rooked sword, where the head
is joined to the neck; and casts him, all blood-stained, from the rock,
and stains the craggy cliff with his gore.

Argus, thou liest low, and the light which thou hadst in so many eyes is
{now} extinguished; and one night takes possession of a {whole} hundred
eyes. The daughter of Saturn takes them, and places them on the feathers
of her own bird, and she fills its tail with starry gems.

[Footnote 109: _The Cyllenian God._--Ver. 713. Mercury is so
called from Cyllene, in Arcadia, where he was born.]

[Footnote 110: _That his sight was wrapped._--Ver. 714. Clarke
translates 'Adopertaque lumina somno,' 'and his peepers covered
with sleep.']

EXPLANATION.

The ancient writers, Asclepiades and Pherecydes, tell us, that Argus
was the son of Arestor. He is supposed by some to have been the fourth
king of Argos after Inachus, and to have been a person of great wisdom
and penetration, on account of which he was said to have a hundred
eyes. Io most probably was committed to his charge, and he watched
over her with the greatest care.

It is impossible to divine the reason why his eyes were said to have
been set by Juno in the tail of the peacock; though, perhaps, the
circumstance has no other foundation than the resemblance of the human
eye to the spots in the tail of that bird, which was consecrated to
Juno. Besides, if Juno is to be considered the symbol of Air, or
AEther, through which light is transmitted to us, it is not surprising
that the ancients bestowed so many eyes upon the bird which was
consecrated to her.

FABLE XVII. [I.724-779]

Io, terrified and maddened with dreadful visions, runs over many
regions, and stops in Egypt, when Juno, at length, being pacified,
restores her to her former shape, and permits her to be worshipped
there, under the name of Isis.

Immediately, she was inflamed with rage, and deferred not the time of
{expressing} her wrath; and she presented a dreadful Fury before the
eyes and thoughts of the Argive mistress,[111] and buried in her bosom
invisible stings, and drove her, in her fright, a wanderer through the
whole earth. Thou, O Nile, didst remain, as the utmost boundary of her
long wanderings. Soon as she arrived there, she fell upon her knees,
placed on the edge of the bank, and raising herself up, with her neck
thrown back, and casting to Heaven those looks which then alone she
could, by