As things turned out, Io did return to human shape. She met up with Zeus in Egypt and bore him a son, EPAPHUS, who will play an important part of the story of Phaeton, which is just coming up. Supposedly Zeus impregnated Io just by gently laying a hand on her—Epaphus means “touch.” Io also had a daughter by Zeus, called KEROESSA, whose son BYZAS went on to found the great city of Byzantium. Whether Keroessa was conceived by touch or the more traditional method of generation we do not know. Io may have been a cow, but she was a very influential and important one.
