INTRODUCTION
that the transformation was θεόσσυτος, wrought by no earthly power. It is at any rate Hera who sends the gadfly, which now drives Io over the world (ll. 592, 601, 900). What part Zeus plays in this is not clear, or why, if he recognises Io in her new shape, he does not interfere, since his passion has not yet been gratified. He is spoken of as the author of Io's miseries (l. 759), and reproached with causing them (l. 736): but it must rather be by being selfishly indifferent to them, so long as his own object is attained, that he is responsible for them. It was also, of course, Hera (though the play does not say so) who set Argos to watch lo in her cow shape. Argos was one of the monstrous creatures which, like Typhoeus, sprang from the womb of Gaia. Aeschylus at any rate follows the view that makes him a son of Earth (ll. 567, 677, cf, Supplices, 305). His monstrosity consisted in his having eyes all over his body. The charge laid upon him was to watch Io straitly, so that Zeus might have no communication with her. Zeus accordingly sent Hermes to kill him. Since the abnormal
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