My friends, as you may know, the Greeks revered Hermes as the messenger of the gods, for he was a master orator who could make golden the harshest commands of the high Olympians. But Hermes was a god of many talents, often called upon to repair the wreckage and ruin left in the wake of love and war. When Protosilaus perished on the Trojan shores, it was Hermes who retrieved him from the underworld so his wife Laodamia could be with him one last time. When a jealous Hera destroyed her rival Semele, it was Hermes who conveyed the infant Dionysus to safety. And when his love for mankind made Prometheus defy Zeus, it was Hermes who chained Prometheus to the rock. These tasks earned him the traditional reward for a task well done: another task.
Thus it was that one day Zeus his father summoned Hermes to Olympus and commanded him to retrieve Io, daughter of Inachus of Thessaly and the latest of Zeus's paramours. Zeus had turned her into a white cow to conceal her from Hera, but the Queen of Heaven, rightly suspecting her husband up to no good, demanded he make her a gift of this paragon of livestock. Hera tied the cow to one of her sacred trees, and put her under the watchful eyes of Argus.
Now Argus was a giant with a hundred eyes, only two of which were closed for sleep. A great hero, such as Perseus or Achilles, might have prevailed against the giant, but only after such a battle as would devastate all of Thessaly. More, the clamor of arms would alert Hera, who would be certain to take Io elsewhere.
Hermes first thought was to steal Io, as he had once stolen the cattle of Apollo. But the watchful Argus seized him.
"LITTLE THIEF, YOU MAY TELL ME YOUR NAME BEFORE I KILL YOU."
"I'm the god Hermes. I'm immortal, so you can't actually kill me."
"AND IF I RIP YOUR ARMS AND LEGS OFF?"
"Let's start over...I'm the god Hermes, son of Zeus and Maia...good friend of Dionysus. In fact, he's just finished a nice batch of wine; what say we drop by, have a few drinks and---"
"I AM ARGUS PANOPTES, THE SLAYER OF ECHIDNA! WHO HAVE YOU SLAIN, THAT YOU THINK YOU ARE WORTHY TO DRINK WITH ME!"
"Ah...since you've put it that way. I've an even better idea. I know this glen where the nymphs and naiads there would be, you know, all over a man like you, so well endowed with...eyes. And---"
"YOU TALK TOO MUCH! IMMORTAL GOD, I WILL CHAIN YOU TO A ROCK AND DAILY RIP THE TONGUE FROM YOUR HEAD! HAVE YOU ANY FINAL WORDS TO SAY?"
"Ah...I'd like to recite the thirteen books of Euclid's Elements of Geometry. `A point is that which has no part...', ah, no? Then how about some music?" Hermes pulled out his syrinx, those that are called the panflutes, and began to play a sweet, lilting melody. After a time, Argus's eyes began to droop, and one by one they shut. When the last eye shut, Hermes, mindful of the threat made to him by the giant, drew his sword and hacked off the head of Argus.
Thus Io was freed, and eventually returned to human form. Hera was enraged by the slaying of Argus, but could do little more than take his eyes and place them on her favored bird, the peacock. Hermes continued to perform tasks small and great, and in the fullness of time his descendants would include the most greatest of the Greek heroes: Odysseus the Cunning. But that is a story for another day.
These are all straight from classical mythology. One of the more surprising pieces of the Hermes mythology is his record of thefts (it's one of the reasons that we have the term hermetic seal: so tight that even air is contained, and thus Hermes himself couldn't steal what was inside.
I think this is an important point. After all, why send Hermes to do the job?
This is my invention. In the Metamorphoses, Mercury (remember Ovid was a Roman) is ordered to kill Argus, and Io is incidental. But this task seems so out of character for the god (again, he's not the giant-killing type), while he did have great renown as a thief. So why not have him think to steal Io first, and kill Argus as a last resort.
All right, it's a cheap joke. One of the first people to hear this story described it as Greek mythology meets Loony Tunes...and you know, I think that's what I was aiming for.
Echidna was half-woman, half-snake, and the mother of several monsters, including the hydra.
A reference to Prometheus's fate. Several myths (Prometheus, Herakles, Tithonys) have the punchline "Sure, you're immortal...but do you really want to be?"
All right, so it's a Three Stooges joke ("What do you want for your last meal?" "Fresh strawberries!" "But they won't be in season for months!" "No problem; I'll wait..."). But Hermes was the patron deity of the sciences, so it's entirely within his purview. Hey, if I can't joke about math, who can?
In Ovid's version, Mercury actually tells the story of how the syrinx came about. I cut the story for reasons of brevity.
If you're telling this story, this should come as a sharp shock to the audience. Up to this point, Hermes has been the party-boy prankster, and you'd never think him capable of violence. This was actually my major problem with the story in Ovid: in Metamorphoses, Argus hears Mercury playing, and approaches him. The problem is that Mercury then becomes a thug: he puts Argus to sleep, then hacks his head off. "I was just following orders" doesn't play well today.
Hermes "got around" as much as Zeus, with the added advantage of being unmarried, so no one really minded. His children by various mothers included (depending on which source you use) Pan, Priapus, Eros, Hermaphrodite, and Autolycus, the "King of Thieves." Odysseus was one of Autolycus's grandsons. It's worth pointing out that the Greeks admired Odysseus, while the Romans detested him. The reason is simple: Odysseus didn't fight fair; he won by being clever (a trait he obviously picked up from his great-grandfather).
I like this story for several reasons. It's a victory of intelligence over strength. Moreover, the original version has Mercury being a storyteller (he relates the story of Pan and Syrinx) and musician; this makes him a bard. Finally, it's a just-so story: in fact, those who are familiar with the Argus myth will know it as a story about the peacock's fathers.
That being said, I did change a few things to make the story sit better. First, the original doesn't really fit to the theme of Love and War. However, by enhancing certain elements (Hermes role in other myths, for example, every one of which is canonical), it can be made to fit.
The major problem is this: there is literally no reason for Argus to die. After he falls asleep, he's no longer guarding Io, and certainly no threat to Mercury. The only reason Hermes kills Argus is because Zeus told him to, and what happens after Argus dies? Io wanders around, crossing the Bosporus (hence its name, which is the Greek equivalent of Oxford) and ends in Egypt before Zeus deigns to change her back into human form. What this says to me is that the only reason Zeus had Argus killed was to make a point: Don't help Hera.
So I made Argus more of a threat, and cast Hermes in the role of reluctant warrior (my own favorite heroic archetype): he'd planned to do things the "easy way," and given the chance, would have accomplished his task without any bloodshed. But once battle became necessary, he fought to win and used whatever was necessary to ensure that he would be the one standing at the end. Like Odysseus his great-grandson, fighting is the last resort...but it's the final one as well.
For the 2008 Bardic Championships, I'd written the story of Zeus and Callisto, but when I discovered there was a theme, I had to write up the Ballad of El at the last minute. But the material wasn't wasted, and the Zeus and Callisto piece would be my entry for the 2009 Bardic Championships. For 2010, I wanted to do a few pieces with the general theme of "multitalented people." I had a musical piece by Henry VIII, and after some thought, decided I liked the story of Hermes and Argus. But then I discovered that the 2010 Bardic Championships also had a theme: Love and War. The Henry VIII piece (Whereto Should I Express, for those who care) satisfied the love theme, which was good (though in the end, I went with The Farmer and the Gun). Hermes and Argus, on the other hand, is what might be called a trickster tale. Fortunately the story of the General and the Archer came to mind, and so I wrote the following.
Sol la Cantor videotaped the performances, and she has very kindly put them up on YouTube for all to see. So for better or worse, I've been immortalized on video...