5T

as I muse, sitting through your sessions with fate and ruin,
a new and differing tune does come suddenly steaiing over
me, so unlike the woeful one; a melody I sang when you wed,
about your bridal bed and bath, when my sister you won,,
Hesione, and down the path I led a dance of nuptial joyance..
(1o enters from below, weaving slightly to the agitated rhythm
of the verse. The appearance of Io horned like a heifer, punished
by incessant roaming, contrasts with the immobile figure of
the Titan, like the ceaseless perturbation of the sea washing:
against the inflexible rock.)

Io: What land is this, what people? Who is he whom I see:
blasted, bound, by rocky bonds? Tell me why you lie pros--
trate beneath the sky? What crime atone? What have you
done? Let me know to what far land I hit upon roaming,
despised, alone. O more misery! Again I feei the gadfly’s:
sting. Save me, land, O send away this spectre of earth-born
Argus. Fear creeps over me, for look—how the thousand--
eyed herdsman hovers, pursuing me with his crafty stare.
Though he is dead no earth can cover him. He passed from:
among the shades beiow to harry me here, the wretched one,
the woebegone, and to and fro he drives me aiong thesandy
shore.

And the wax-compact reed shrills hypnotic notes. Whither
lead, O whither, my random and rambling wanderings?
Wherein O Cronus’ son, wherein have I erred and why have
you yoked me in misertes? Why do you degrade and terrify
a poor deranged maid with the goad of the gadfly? Bury me
below ground or consume me with fire, throw me to sea mon-
sters, let me be devoured, but disdain not me supplicant,
king, else I, fleeing pain, will forever be roaming,.

Chorus: Did you hear the heifer-horned maiden call?