The following five gods/goddesses are mentioned in the
text you cited.
Adonis - he
was the lover of Aphrodite. It was said that when he died, Aphrodite (Venus in Roman
mythology) rushed to his side and sprinkled his blood with blood. He was then reborn
into a flower called the
anemone.
Cytherea - Another
name for Aphrodite
Io - a
nymph that was a priestess to Hera and an constant object of affection in Zeus's eyes.
She is one of the many females that Zeus cheats on Hera with. In the most famous myth
about her, Zeus transforms here into a white bull and himself into a cloud to disguise
his infidelity from Hera, but ultimately, she figures out his tricks (check out
Wikipedia for more detailed info).
Daphne
& Apollo: Once Apollo (god of music, light, etc.) was struck by
an arrow by Eros, he became infatuated with the nymph Daphne. Apollo chased after
Daphne to the point where she turned herself in to a laurel (a type of plant with
branches and leaves) to hide from him.
It looks like you've
got some allusions here to stories from the Classical Greek about love, infatuation, and
flirtation. Each of these stories prelude the love, infatuation, and flirtation that is
about to take place in the play The Taming of the
Shrew.
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