Information about Io (mythology)

This article is about the mythological figure. For the moon of Jupiter, see Io (moon).

Hermes, Io (as cow) and Argus, black-figure amphora, 540–530 BC, Staatliche Antikensammlungen (Inv. 585)

In Greek mythology, Io (IPA [ˈaɪoʊ] or [ˈiːoʊ]), (World Book Â«EYE ohÂ»)a priestess of Hera in Argos^[1] who was seduced by Zeus, who changed her into a heifer to escape detection. Her mistress Hera set ever-watchful Argus Panoptes to guard her, but Hermes was sent to distract the guardian and slay him. Heifer Io was loosed to roam the world, stung by a maddening gadfly sent by Hera, and wandered to Egypt, thus placing her descendant Belus in Egypt; his sons Cadmus and Danaus would thus "return" to mainland Greece.

Io's father is generally given as Inachus, a river god credited with inaugurating the worship of Hera in the region of Argos, thus establishing her as an autochthonous spirit of the Argolid^[2] and as by her nature a nymph of a spring, a naiad.^[3]

The myth is told most anecdotally by Ovid, in Metamorphoses. According to Ovid, one day, Zeus noticed the maiden and lusted after her. As Io tells her own story in Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, she rejected his whispered nighttime advances until the oracles caused her own father to drive her out into the fields of Lerna. There, Zeus covered her with clouds to hide her from the eyes of his jealous wife, Hera, who nonetheless came to investigate. In a vain attempt to hide his crimes, Zeus turned himself into a white cloud and transformed Io into a beautiful white heifer. Hera was not fooled. She demanded the heifer as a present.

Hera tethered Io to the olive-tree in the temenos of her cult-site the Heraion and placed her in the charge of many-eyed Argus Panoptes to keep her separated from Zeus. Zeus commanded Hermes to kill Argus; Ovid added the detail that he lulled all hundred eyes to sleep. Hera then forced Io to wander the earth without rest, plagued by a gadfly (Οίστρος or oestrus: see etymology of "estrus" ) to sting her into madness. 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.

Prometheus had been chained on Mt. Caucasus by Zeus for teaching Man how to make fire and tricking him into accepting the worse part of a sacrifice while the mortals kept the better part (meat); every day, a giant eagle fed on Prometheus's liver. Despite his agony, he comforted Io with the information that she would be restored to human form and become the ancestress of the greatest of all heroes, Heracles. 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, Danaos, 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 Hermes Argeiphontes, "Hermes Argus-slayer." Walter Burkert^[4] 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 an Oxyrhynchus papyrus fragment supplementing the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women. A mourning commemoration of Io was observed at the Heraion of Argos into classical times.

The mythic events concerning Io were transplanted, no doubt by colonists from Argos, to various far-flung sites in the Hellenic world.

The ancients connected Io with the Moon,^[5] and in Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, where Io encounters Prometheus, she refers to herself as "the horned virgin", both bovine and lunar.

Notes

1. ^ In a fragment of the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women.
2. ^ A genealogy constructed for a "House of Argos" cannot be reconciled with the myths.
3. ^ Other fathers, Iasos or Peiren are briefly noted in Bibliotheke 2.5
4. ^ Burkert, Homo Necans (1974) 1983:164 note 14, giving bibliography.
5. ^ Eustathius of Thessalonica commentary on Dionysius Periegetes, 92; the Byzantine encyclopedia Suda s.v. "Io", Hesychius, s.v. "Io".

External links

Theoi.com: Io: naiad nymph of Argolis and Egypt Assembles the essential references in Greek and Latin literature, in translation.

Io

Click image for description
Discovery
Discovered by: Galileo Galilei
Discovery date: January 7, 1610
Orbital characteristics
Periapsis: 420,000 km (0.002807 AU)
Apoapsis: 423,400 km (0.
..... Click the link for more information.

Greek mythology is the body of stories belonging to the Ancient Greeks concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices.
..... Click the link for more information.

International Phonetic Alphabet can be used to show pronunciation in English. For a quick chart of how, without the details presented here, see IPA chart for English.
..... Click the link for more information.

In the Olympian pantheon of classical Greek Mythology, Hera, (Greek Ήρα, IPA pronunciation [ˈhiːrə]; or Here (
..... Click the link for more information.

..... Click the link for more information.

Zeus (in Greek: nominative: Ζεύς ZeÃºs, genitive: Διός DiÃ³s
..... Click the link for more information.

