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To: Then why your reluctance to tell me all?
Prometheus: I would tell, but I shrink to crush your heart.
To: Such indulgence now delights me not.

Prometheus: Your anguish forces me to speak.

Chorus: No, not yet, grant me too a share of what I desire;
let us first inquire her distress of the virgin herself, and
the cause of her many calamaties; then you describe her
toils to come.

Prometheus: Io, in your own concern you should show them
this courtesy, particularly since they are your father’s sis-
ters; furthermore, to weep and wail over Fate’s hard trials
when one is sure to wring a tear from the listeners, is worth
the while.

Io: How is it possible I may refuse you? Everything you
wish to learn I shal teli you truthfully. I shall disclose the
very source of the woes which heaven hurtled down to mar my
maiden countenance. Yet just the utterance of them sends
over me a flush of shame. Visions ever roamed at night around
my maiden chamber, pleading with seductive arguments
and saying: “daughter of great fortune, you cherish maiden-
hood too long, for there is waiting for you marriage with
Zeus on high, who, overcome by love, desires you mightily.
Spurn not the bed of Zeus, child, pass down to Lerna’s
meadowland and pastures deep where your father’s
flocks of cattle brouse, that the sight he seeks may
lighten Zeus of longing.” Night after might I was trou-
bled by these visiting dreams, until at last my anguish bade
me tell Inachus of the phantoms in my sleep. Thereupon, am-
bassadors, shrewd and practiced, he sent forth to holy Py-
tho and Dodona, that he might learn what deed or word would
win him favor with the gods. These brought reports of ora-