Jove
and destined to delight some lucky fellow
(I know not whom) upon your wedding night,
come find some shade,” he said, “in these deep woods—”
(showing her where the woods were very shady)
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“while the sun blazes high above the earth!
“But if you’re worried about entering
the haunts of savage beasts all by y
ourself,
why, under the protection of a god
you will be safe within the deepest woods—
and no plebeian god, for I am he
who bears the celestial scepter in his hand,
I am he who hurls the roaming thunderbolt—
don’t run from me!”
But run she did, through Lerna
and Lyrcea, until the god concealed
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the land entirely beneath a dense
dark mist and seized her and dishonored her.
Juno, however, happened to look down
on Argos, where she noticed something odd:
swift-flying clouds had turned day into night
long before nighttime. She realized
that neither falling mist nor rising fog
could be the cause of this phenomenon,
and looked about at once to find her husband,
as one too well aware of the connivings
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of a mate so often taken in the act.
When he could not be found above, she said,
“Either I’m mad—or I am being had.”
She glided down to earth from heaven’s summit
immediately and dispersed the clouds.
Having intuited his wife’s approach,
Jove had already metamorphosed Io
into a gleaming heifer—a beauty still,
even as a cow. Despite herself,
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Juno gave this illusion her approval,
and feigning ignorance, asked him whose herd
this heifer had come out of, and where from;
Jove, lying to forestall all inquiries
as to her origin and pedigree,
replied that she was born out of the earth.
Then Juno asked him for her as a gift.
What could he do? Here is his beloved:
to hand her over is unnatural,
but not to do so would arouse suspicion;
shame urged him onward while love held him back.
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Love surely would have triumphed over shame,
except that to deny so slight a gift
to one who was his wife and sister both
would make it seem that this was no mere cow!
Her rival given up to her at last,
Juno feared Jove had more such tricks in mind,
and couldn’t feel entirely secure
until she’d placed this heifer in the care
of Argus, the watchman with a hundred eyes:
in strict rotation, his eyes slept in pairs,
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while those that were not sleeping stayed on guard.
No matter where he stood, he looked at Io,
even when he had turned his back on her.
He let her graze in daylight; when the sun
set far beneath the earth, he penned her in
and placed a collar on her indignant neck.
She fed on leaves from trees and bitter grasses,
and had no bed to sleep on, the poor thing,
but lay upon the ground, not always grassy,
and drank the muddy waters from the streams.
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Having no arms, she could not stretch them out
in supplication to her warden, Argus;
and when she tried to utter a complaint
she only mooed—a sound which terrified her,
fearful as she now was of her own voice.
Io at last came to the riverbank
where she had often played; when she beheld
her own slack jaws and newly sprouted horns
in the clear water, she fled, terrified!
Neither her naiad sisters nor her father
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knew who this heifer was who followed them
and let herself be petted and admired.
Inachus fed her grasses from his hand;
she licked it and pressed kisses on his palm,
unable to restrain her flowing tears.
If words would just have come, she would have spoken,
telling them who she was, how this had happened,
and begging their assistance in her case;
but with her hoof, she drew lines in the dust,
and letters of the words she could not speak
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told the sad story of her transformation.
“Oh, wretched me,” cried Io’s father, clinging
to the lowing calf’s horns and snowy neck.
“Oh, wretched me!” he groaned. “Are you the child
for whom I searched the earth in every part?
Lost, you were less a grief than you are, found!
“You make no answer, unable to respond
to our speech in language of your own,
but from your breast come resonant deep sighs
and—all that you can manage now—you moo!
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“But I—all unaware of this—was busy
arranging marriage for you, in the hopes
of having a son-in-law and grandchildren.
Now I must pick your husband from my herd,
and now must find your offspring there as well!
“Nor can I end this suffering by death;
it is a hurtful thing to be a god,
for the gates of death are firmly closed against me,
and our sorrows must go on forever.”
And while the father mourned his daughter’s loss,
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Argus of the hundred eyes removed her
to pastures farther off and placed himself
high on a mountain peak, a vantage point
from which he could keep watch in all directions.
The ruler of the heavens cannot bear
the sufferings of Io any longer,
and calls his son, born of the Pleiades,
and orders him to do away with Argus.
Without delay, he takes his winged sandals,
his magic, sleep-inducing wand, and cap;
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and so equipped, the son of father Jove
glides down from heaven’s summit to the earth,
where he removes and leaves behind his cap
and winged sandals, but retains the wand;
and sets out as a shepherd, wandering
far from the beaten path, driving before him
a flock of goats he rounds up as he goes,
while playing tunes upon his pipe of reeds.
The guardian of Juno is quite taken
by this new sound: “Whoever you might be,
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why not come sit with me upon this rock,”
said Argus, “for that flock of yours will find
the grass is nowhere greener, and you see
that there is shade here suitable for shepherds.”
The grandson of great Atlas takes his seat
and whiles away the hours, chattering
of this and that—and playing on his pipes,
he tries to overcome the watchfulness
of Argus, struggling to stay awake;
even though Slumber closes down some eyes,
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others stay vigilant. Argus inquired
how the reed pipes, so recently invented,
had come to be, and Mercury responded:
Pan and Syrinx
“On the idyllic mountains of Arcadia,
among the hamadryads of Nonacris,
one was renowned, and Syrinx was her name.
Often she fled—successfully—from Satyrs,
and deities of every kind as well,
those of the shady wood and fruited plain.
“In her pursuits and in virginity
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Diana was her model, and she wore
her robe hitched up and girt above the knees
just as her goddess did; and if her bow
had been made out of gold, instead of horn,
anyone seeing her might well have thought
she was the goddess—as, indeed, some did.
“Wearing his crown of sharp pine needles, Pan
saw her returning once from Mount Lycaeus,
and began to say….”
There remained to tell
of how the maiden, having spurned his pleas,
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fled through the trackless wilds until she came
to where the gently flowing Ladon stopped
her in her flight; how she begged the water nymphs
to change her shape, and how the god, assuming
that he had captured Syrinx, grasped instead
a handful of marsh reeds! And while he sighed,
the reeds in his hands, stirred by his own breath,
gave forth a similar, low-pitched complaint!
The god, much taken by the sweet new voice
of an unprecedented instrument,
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said this to her: “At least we may converse
with one another—I can have that much.”
That pipe of reeds, unequal in their lengths,
and joined together one-on-one with wax,
took the girl’s name, and bears it to this day.
Now Mercury was ready to continue
until he saw that Argus had succumbed,
for all his eyes had been closed down by sleep.
He silences himself and waves his wand
above those languid orbs to fix the spell.
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Without delay he grasps the nodding head
and where it joins the neck, he severs it
with his curved blade and flings it bleeding down
the steep rock face, staining it with gore.
O Argus, you are fallen, and the light
in all your lamps is utterly put out:
one hundred eyes, one darkness all the same!
Jove and Io (2)
But Saturn’s daughter rescued them and set
those eyes upon the feathers of her bird,
filling his tail with constellated gems.
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Her rage demanded satisfaction, now:
the goddess set a horrifying Fury
before the eyes and the imagination
of her Grecian rival; and in her heart
she fixed a prod that goaded Io on,
driving her in terror through the world
until at last, O Nile, you let her rest
from endless labor; having reached your banks,
she went down awkwardly upon her knees,
and with her neck bent backward, raised her face
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as only she could do it, to the stars;
and with her groans and tears and mournful mooing,
entreated Jove, it seemed, to put an end
to her great suffering.
Jove threw his arms
around the neck of Juno in embrace,
imploring her to end this punishment:
“In future,” he said, “put your fears aside: