How we cite our quotes: (Line)
Quote #4
IO. What land, what people are these? Who should I say this that I see, wind-battered, harnessed to the rocks? For what crime are you thus being murdered? (562-563)
This is Io when she first sees Prometheus chained to the rocks, and she's got a pretty extreme interpretation: in her eyes, the way Prometheus is chained is the same thing as murder. Do you think Prometheus would agree?
Quote #5
PROMETHEUS. Now hear about the future, what sufferings this young woman is destined to endure at Hera's hands. (703-728)
After this quotation, Prometheus details Io's foreordained wanderings. Road trip! What could be freer than that? And yet Io doesn't exactly seem free. Sure, she isn't chained to a rock, but she is imprisoned in a completely foreign body—the body of a cow. Who is more imprisoned: Io, or Prometheus? Or are they both equally deprived of freedom?
Quote #6
PROMETHEUS. You will then come to the Cimmerian isthmus, right at the narrow gateway to the lake; with a bold heart you must leave it, and cross the Maeotic channel. Your crossing will in all future time be much spoken of among men, and the channel will be named after it—Bosporus, "Strait of the Cow". Having thus left the land of Europe, you will have come to the continent of Asia. [To the CHORUS] Do you think that the autocrat of the gods is equally brutal in all his dealings? That god, because he wanted to sleep with this mortal girl, imposed these wanderings on her! (729-738)
Even though Io can wander over the face of the whole world, we wouldn't say that she's free in any serious sense. Not only is she imprisoned in the body of a cow, but her wanderings are, as Prometheus says, "imposed" on her. Is Io ever going to be free? Her whole purpose is breeding: pleasing Zeus, and then bearing his destroyer. We're just saying we wouldn't necessarily want to be a woman in ancient Greece.