Argus Panoptes or Argos (Άργος), guardian of the heifer-nymph Io and son of Arestor,^[1] was a giant with a hundred eyes. His epithet Panoptes was applied to the Titan of the Sun, Helios, and was taken up as an epithet by Zeus,
..... Click the link for more information.

Hermes (Greek, Ἑρμῆς, IPA: /ˈhɝmiːz/), in Greek mythology, is the Olympian god of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and
..... Click the link for more information.

Gadfly can refer to:

Gadfly, a type of fly typically belonging to either the family Tabanidae (Horse-fly) or Oestridae (Botfly)
Gadfly (database), a relational database in the Python programming language
The Gadfly

..... Click the link for more information.

Egypt in the Western imagination has loomed large from the very first written texts in the Greek and Hebrew traditions. Egypt was already immemorially ancient to outsiders, and the idea of Egypt as a figment of the Western imagination has continued to be at least as influential in
..... Click the link for more information.

Belus in Latin or Belos in Greek transliteration is one of:

People and deities

Ba‘al: a title ("lord") in northwest Semitic languages, often applied to particular gods.

..... Click the link for more information.

Cadmus, or Kadmos (Greek: Κάδμος), in Greek mythology, was the son of Agenor and the brother of Phoenix, Cilix and Europa. He is the grandfather of the Greek god Dionysus, through his daughter Semele.
..... Click the link for more information.

For the butterfly genus, see Danaus (genus).

Danaus, or Danaos ("sleeper") was a Greek mythological character, twin brother of Aegyptus son of Achiroe and Belus, a mythical king of Egypt.
..... Click the link for more information.

Inachus (Greek:Ίναχος, Inakhos) personified the Inachus River, the modern Panitsa that drains the western margin of the Argive plain.
..... Click the link for more information.

In the Olympian pantheon of classical Greek Mythology, Hera, (Greek Ήρα, IPA pronunciation [ˈhiːrə]; or Here (
..... Click the link for more information.

..... Click the link for more information.

Autochthon may mean:

Autochthon, the original inhabitants (indigenous peoples) of a place
Autochthonous language, the language of an indigenous people
Autochthonous church, the indigenous church of a people

..... Click the link for more information.

Argolis (Greek, Modern: Αργολίδα Argolida, Ancient/Katharevousa: Ἀργολίς—still the official, formal name) is one of the fifty-one prefectures of Greece.
..... Click the link for more information.

In Greek mythology, the Naiads (from the Greek νάειν, "to flow," and νἃμα, "running water") were a type of nymph who presided over fountains, wells, springs, streams, and brooks, as river gods embodied rivers, and some very
..... Click the link for more information.

Ovid

Ovid as imagined in the Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493.
Born: March 20, 43 BC
Sulmo
Died: 17 AD
Tomis
Occupation: Poet
Influences: Dante Alighieri, Geoffrey Chaucer, John Milton, William Shakespeare

..... Click the link for more information.

Metamorphoses by the Roman poet Ovid is a narrative poem in fifteen books that describes the creation and history of the world, drawing from Greek and Roman mythological traditions.
..... Click the link for more information.

Aeschylus (Greek: Αἰσχύλος, IPA: /ˈɛskələs/ or
..... Click the link for more information.

Prometheus Bound

Vulcan Chaining Promethus by Dirck van Baburen
Written by Aeschylus
Chorus Oceanids
Characters Cratus
Bia
Hephaestus
Prometheus
Oceanus
Io
Hermes

Prometheus Bound is an Ancient Greek tragedy.
..... Click the link for more information.

Lerna^[1] was a region of springs and a former lake near the east coast of the Peloponnesus, south of Argos. It is most famous as the lair of the Lernaean Hydra, the chthonic many-headed water snake, a creature of great antiquity when Heracles killed it, as .
..... Click the link for more information.

Heifer may refer to:

A young cow (as in female cattle) before she has had her first calf
Red Heifer, in Judaism is a heifer that is sacrificed and whose ashes are used for the ritual purification.

..... Click the link for more information.

Temenos (τέμενος [1] , from the Greek verb τέμνω
..... Click the link for more information.

A Heraion refers to a temple dedicated to the Greek goddess Hera; several temples of Antiquity, beginning with the Heraion of Samos, were dedicated to Hera. They are dispersed in the Mediterranean Basin and in the Near East:

..... Click the link for more information.

Sea of Marmara (Turkish: Marmara Denizi, Greek: Θάλασσα του Μαρμαρά or Προποντίς, Bulgarian:
..... Click the link for more information.

Io (mythology)

Notes

See also

External links

People and deities