Inachus did, indeed, stroke her shimmering flank and proffer her leaves plucked from a bush growing near by. But when the heifer licked his hand in gratitude, and covered it with kisses and human tears, the old man still did not guess whom he had caressed, nor who had returned his caresses. At last the poor girl, whose mind had suffered no change along with her form, had a happy thought. With her hoof she began to trace written symbols in the sand, and soon her father, whose attention had been attracted to this curious behavior, deciphered the news that his own child stood before him.

“What misery!” exclaimed the old man, as he clung to the horns and neck of his moaning daughter. “Must I find you like this, you whom I have looked for the world over! Alas, I grieved less when I was seeking you than now that I have found you. You are silent? Can you give me no word of comfort, but only low? Fool that I was! All my thoughts were bent upon choosing a son-in-law worthy of you, and now you are like those who run in a herd …” Inachus could not finish his lament, for Argus, the cruel watchman, snatched Io from her father and dragged her far away to a solitary pasture. Then he himself climbed to the peak of a mountain and performed his office by peering to the four corners of the world with his hundred wary eyes.

And now Zeus could no longer endure the sorrows of Io. He summoned his dear son Hermes and commanded him to trick hated Argus into closing his eyes. Hermes bound his winged sandals to his feet, grasped in his strong hand the staff which scatters sleep, and put on his travelling cap. In this raiment he left his father’s house and sped down to earth. There he laid aside his cap and wings and kept only his staff, so that he looked like a shepherd with his crook. He coaxed a flock of wild goats to follow him and went to the lonely meadow where Io was nibbling the young blades under the stare of the ever-watchful Argus. Then Hermes drew forth a shepherd’s pipe, called a syrinx, and began to sound notes more full and sweet than mortal herdsmen play.

Hera’s servant, pleased with the unexpected music, rose from his lofty seat and called down: “Whoever you may be, most welcome piper, come and rest on this rock with me. You will find no thicker or greener grass for your beasts, and that clump of close-growing trees offers pleasant shade to the herd.”

Hermes thanked Argus and clambered up beside him. He began to speak, and his talk was so lively and beguiling that the hours passed unnoticed. Those hundred lids grew heavy, and now Hermes fingered his reed and thought to put Argus to sleep with his playing. But Io’s guard feared the anger of his mistress, should he slacken his watchfulness, and fought his desire for sleep to the extent of keeping at least part of his eyes open. With a great effort he marshalled his drowsy wits and, since the reed pipe was something new, asked his companion its origin.

“I shall be glad to tell you,” said Hermes, “if you have the patience to listen at this late hour. In the snow-covered hills of Arcadia lived a famous hamadryad called Syrinx. The woodland gods and satyrs were charmed with her loveliness and wooed her ardently, but again and again she eluded their pursuit, for she feared the yoke of marriage. Like Artemis with her girdle, Artemis, lover of the chase, she was loath to give up her maidenhood. Finally the great god Pan saw the nymph as he was roaming the forest and began to court her insistently, though with the proud bearing the knowledge of his own majesty gave him. But him too she spurned and fled through pathless wilderness until she came to the sandy river Ladon, whose waters were just deep enough to block her crossing. She hesitated on the bank and implored her sisters, the nymphs, to take pity upon her and change her form before the god overtook her. Just then he came and clasped her in his arms, but to his great astonishment he found himself holding a reed instead of a maiden. His deep sighs entered the reed, were multiplied in passage, and echoed their own sound in mournful murmurs. The magic of these notes soothed the bereft god’s anguish. ‘So be it, O Loveliness transformed,’ he cried in pain and delight. ‘Even so we shall be united and nothing can ever part us.’ Then he cut himself reeds of various lengths, joined them with wax, and named his flute for the fair hamadryad. Ever since that time we have called the shepherd’s pipe syrinx …”

This was the tale of the messenger of the gods, and never did he turn his gaze from Argus in the telling.