How we cite our quotes: (Line)
Quote #4
IO. Oh, oh! ah, ah! A gadfly is stinging me again, wretched me! […] Keep him off! Ah, dah! I fear, seeing the myriad-eyed cowherd! He is on the move, keeping a crafty eye: […] to hunt me—wretched me!—and makes me wander starving along the sands of the seashore […]. (565-573)
So, not only has Io been turned into a cow, but she is also being pursued over the face of the earth. Her pursuers are (a) a gadfly and (b) the dead ghost of a herdsman named Argos. On top of it all, she doesn't seem to be getting enough to eat, as you can see in her reference to how she is "starving." But hey—she was asking for it, right? Out in the woods all alone?
Quote #5
IO. What crime, son of Cronus, what crime is it you have found me guilty of, that you have yoked me to these sufferings—ah, ah and torment me out of my mind like this, wretched that I am, ever driven by the fearful gadfly? Burn me with fire, or bury me in the earth, or give me as prey to the monsters of the sea (578-588)
So, Io's main beef is that she doesn't understand what she has done wrong to be punished in this way. Is that part of why she suffers so much?
Quote #6
IO. Tell me, miserable that I am, who are you, who are you, suffering one, that can address me, who suffer too, so correctly, and can name my god-sent affliction, which withers me and pricks me with stings that force me to wander—ah, ah? (593-598)
Io calls herself "miserable" while addressing Prometheus as "suffering." Does suffering bring people together? Or does it just drive them apart?