EUROPA: A MYTH AND A CONTINENT
1. Ovid, Metamorphoses, II, 846-875 (translated by Daryl Hine)
Majesty is incompatible truly with love; they cohabit
Nowhere together. The father and chief of the gods, whose right hand is
Armed with the triple-forked lightning, who shakes the whole world with a nod, laid
Dignity down with his sceptre, adopting the guise of a bull that
Mixed with the cattle and lowed as he ambled around the fresh fields, a
Beautiful animal, colored like snow that no footprint has trodden
And which no watery south wind has melted. His muscular neck bulged,
Dewlaps hung down from his chin; his curved horns you might think had been hand
carved,
Perfect, more purely translucent than pearl. His unthreatening brow and
Far from formidable eyes made his face appear tranquil. Agenor's
Daughter was truly amazed that this beautiful bull did not seem to
Manifest any hostility. Though he was gentle she trembled at first to
Touch him, but soon she approached him, adorning his muzzle with flowers.
Then he rejoiced as a lover and, while he looked forward to hoped for
Pleasures, he slobbered all over her hands, and could hardly postpone the
Joys that remained. So he frolicked and bounded about on the green grass,
Laying his snowy-white flanks on the yellowish sands. As her fear was
Little by little diminished, he offered his chest for her virgin
Hand to caress and his horns to be decked with fresh flowers. The royal
Maiden, not knowing on whom she was sitting, was even so bold as
Also to climb on the back of the bull. As the god very slowly
Inched from the shore and the dry land he planted his spurious footprints
Deep in the shallows. Thus swimming out farther, he carried his prey off
Into the midst of the sea. Almost fainting with terror she glanced back,
As she was carried away, at the shore left behind. As she gripped one
Horn in her right hand while clutching the back of the beast with the other,
Meanwhile her fluttering draperies billowed behind on the sea breeze.
Translator’s Note
These, the concluding lines of Book II of The Metamorphoses, detail, with a brevity
unusual in Ovid, one of a series of "loves" of Jove, and one of his transformations. In
other instances it is his victim who is transformed. The passage begins with a gnomic
sentence which is illustrated in the following passage with all the visual elaboration so
typical of Ovid, including a rather gratuitous simile. Perhaps the most striking of these
lines is the last, a conclusion that has no parallel among all the fifteen books of The
Metamorphoses, inconclusive, kinetic, and pictorial, in effect a moving picture, iconic
in many paintings and mosaics before as well as after Ovid's time.
2. Moschus, from ‘Europa’ (translated by M.J. Chapman)
Europa, sleeping in her upper room,
The child of Phoenix, in her virgin bloom,
Thought that she saw a contest fierce arise
Betwix two continents, herself the prize;
They to the dreamer seemed like women quite,
Asia, and Asia's unknown opposite.
This was a stranger, that a native seemed,
And closer hugged her--so Europa dreamed;
And called herself Europa's nurse and mother,
Said that she bore and reared her; but that other
Spared not her hands, and still the sleeper drew,
With her good will, and claimed her as her due,
And said that Zeus Ægiochus gave her,
By Fate's appointment, that sweet prisoner.
[…]
Along this tract swift ships their courses keep,
But bulls are wont to fear the mighty deep.
What pasture here? What sweet drink in the brine?
Art thou a god? Thy doings seem divine.
Nor sea-born dolphins roam the flowery mead,
Nor earth-born bulls through Ocean's realm proceed;
Fearless on land, and plunging from the shores
Thou roamest ocean, and thy hoofs are oars.
Perchance anon, up-borne into the sky,
Thou without wings like winged birds wilt fly!
Ah me unhappy! who my father's home
Have left and with a bull o'er ocean roam,
A lonely voyager! My helper be,
Earth-shaking Regent of the hoary sea!
I hope to see this voyage's cause and guide,
For not without a god these things betide.'
