The Abduction of Europe

          It  all started, as many of the best stories do, with sudden, overwhelming, peremptory love. The god Zeus, possibly struck by an arrow from Eros/Cupid, or possibly acting from his own impulses – fell for the most beautiful of the daughters of the King of Tyre (in modern day Lebanon). She, meanwhile had had a dream in which two continents in the form of women disputed her – the one where she was born, and the as yet nameless one over the sea. 

       When Zeus appeared to her in the form of a gentle and graceful white bull as she gathered wild flowers by the seaside, Europa felt no fear for the huge animal and mounted upon its back –whereupon it plunged into the water and took her across the waters to Crete. There she bore him many sons, the first of whom was Minos, legendary founder of the earliest known European civilisation.

          Going further back into its origins, the Greek name (which means ‘broad face’) is generally taken to indicate a link with an ancient Egyptian goddess representing the feminine principle in the form of a lunar cow. This seems to make intuitive sense, given the link with Zeus as a bull, as representing in some way the spirit and force of settled agriculture as the foundation of European culture as we know it now and have done so for thousands of years. By way of a further indication, the name of Europa was often given also to Demeter, goddess of corn and of harvests.
          So, taking the longest view possible, there we have the origin of our continent, and of the idea or ideal which lies behind all the bureaucracy, all the endless speeches in vast half-deserted halls, all the aimless wastage of taxpayers’ money/the impossible yearning to make amends for centuries of bitter conflict (depending on your point of view). Agriculture, fertility, abundance – and abduction, albeit in a consensual form.

          And now it seems that Britannia – who always occupied in any case a very different area of the mythological universe – is drawing away from Europa, and may sever her connection altogether. It isn’t hard to see why these two were never destined to get along together: their gender is essentially all that they share. On the one hand a submissive maiden, ravished by a gentle god and mother to dynasties of powerful men – and on the other a warrior woman, subjugated only through the overwhelming force of the Roman armies. In their later depictions – as if to emphasise the courage which it took to subdue her – she’s typically shown with a trident and a helmet.

          And this is the image which was of course taken up by jingoists and patriots from the 16th century to the present day, on coins and banknotes, innumerable paintings and pub signs. Britannia ruling the waves – fierce, belligerent, domineering; she never seems to have the almost voluptuous femininity of France’s Marianne. (Well, what would one expect of the French?)
          Britain vs. Europe: it’s at its deepest the difference between a nation which still defines itself through war and a yet-to-emerge one which seeks to define itself through overcoming the conflicts which lead to war.

           Perhaps it’s just too soon for this to happen – considering where the myth of Europa originates, the fate of Greece in the hands of the EU is a distinctly bad omen. And the Common Agricultural Policy has much less to do with Demeter-esque  fertility and abundance than with craven servility towards a handful of overweening food multinationals.
          Perhaps in the end we can only echo Mahatma Gandhi, and say that European civilisation would be a good thing – if and when it happens.