Prometheus Bound, 3

Io arrives, in her form of a cow and followed, as always, by a stinging fly.  Another victim of Zeus (or the Olympians-- possibly Hera), she approaches Prometheus and asks where she is.  He tells her, and tells how he came to be shackled to the mountain.  Io asks how long she will be made to suffer, but Prometheus doesn't have the heart to tell her.

The Nymphs ask for her story, which Io tells.  In dreams, she was tempted to go to the bed of Zeus.  When her father Inachus learned the meaning of the dreams, he banished her from the house.  With nowhere else to turn, she went to Zeus.  After, she was transformed into the cow, and followed by the giant Argus.  Hera, though, killed Argus and replaced him with the wasp. 

Prometheus then tells her where her wanderings and sufferings will take her next.  She will go on a long, harrowing journey through faraway lands, rivers, and mountains.  Io cries out in distress, but Prometheus is just getting started.  And he tells her that her suffering is nothing compared to his own, which will only come to an end at the fall of Zeus.  He finally gives details, saying it will be at the hand of his own son, who will also be a descendant of Io.  Io starts asking too many questions, but Prometheus agrees to tell her the rest of her fate.  (To the Nymphs, he will reveal the remaining details of Zeus's overthrow and his own escape.)

Io will continue her journey across Asia, through lands of monsters-- including Gorgons and Griffins-- finally settling and founding a colony.  To prove that he knows of what he speaks, Prometheus accurately describes the journey that has brought her to him.  Going further, he predicts that Io will finally be restored by Zeus, and will bear a son, Epaphus.  Five generations later, a group of females will flee from their arranged marriages, and instead kill their betrothed-- all except one, who would choose "The lesser of two woes: Name of coward rather than of killer."  From her descendants would be born the man who will free Prometheus.

Io, stung again, departs.

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The world is a rough place.