the land on
the other side looked as though she might find rest there, she leaped
into the waves and swam across; and that place has been called
Bosphorus--a word which means the Sea of the Cow--from that time till
now, and you will find it so marked on the maps which you use at school.
Then she went on through a strange land on the other side, but, let her
do what she would, she could not get rid of the gadfly.

After a time she came to a place where there were high mountains with
snow-capped peaks which seemed to touch the sky. There she stopped to
rest a while; and she looked up at the calm, cold cliffs above her and
wished that she might die where all was so grand and still. But as she
looked she saw a giant form stretched upon the rocks midway between
earth and sky, and she knew at once that it was Prometheus, the young
Titan, whom Jupiter had chained there because he had given fire to men.

"My sufferings are not so great as his," she thought; and her eyes were
filled with tears.

Then Prometheus looked down and spoke to her, and his voice was very
mild and kind.

"I know who you are," he said; and then he told her not to lose hope,
but to go south and then west, and she would by and by find a place in
which to rest.

She would have thanked him if she could; but when she tried to speak she
could only say, "Moo! moo!"

Then Prometheus went on and told her that the time would come when she
should be given her own form again, and that she should live to be the
mother of a race of heroes. "As for me," said he, "I bide the time in
patience, for I know that one of those heroes will break my chains and
set me free. Farewell!"

Then Io, with a brave heart, left the great Titan and journeyed, as he
had told her, first south and then west. The gadfly was worse now than
before, but she did not fear it half so much, for her heart was full of
hope. For a whole year she wandered, and at last she came to the land of
Egypt in Africa. She felt so tired now that she could go no farther, and
so she lay down near the bank of the great River Nile to rest.

All this time Jupiter might have helped her had he not been so much
afraid of Juno. But now it so chanced that when the poor cow lay down by
the bank of the Nile, Queen Juno, in her high house in the clouds, also
lay down to take a nap. As soon as she was sound asleep, Jupiter like a
flash of light sped over the sea to Egypt. He killed the cruel gadfly
and threw it into t