LEADER
By Hera's will, a heifer she became.
THE KING OF ARGOS
Held Zeus aloof then from the horned beast?

LEADER
'Tis said, he loved, in semblance of a bull.

THE KING OF ARGOS
And his stern consort, did she aught thereon?

LEADER
One myriad-eyed she set, the heifer's guard.

THE KING OF ARGOS
How namest thou this herdsman many-eyed?

LEADER
Argus, the child of Earth, whom Hermes slew.

THE KING OF ARGOS
Still did the goddess vex the beast ill-starred?

LEADER
She wrought a gadfly with a goading sting.

THE KING OF ARGOS
Thus drave she Io hence, to roam afar?
LEADER
Yea-this thy word coheres exact with mine.

THE KING OF ARGOS
Then to Canopus and to Memphis came she?

LEADER
And by Zeus' hand was touched, and bare a child.

THE KING OF ARGOS

Who vaunts him the Zeus-mated creature's son?
LEADER
Epaphus, named rightly from the saving touch.

THE KING OF ARGOS
And whom in turn did Epaphus beget?
LEADER
Libya, with name of a wide land endowed.

THE KING OF ARGOS
And who from her was born unto the race?

LEADER
Belus: from him two sons, my father one.

THE KING OF ARGOS
Speak now to me his name, this greybeard wise.

LEADER
Danaus; his brother fifty sons begat.
THE KING OF ARGOS
Grudge not, in telling, his name too to tell.

LEADER
Aegyptus: thou my lineage old hast heard-