To her the horned bull with accent clear:-'Take courage, virgin! nor the billow fear;
The seeming bull is Zeus; for I with ease
Can take at will whatever form I please;
My fond desire for thy sweet beauty gave
To me this shape--my footstep to the wave.
Dear Crete, that nursed me, now shall welcome thee;
In Crete Europa's nuptial rites shall be;
From our embrace illustrious sons shall spring,
And every one of them a sceptered king.'-And instantly they were in Crete; his own
Form Zeus put on--and off her virgin zone.
Strowed the glad bed the Hours, of joy profuse;
The whilom virgin was the bride of Zeus.
Titian’s painting, “The Rape of Europe”, in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum,
Boston
Like the rape of Helen by Paris, this is an act of sexual coercion with historically
portentous consequences: Europa’s rape will literally give rise to Europe. From her
union with Jupiter, Minos will be born, and the most ancient of European civilizations
on the island of Crete. Her brother Cadmus, the inventor of writing, will search for her,
and found the great ancient city of Thebes. The painting records no less than the birth
of civilization.
Stephen J. Campbell, "Europa," in Eye of the Beholder, edited by Alan Chong et al.
(Boston: ISGM and Beacon Press, 2003)
Anna Akhmatova, from ‘For Osip Mandelstam’ (translated by A.S. Kline)
How rich the scent of carnations,
That came to me once in dream –
There where Eurydice circles,
The bull bears Europa through the foam.
3. Osip Mandelstam, ‘Exhaustion’s rosy foam on his fleshy lips’ (translated by
A.S. Kline)
Exhaustion’s rosy foam on his fleshy lips,
the bull paws furiously at the green breakers:
he snorts: no oarsman – a sensualist,
his spine unused to burdens, hard labour.
Now and then, a dolphin leaps in an arc,
and a prickly sea-urchin comes into view,
tender Europa, hold him, forever, in your arms –
what yoke could be more desirable, too?
Bitterly she witnesses that mighty splashing,
the swollen sea around seethes in the deep,
terrified by the water’s oily gleaming,
she’d like to slip down from that hairy steep.
Oh, it’s the creak of rowlocks she’d prefer,
the lap of a wide deck, a flock of sheep,
and flickering fish beyond a tall stern –
but the oar-less oarsman swims further out to sea!
4. Moniza Alvi, from ‘Europa and the Bull’
V
She was softening, melting,
collapsing onto the sand.
And a beast was stepping towards her
dragging the sea behind him –
light in step as a dancer,
white as a boulder,
a snowy mountain,
a ship’s sail,
a lie.
Orchid-white,
violet-white,
rose-white,
not white at all.
A bull blessed with the costliest
golden horns, each gleaming
to outshine the other.
VI
His tender glance
settled on her,
flitted on and off
like a cabbage-white.
Europa stretched out her hand
and touched him
and the being
who hid like a stowaway
inside him.
[…]
VIII
Fired by her boldness, he
offered her the great white cliff
of his breast to stroke.
Dear bull. Her human words
encircled him like freed birds,
alighted on his head,
fluttered into his watchfulness,
his wordless sympathy.
His huge absent bellow.
IX
And she kissed the expanse of forehead,
a kiss she feared
would make no impact,
like a tiny coin
dropped on a vast plain.
She kissed the silver line of his silence.
X
Climb onto his back,
the air seemed to say.
Cling to his broad white neck.
He bowed low, beckoning her
with half-knowing looks,
and she clambered up the milky hill of him
until they were one –
Europa and the bull, motionless
for an instant, answerable
to the sea and sky.
[…]
XXV
Until – stopping at a gilded mirror
she gazed
at a continent, a home to countries,
ripening fields, orchards, valleys,
placid lakes, mountains, plains and seas,
saw a girl and a friendly bull
playing on a shore,
the ocean tumult, the wilderness,
a father
tearful in his palace.
Her lands stirred, her rivers ran on.
Can we forgive him?
Their song.