ven
heads, called Hydra, which was slain by Hercules, had made his
haunt. It is not improbable that the pestilential vapors of this
spot were got rid of by means of its being drained under the
superintendence of Hercules, on which fact the story was founded.
Some commentators, however, suppose the Lerna to have been a
flowing stream.]

EXPLANATION.

The Greeks frequently embellished their mythology with narratives of
Phoenician or Egyptian origin. The story of Io probably came from
Egypt. Isis was one of the chief divinities of that country, and her
worship naturally passed, with their colonies, into foreign countries.
Greece received it when Inachus went to settle there, and in lapse of
time Isis, under the name of Io, was supposed to have been his
daughter, and the fable was invented which is here narrated by Ovid.

The Greek authors, Apollodorus, Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, and
Pausanias, say that Io was the daughter of Inachus, the first king of
Argos; that Jupiter carried her away to Crete; and that by her he had
a son named Epaphus, who went to reign in Egypt, whither his mother
accompanied him. They also tell us that she married Apis, or Osiris,
who, after his death, was numbered among the Deities of Egypt by the
name of Serapis. From them we also learn that Juno, being actuated by
jealousy, on the discovery of the intrigue, put Io under the care of
her uncle Argus, a man of great vigilance, but that Jupiter having
slain him, placed his mistress on board of a vessel which had the
figure of a cow at its head; from which circumstance arose the story
of the transformation of Io. The Greek writers also state, that the
Bosphorus, a part of the AEgean sea, derived its name from the passage
of Io in the shape of a cow.

FABLE XIV. [I.601-688]

Jupiter, having changed Io into a cow, to conceal her from the
jealousy of Juno, is obliged to give her to that Goddess, who commits
her to the charge of the watchful Argus. Jupiter sends Mercury with an
injunction to cast Argus into a deep sleep, and to take away his life.

In the meantime Juno looked down upon the midst of the fields, and
wondering that the fleeting clouds had made the appearance of night
under bright day, she perceived that they were not {the vapors} from a
river, nor were they raised from the moist earth, and {then} she looked
around {to see} where her husband was, as being one