CHAPTER X. MYTHS OF THE GREAT DIVINITIES OF HEAVEN. 1. MYTHS OF JUPITER AND JUNO. $ 57. Not a few of the adventures of Jupiter turn upon his love affairs. Among the immortals, his queen had rivals in his affection for instance, Latona, a goddess of darkness, daughter of the Titans Cous : immortals but with mortals were Jupiter's relations sometimes of a dubious character. His devotion to the beautiful daughters of men involved him in frequent altercations with his justly jealous spouse. Of his fondness for Danaë, whom he approached in a shower of gold, particulars are given in the story of her son Perseus; of his love for Alcmene, the granddaughter of that Perseus, we are informed in the myths of her son Hercules; and of his attentions to Leda, whom he wooed in guise of a swan, we learn in the accounts of their children Pollux and Helen. Other love passages, upon which narratives depend, concern Io, Callisto, Europa, Semele, Ægina, and Antiope. § 59. Io1 was of divine ancestry. Her father was the river-god Inachus, son of Oceanus. It is said that Juno, one day, perceiving the skies suddenly overcast, surmised that her husband had raised a cloud to hide some escapade. She brushed away the darkness, and saw him, on the banks of a glassy river, with a beautiful heifer standing near. Juno suspected, with reason, that the heifer's form concealed some fair nymph of mortal mould. It was Io, whom Jupiter, when he became aware of the approach of his wife, had changed into that form. The ox-eyed goddess joined her husband, noticed the heifer, praised its beauty, and asked whose it was, and of what herd. Jupiter, to stop questions, replied that it was a fresh creation from the earth. Juno begged it as a gift. What could the king of gods and men do? He was loath to surrender his sweetheart to his wife; yet how refuse so trifling a present as a heifer? He could not, without exciting suspicion; and he, therefore, consented. The goddess delivered the heifer to Argus, to be strictly watched. Now Argus had a hundred eyes in his head, and never went 1 Ovid, Metam. 1:700 et seq. |