Princess Io

In Greek mythology, Io (; ) was one of the mortal lovers of Zeus. An Argive princess, she was an ancestor of many kings and heroes, such as Perseus, Cadmus, Heracles, Minos, Lynceus, Cepheus, and Danaus. The astronomer Simon Marius named a moon of Jupiter after Io in 1614.

Because her brother was Phoroneus, Io is also known as Phoronis (an adjective form of Phoroneus: "Phoronean"). She was sometimes compared to the Egyptian goddess Isis, whereas her Egyptian husband Telegonus was Osiris.

Family

In most versions of the legend, Io was the daughter of Inachus, though various other purported genealogies are also known. If her father was Inachus, then her mother would presumably have been Inachus' wife (and sister), the Oceanid nymph Melia, daughter of Oceanus.
She had the patronymic Inachis (Ἰναχίς) as daughter of Inachus.

Io's father was called Peiren in the ''Catalogue of Women'', and by Acusilaus, possibly a son of the elder Argus, also known as Peiras, Peiranthus or Peirasus. Io may therefore be identical to Callithyia, daughter of Peiranthus, as is suggested by Hesychius of Alexandria.

The 2nd century AD geographer Pausanias mentions another, later Io, descendant of Phoroneus, daughter of Iasus, who himself was the son of Argus and Ismene, the daughter of Asopus,Apollodorus
2.1.3
or of Triopas and Sosis; Io's mother in the latter case was Leucane.

Mythology

Io and Zeus

Io was a priestess of the goddess Hera in Argos, whose cult her father Inachus was supposed to have introduced to Argos. Zeus noticed Io, a mortal woman, and lusted after her. In the version of the myth told in ''Prometheus Bound'' she initially rejected Zeus' advances, until her father threw her out of his house on the advice of oracles. According to some stories, Zeus then turned Io into a heifer in order to hide her from his wife; others maintain that Hera herself transformed Io.

In the version of the story in which Zeus transformed Io, the deception failed, and Hera begged Zeus to give her the heifer as a present, which, having no reason to refuse, he did. Pitying the unfortunate girl, Gaia, the goddess of the earth, created the violet (), so the cow could eat, thus growing "from her from whom it has its name", based on incorrect folk etymology. The various colours of the violet (red, purple, white) changed on account of Io's life, red for the blushing maiden, purple for the cow, white for the stars. Hera then sent Argus Panoptes, a giant who had 100 eyes, to watch Io and prevent Zeus from visiting her, and so Zeus sent Hermes to distract and eventually slay Argus. According to Ovid, he did so by first lulling him to sleep by playing the panpipes and telling stories. Zeus freed Io, still in the form of a heifer. In some myths, Hera uses Argus' eyes to decorate her peacock's feathers to thank the giant for his help.

In order to exact her revenge, Hera sent a gadfly to sting Io continuously, driving her to wander the world without rest. Io eventually crossed the path between the Propontis and the Black Sea, which thus acquired the name Bosporus (meaning ''ox passage''), where she met Prometheus, who had been chained on Mt. Caucasus by Zeus. Prometheus comforted Io with the information that she would be restored to human form and become the ancestress of the greatest of all heroes, Heracles (Hercules). Io escaped across the Ionian Sea to Egypt, where she was restored to human form by Zeus. There, she gave birth to Zeus's son Epaphus, and a daughter as well, Keroessa. She later married Egyptian king Telegonus. Their grandson, Danaus, eventually returned to Greece with his fifty daughters (the Danaids), as recalled in Aeschylus' play '' The Suppliants''.

The myth of Io must have been well known to Homer, who often calls Hermes ''Argeiphontes'', which is often translated as "Argus-slayer", though this interpretation is disputed by Robert Beekes. Walter Burkert notes that the story of Io was told in the ancient epic tradition at least four times of which we have traces: in the '' Danais'', in the '' Phoronis''—Phoroneus founded the cult of Hera, according to Hyginus' ''Fabulae'' 274 and 143—in a fragment of the Hesiodic ''Aigimios'', as well as in similarly fragmentary Hesiodic ''Catalogue of Women''. A mourning commemoration of Io was observed at the Heraion of Argos into classical times.

