Pavo


As a constellation of the southern hemisphere Pavo is located between Telescopium to the north and Octans to the south.
Johann Bayer introduced the constellation in Uranometria in 1603, along with a number of other birds; Apus, Grus, Phoenix, and Tucana.
Hera, wife of Zeus and the Queen of the heavens, was an excessively jealous wife. Scholars have traced at least fifty lovers and mistresses to Zeus and Io was one of these lovers. The trouble was, Io was one of Hera's priestesses, and Hera soon discovered the affair. To protect Io from Hera, Zeus transformed her into a cow. Hera was not fooled, and she claimed ownership over the cow, then chose Argus Panoptes to guard the animal. As indicated by its name, Argus Panoptes was "all eyes." The beast had one hundred eyes, which surely should have been sufficient to guard one small cow.
Zeus sent Hermes with the task of rescuing Io. To avoid detection by one of Argus' one hundred eyes, Hermes charmed the monster with a flute when it was fast asleep, then threw a huge boulder on top of it, and for good measure cut off its head.
An angry Hera set a gadfly to pester Io, who then roamed around most of the Mediterranean nations before finally settling down in Egypt, where Zeus changed her back into human form. She later established the worship of Isis in Egypt.
As for the unfortunate Argus, Hera put all of its many eyes on the tail of her sacred bird, the peacock.

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