grazing in the meadows

13:31 Dec 1, 2014 

I think he's gone at a tangent into Helios Panoptes and the Titanomachy.

13:19 Dec 1, 2014 

I think Io is inevitably invoked by grazing under the eyes of Argus; that is, the writer must have been thinking of Io in using this image (it can't be a coincidence), and readers who know the myth will think of her too. But as so often happens, the myth is being invoked in a partial and selective way. Zeus doesn't fit in at all and forms no part of it. The only relevant parts are spending your days engaged in empty, monotonous activity, unable to escape and under constant scrutiny. On reflection, I think Julia's term, a "shallow" life, is quite close to the mark.

12:49 Dec 1, 2014 

I generally agree with Julia about the implications of the passage - but I think Io was not in the writer's mind. The grazing "you" is masculine and this is the person who flew to London (Olympus?) with the young lady so the nearest equivalent in the text would be Zeus rather than Io. Attempts to make mythological parallels beyond the basic "all-seeing eyes" leads to them being very strained indeed.

05:46 Dec 1, 2014 

Simply "leading your daily life" is not not necessarily something bad. It can be easily seen as neutral or even positive. But if you compare someone's life to a cow's existence, it's impossible to escape pejorative implications. Even if we leave Io alone, any reference to "living like a grazing animal" (be it cow or sheep) almost inevitably has negative connotations (at least in Western cultures). This whole passage is a pretty scathing commentary on the conditions of (English) society, and I see no reason to soften it. <p>Of course, DLyons is absolutely correct that Io should not appear in the translation itself. This passage is an allusion, it relies on readers catching the reference without having to spell it out. The reference to Io myth is subtle, yes pretty obvious to anyone familiar with Greek mythology. Which may present a problem in translation: modern readers are much less likely to be familiar with classical mythology - and Turkish readers probably less so then European.