Juno

Callisto hunted with Artemis and wore the same clothing as the goddess. She had sworn to remain a virgin. Zeus desired her and forced himself upon her. He took the form of Artemis in one telling, and Apollo in another, so that Hera would not discover what had happened.

Artemis later saw that Callisto was pregnant. In the telling where Callisto joined the goddess at a spring, Artemis ordered her attendants to remove Callisto’s clothes. Her pregnancy was revealed, and Artemis expelled her from the company. Hera learned of the affair and waited until Callisto gave birth to a son, whom she and Jupiter called Arcas. Then Hera confronted Callisto. She accused her of bearing Jupiter’s child and changed her into a bear.

Callisto kept the same thoughts after the change. She sighed and raised her bear’s paws towards the starry sky, since she could no longer speak. She feared the wild places where she had once hunted. She hid from other bears, wolves, hunters, and barking hounds, even though her father remained among the wolves. She forgot her own nature and trembled whenever she saw another bear.

Arcas was given to Maia, who brought him up in Arcadia. Later, he met the bear without knowing that she was his mother. He prepared to strike her, but Jupiter stopped him. Jupiter carried them both through the air and placed them among the stars as neighbouring constellations near the Pole. When Juno saw Callisto shining beside her husband, she went in anger to Tethys and Oceanus, whom the gods honoured. Callisto then remained in the northern sky, beyond Juno’s reach.

Jupiter desired Io, the daughter of Inachus and a priestess of Juno. To hide her from Juno, he touched her and changed her into a white cow. Juno saw through the trick and asked Jupiter to give her the animal. He handed Io over, and Juno placed her under the guard of Argus Panoptes.

Argus tethered Io to an olive tree in Juno’s grove. His hundred eyes watched her in turns. When two eyes slept, the others remained open, so he never lost sight of her. Juno trusted him to prevent Jupiter from taking Io back.

Jupiter sent Mercury to rescue Io. Mercury approached Argus and played music on his lyre. The sound made the giant’s eyes close one by one until all of them slept. Mercury then killed Argus, cut off his head, and released Io. In one telling, he crushed Argus with a boulder. In another, he killed him after charming him with a flute.

Juno mourned her sentinel and placed Argus’s eyes in the tail of a peacock. She then sent a gadfly to torment Io. The insect stung her and drove her across the earth. Io fled first to Dodona, then reached the sea that took the name Ionian after her, before turning north towards Mount Haemus.

Juno took the shape of Beroe, Semele’s old nurse, and went to the mortal woman. Semele was a beautiful princess and the daughter of Cadmus, king of Phoenicia. Jupiter had fallen in love with her and had met her in secret. Juno hated her and planned her destruction. She appealed to Semele’s vanity and told her that Jupiter should come to her as he appeared to a goddess. This would prove that he truly loved her and was not pretending to be a god.

Semele believed the false nurse. When Jupiter next came to her, she asked him to grant a favour. He promised to give her whatever she requested and swore by the Styx, whose oath could not be broken by the gods. Semele then asked him to appear before her in all his divine power and majesty, as he appeared when he visited Juno. Jupiter tried to stop her from completing the request, but she had already spoken. He could not withdraw his oath.

Jupiter armed himself with his three-forked mace and entered Semele’s chamber in a chariot, with lightning and thunder around him. Semele’s mortal body could not withstand the force of his divine appearance. She died in the flames and in Jupiter’s arms. Jupiter took the unborn child from her body, although it had not reached its full time, and sewed him into his thigh. When the time of birth came, he opened the stitches and brought the child forth. The twice-born child was Dionysus.

Jupiter gave Dionysus to Hermes. Hermes took him to Ino and Athamas and persuaded them to raise him as a girl. Ino hid him for a while, and the nymphs of Nysa later sheltered him in their homes and fed him with milk until he grew old enough to be seen among men.