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METAMORPHOSES BOOK I

which alone she could raise, to the high stars, and with groans and tears and agonized mooings she seemed to voice her griefs to Jove and to beg him to end her woes. Thereupon Jove threw his arms about his spouse's neck, and begged her at last to end her vengeance, saying: "Lay aside all fear for the future; she shall never be source of grief to you again"; and he called upon the Stygian pools to witness his oath.

The goddess's wrath is soothed; Io gains back he former looks, and becomes what she was before. The rough hair falls away from her body, her horns disappear, her great round eyes grow smaller, her gaping mouth is narrowed, her shoulders and her hands come back, and the hoofs are gone, being changed each into five nails. No trace of the heifer is left in her save only the fair whiteness of her body. And now the nymph, able at last to stand upon two feet, stands erect; yet fears to speak, lest she moo in the heifer's way, and with fear and trembling she resumes her long-abandoned speech.

Now, with fullest service, she is worshipped as a goddess by the linen-robed throng. A son, Epaphus, was born to her, thought to have sprung at length from the seed of mighty Jove, and throughout the cities dwelt in temples with his mother. He had a companion of like mind and age named Phaëthon, child of the Sun. When this Phaëthon was once speaking proudly, and refused to give way to him, boasting that Phoebus was his father, the grandson of Inachus rebelled and said: "You are a fool to believe all your mother tells you, and are swelled up with false notions about your father." Phaëthon grew red with rage, but repressed his anger through very shame and carried Epaphus' insulting taunt straight to his mother, Clymene. "And that you