HOMECreate-Your-Own-Myth
What the Greeks thought:
Okay! Now you’ve told us how you think the peacock came to have so many eyes on its tail! But what was the reason the Greeks came up with? Read this!
Zeus, Hera’s husband, had many other wives, and Hera was jealous of them. She was so jealous that once, when she spied a small black thundercloud in the otherwise blue sky she immediately guessed that Zeus was inside the cloud with one of his other wives. She darted into the cloud expecting to see Zeus and his newest wife, but instead, she found Zeus sitting with a snow-white cow! He had tricked her by turning his newest wife, Io, into a cow to protect her from Hera’s wrath when he saw her coming.
Unfortunately, Hera wasn’t fooled. She pretended to suspect nothing, but begged Zeus to let her keep the little white cow. Zeus, who didn’t know that Hera had guessed who the cow was, granted her request. He didn’t want to arouse Hera’s suspicions.
Hera took the cow and tied it to a tree and sent her servant, Argus, to watch over it. Argus had 100 eyes placed all over his body, and he only closed half of them in sleep. Io looked up to the heavens for Zeus’s help, but he was too afraid of Hera to help her. Finally, he sent Hermes to go to Earth and set Io free.
Hermes disguised himself as a shepherd and walked toward Argus playing a tune on his shepherd’s pipe. Argus was glad for the company and listened, tired. Then Hermes began to tell a long, boring, story with no end, and 50 of Argus’ eyes closed in sleep. Slowly, the other 50 eyes followed suit, and Hermes quickly touched all of the eyes with his wand to close them forever in eternal sleep.
Hera grew angry! Argus had been her best servant - and now he was dead! She grew even more enraged at the fact that Io had been untied. She knew that Zeus was behind it, but she couldn’t do anything against him. Still, she could punish Io! Hera sent a gadfly to bite and sting the cow-girl, pleased to see that this caused Io to run from the fly begging Zeus for help. She went all the way to Egypt!
In remembrance of her servant, she took his 100 eyes and placed them on the tail of a peacock. From then on, this bird has had 100 beautiful eyes upon its tail!