The ancients connected Io with the Moon, and in Aeschylus' ''Prometheus Bound'', where Io encounters Prometheus, she refers to herself as "the horned virgin". From her relationship with Phoroneus, as sister (or descendant), Io is sometimes called Phoronis.

According to the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology by William Smith, Io at some point landed at Damalis, and the Chalcedonians erected a bronze cow on the spot.

Io as Isis

Lygdus and his wife, Telethusa, were a poor couple living in Crete. When Telethusa becomes pregnant, her husband tells her that they cannot afford to have a daughter, and that they have no other option than to kill the child if it is a daughter. Eight months later Io, later in the story mentioned as Isis, comes in a vision to Telethusa telling her that she should keep her daughter when it is born and must tell her husband that it is a boy named Iphis.

Later in the story, Isis (Io) changes Iphis' sex when she is supposed to marry her fiancée, Ianthe.

Gallery

File:Antonio Allegri, called Correggio - Jupiter and Io - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Jupiter and Io'' by Antonio da Correggio
File:Victor-Janssens Io-recognized-by-her-father.jpg, ''Io Recognised by Her Father'' by Victor Honoré Janssens (second half of 17th century)
File:Nicolaes Pietersz. Berchem the Younger - Hera and Io, 1669.jpg, ''Hera and Io'' by Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem the Younger (circa 1669)
File:Jupiter and Io) by John Hoppner, RA.jpg, ''Jupiter and Io'' by John Hoppner (1785) at Denver Art Museum
File:Io changed into a cow, Mercury cuts of Argus's head.jpg, ''From Neueröffneter Musen-Tempel'' by Bernard Picart (1733), University of Heidelberg
File:Francesco de Mura – Giunone affida Io ad Argo.tiff, ''Juno (Hera) commits Io to Argus Panoptes'' by Francesco de Mura (1740–1750) at Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto, Italy
File:Italian School - Jupiter and Io, espied by Juno (1600-1699).jpg, ''Jupiter and Io, espied by Juno'' by Andrea Sacchi and Pier Francesco Mola (1600 - 1699) at Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire (Accredited Museum)
File:Gerbrand van den Eeckhout - Juno, Jupiter and Io.jpg, ''Juno, Jupiter and Io'' by Gerbrand van den Eeckhout
File:Arnold Houbraken - Jupiter, Juno and Io.jpg, ''Jupiter, Juno and Io'' by Arnold Houbraken
File:Jacob Symonsz. Pynas - Jupiter and Io.jpg, ''Jupiter and Io'' by Jacob Pynas at The Fitzwilliam Museum, UK
File:Jupiter and Io LACMA M.71.76.16.jpg, ''Jupiter and Io'' by Hendrik Goltzius (1589) at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles

Notes

References

Bibliography

* Aeschylus, '' Suppliants'' in ''Persians. Seven against Thebes. Suppliants. Prometheus Bound'', edited and translated by Alan H. Sommerstein, Loeb Classical Library No. 145, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 2009.
Online version at Harvard University Press

*
*
* Apollodorus, ''Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes.'' Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921.
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library

* Ovid. ''Metamorphoses, Volume I: Books 1-8''. Translated by Frank Justus Miller. Revised by G. P. Goold. Loeb Classical Library No. 42. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1916
Online version at Harvard University Press

* Peck, William Thane (editor), ''The First and Second Books of Ovid's Metamorphoses'', Ginn & Company, 1900.
* Tsagalis, Christos, ''Early Greek Epic Fragments I: Antiquarian and Genealogical Epic'', Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, 2017.

External links

Assembles the essential references in Greek and Latin literature, in translation.

Io engravings by Goltzius from the De Verda collection

Warburg Institute Iconographic Database (ca 250 images of Io and Argus)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Io (Mythology)
Greek mythological priestesses
Mortal women of Zeus
Mythological bovines
Children of Inachus
Metamorphoses characters
Metamorphoses into animals in Greek mythology
Isis
Mythological Argives
Mythological rape victims
Egyptian characters in Greek mythology
Egypt in Greek mythology
Deeds of Hera
Deeds of Hermes
Metamorphoses into flowers in Greek mythology
Deeds of Gaia