A couple of days ago, the FT reported that the new euro notes that will begin to be introduced next May will feature “a hologram and watermark of Europa, the Phoenician noblewoman who gave the continent its name. In Greek myth, she was abducted by Zeus disguised as a bull who wanted to seduce her”. Mario Draghi, the head of the ECB, is quoted as saying: “Is there any better figure than Europa to serve as the new face of Europe?”
Europa’s story is essentially that of Pasiphaë – the divine copulation of a bull with an anthropomorphised moon – though the latter’s zoophilia is however more clearly expressed. Do we really want to be Europeans? Wouldn’t being Helians make us happier and more productive on those cold autumn mornings?
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