But at the last to Inachus there came
A peremptory word, with mandate clear,
To cast me from my country and my home,
At the world’s end a wanderer far from men;
And, if he would not, swift from Zeus should come
A fiery bolt that should consume his race.[[20]]
With sorrowful heart, Inachus obeyed the oracular command, constrained thereto by Zeus. Io was driven out to the pastures of her father’s herds.
Then was my feature changed, my reason fled:
Wearing these horns ye see, with frenzied hounds,
Pricked and tormented by the gadfly’s sting,