Jove and Io Context Essay

      In Jove and Io, Jupiter falls in love with an Argive princess named Io, rapes her, and covers themselves in a dark cloud. Juno -- his wife -- sees the clouds, becomes suspicious, and glides down from the sky. Anticipating her arrival, Jupiter turns Io into a lovely white heifer to hide her. Still suspicious, Juno asks him to give her the cow as a present. After he complies, she sets Argus -- a giant with a hundred eyes -- to constantly watch over Io. One day, Io sees her father -- Inachus -- by the river and follows him. After she traces her name into the dirt, he recognizes her and clings to her in tears, but Argus comes and drives him away. Finally, Mercury -- sent by Jupiter -- flies to Argus and lulls him to sleep with tunes and long stories. Mercury then cuts his head off and frees Io. Enraged, Juno sends a Fury to torment Io, who blindly runs around the world until she reaches the Nile, where she stops and complains to Jupiter. After Jupiter begs Juno to end the punishments, Io is transformed into a human, and is worshipped by a crowd. Later, she gives birth to Epaphus -- a son of Jupiter.

      Ovid placed Jove and Io at the end of Book 1, which begins with the creation of the world from chaos. Ovid transitions from Apollo and Daphne to Jove and Io by describing the rivers of Thessaly that converge into the river of Peneus, and how the river of Inachus is mourning for Io elsewhere. Ovid then transitions from Jove and Io to The Story of Phaethon by describing how Epaphus -- Io’s son -- criticizes Phaethon for supposedly pretending to have Helios as his father.

      Before Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Hesiod -- an ancient Greek poet around 750 and 650 BC -- included the story of Io in Aegimius and in Catalogue of Women -- both ancient Greek epic poems. (Nikolaev, 2015). (Ziogas, 2013). Although he describes Zeus raping Io and Hermes killing Argus, the exact retellings are unclear, since only fragments of the poems remain. In 430 BC, Aeschylus retold the story of Io in "Prometheus Bound" -- a Greek tragedy -- in which Io rejects Zeus until her father throws her out of his house. (McInerney, 2010). (Howatson, 1993). After Ovid’s version of Jove and Io, Pausanias -- a Greek geographer in the second century AD -- retells the story of Io in his Description of Greece.