Who was Europe named after?

Answer 1

The word ' Europe' comes from the ancient Greek mythological figure, Europa.

The Greek god Zeus fell in love with, or at least took a fancy to, Europa, a Phoenician noblewoman in this version, and hid among Europa's father's cattle, disguised as a very gentle and hugely attractive white bull.

The story goes that Europa, while gathering flowers in her dad's cow paddocks, spotted the bull (Zeus), which spat a crocus at her. Naturally, she climbed onto his back, whereupon he charged off into the Mediterranean and swam to Crete, a large Greek island, which is still there today.

On Crete, Zeus explained to the girl that he was really king of the Gods and not a bull at all, and made her Queen Europa the First of Crete. Queen Europa gave birth to three sons by Zeus.

There are other ancient legends about Europa, and naturally there are debates about all versions of her tale. Homer wrote that she was, in legend, a queen of Crete.

Eventually, the term Europa was used to describe part of northern Greece and much later - before 500 BC - Europa had come to mean other lands further north of Greece in the continent we now know as Europe.

Terms originating from the word 'Europa' are used by major non-English-speaking countries to describe the continent of Europe.

The actual origin of the word 'Europa' before it was used as the name of the lady of the legend is not at all clear. Ancient Greek, Indo-European, Arabic, and Hebrew, are among suggestions offered, but since our knowledge of where those languages originated is extremely limited, there really is no way to tell where the word originally came from and to whom, or what, it referred.

Incidentally, legend goes that Minos, King of Crete and one of Europa's sons by Zeus, asked his uncle, the god Poseidon, to send him a pure white bull to show he, Minos, was well-liked by the gods; Minos promised to sacrifice the bull as a thank-you when it arrived, but the bull was so beautiful he kept it as a pet instead.

This insult infuriated one of Poseidon's girlfriends, the goddess Aphrodite, and she caused Minos' wife. Pasiphaë, to fall in love with the bull. Pasiphaë had a wooden cow made and hiding in this, enticed the bull to consummate their love. The result was the Minotaur, half-man, half-bull and all-horrible. When the baby Minotaur became too fierce for Pasiphaë to breastfeed the King ordered built a huge maze - called the Cretan Labyrinth - outside his palace, and confined the Minotaur there, where, alone and without its mother's milk, it ate people instead.

So, the family was connected with cattle in more than one way.

Both stories, that of Europa as well as that of her grandson-in-law, the Minotaur, are interesting and worth looking up.