So, here's an interesting thing about Ovid:
despite being an incredibly popular poet around the turn of the 0th millennium,
Ovid was exiled by emperor Augustus for somewhat unclear reasons that might have involved
criticizing his controversial marriage laws and also banging his daughter
and perhaps because of this Ovid's work has a very noticeable anti-authoritarian bent to it.
It's hard to spot unless you have access to the earlier versions of the myths he retells, but for example
maybe most notoriously
his telling of the story of Perseus and Medusa is *wildly* different than any prior citation of Medusa's origins.
Rather famously Ovid cites Medusa's a victim of two atrocities,
first her assault by Poseidon in the temple of Athena, and second
her transformation by Athena into a horrifying monster as punishment for
being... assaulted.
This telling is so popular that to this day
people are still arguing over whether Athena did a cool feminist thing by making
Medusa immune to being assaulted
or if she did an evil unfeminist thing by victim blaming her so hard her face turned inside out.
This entire argument is dumb because Ovid made it up.
Right up until the Metamorphosis was published, Gorgon Medusa was characterized
as a bona fide monster from birth till death. One of three Gorgon sisters and the daughter
of primordial ocean deities Phorcus and Ceto who are also responsible for lovely
individuals like Echidna, a giant snake woman whose primary claim to fame in the mythos is spawning off
every monster ever by mating with the ancient Greek equivalent of Godzilla.
So yeah, Medusa as "tragic victim"?
Nice piece of creative writing from Ovid, but really not... based on anything.
But by providing Medusa with a back story like that
He transforms the narrative from "Gods aid heroes in slaying monsters" to "Gods toy with the lives of men-"
well
usually women actually...
and wreak horrifying collateral damage as a consequence
and like I mentioned in the Arachne video
Athena's motives for turning Arachne into a spider are painted by Ovid as being distractingly selfish and jealous
which really doesn't jibe with her broader characterization.
In short, Ovid has a well-documented habit of playing up the tragedy of powerless mortals being
jerked around and abused by an uncaring pantheon full of assholes even when that doesn't necessarily
jibe with the source material he has to work with.
But there's one flavor of Greek myth where Ovid's hot takes work really really well,
and that's every story where Zeus and Hera inadvertently conspire to ruin some poor woman's life.
So today let's talk about Io and how she got stuck in the worst custody battle ever.
So our story begins as so many do, with a beautiful woman minding her own business
when Zeus abruptly takes it into his head that she's the one true love of his life.
When the woman in question, Io as it turns out,
sees the Lord of the Skies appear before her in a crackling blaze of divine glory and orders her to follow
him into the dark spooky woods so they can have sex,
she does the smart thing and runs away before he finishes the elevator pitch.
Unfortunately for Io this doesn't do her much good as Zeus conjures up a discreet cover of storm clouds
and chases her down to uhh...
Yeah.
Yep, real cool of you Zeus...
Dick.
But meanwhile up in Olympus, Hera notices the suspicious mass of storm clouds
covering up an otherwise innocuous patch of Greece and decides to check it out.
What she finds is a very innocent looking Zeus and a *very* unhappy cow.
The cow is, unsurprisingly, Io,
who Zeus has cunningly transformed in the hopes that Hera wouldn't possibly think he'd be having sex with
an animal, because apparently Zeus has the self-awareness of a stumped tailed Macaque.
Unfortunately for Zeus, Hera knows him a little too well and upon observing the unhappy bovine
she declares it an absolutely beautiful cow and kindly requests that Zeus give it to her as a gift.
Zeus, recognizing that denying his wife an extremely ordinary cow would look very suspicious, agrees
and Hera leads Io off to her pastures and places her under guard
to make sure Zeus doesn't try any funny business.
The guard in question is Argos
a giant with a hundred eyes and the power to only sleep with two of them at a time
letting him be constantly vigilant with the other ninety-eight.
So Io is well-fed, decently cared for, and largely allowed to wander where she wants
but she's still a cow and is unsurprisingly miserable
what with the eating grass and sleeping in the dirt and being
deprived of her very humanity by the selfish machinations of the world's most powerful man-child.
She manages to track down her father, the River God Inachus, and while she obviously can't talk
she writes out her sorry condition in the dirt and Inachus freaks out that this poor sad cow is his missing daughter.
Argos lead Io away to graze on a distant mountain,
but by this point Zeus is feeling *really* bad about Io's situation
and can't help but feel the teensiest bit responsible for her predicament.
So he calls on Hermes and asks him to free Io from Argus's watch
and Hermes straps on his winged sandals, grabs his helmet, steals a herd of goats for the road
and pops down to earth disguised as a humble Shepherd playing a sweet melody on some pan pipes.
Argos is intrigued by the instrument and invites the innocuous shepherd over to chat.
After regaling him with the long and boring tale of the panpipes creation, Hermes gradually manages
to lull Argos to sleep and after using a little caduceus magic to make sure he stays that way,
Hermes seals the deal by cutting off Argus's head.
But Hera is furious.
...at Io for some reason.
So after first immortalizing Argos by placing his eyes on the tail of her peacock
she sends a fury after Io to relentlessly chase her down and torment her.
Io is chased all over the Mediterranean during which time she bumps into the captured Prometheus
who raises her spirits slightly by prophesizing that she'll return to her true form
and also be the ancestor of the greatest heroes of all time,
and she also gives birth to a daughter in Thrace named Keroessa who eventually
goes on to have a son with Poseidon, who in turn goes on to found the city of Byzantium.
(nifty!)
Eventually Io is driven to the banks of the Nile River, where she tips over, and Zeus begs Hera to let Io go
and swears on the Styx that he won't try any more weird sex stuff with her.
Hera relents, recalls the fury, and Io returns to her true human form.
Io gets a lovely and well-earned happily ever after as she marries an Egyptian king,
gives birth to a son named Epaphus, is widely worshipped as a God,
and never has to deal with Zeus again.
Also Prometheus's prophecy comes true several generations down the line with the birth of Heracles.
Io's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson.
Wwwwwworth it!
♩ And you see me ♩
♩ somebody new ♩
♩ I'm not that chained up little person still in love with you ♩
♩ And so you felt like dropping in and just expect me to be free ♩
♩ Well now I'm saving all my loving for someone who's loving me go on now go ♩
♩ Walk out the door ♩
♩ Just turn around now ♩
♩ cause you're not welcome anymore ♩