Jonathan Keates
Object of Desire
The Rape of Europa: The Intriguing History of Titian’s Masterpiece
By Charles FitzRoy
Bloomsbury 210pp £16.99 order from our bookshop
The ancient story of Europa forms part of a broader mythological amalgam involving fertility, moon worship and eastern Mediterranean migrations. In classical mythology, Europa is the daughter of Agenor, king of Tyre. Zeus, falling in love with her, disguises himself as a bull among her father’s cattle grazing by the sea and swims off with her to Crete, where, for reasons not altogether clear, he assumes the shape of an eagle before ravishing her in a willow thicket. According to Robert Graves, the tale re-enacts either an early Hellenic occupation of Crete or a Greek raid on Phoenicia. Europa apparently means ‘broad face’, a synonym for the moon, and the willow rules the fertile opening weeks of May in antiquity’s sacred calendars.
By the time Ovid took up the story in the Metamorphoses, most of these deeper resonances had vanished. The result is an engaging fable in which the king of the gods enjoys yet another of his serial infidelities, captivating Europa as a cuddly little farmyard pet. As Joseph Addison’s 1717 translation puts it:
His eye-balls rowl’d, not formidably bright,
But gaz’d and languish’d with a gentle light.
His every look was peaceful, and exprest
The softness of the lover in the beast.
Ovid suppresses
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'Within hours, the news spread. A grimy gang of desperadoes had been captured just in time to stop them setting out on an assassination plot of shocking audacity.'
@katheder on the Cato Street Conspiracy of 1820.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/butchers-knives-treason-and-plot
'It is the ... sketches of the local and the overlooked that lend this book its density and drive, and emphasise Britain’s mostly low-key riches – if only you can be bothered to buy an anorak and seek.'
Jonathan Meades on the beauty of brutalism.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/castles-of-concrete
'Cruickshank’s history reveals an extraordinary eclecticism of architectural styles and buildings, from Dutch Revivalism to Arts and Crafts experimentation, from Georgian terraces to Victorian mansion blocks.'
William Boyd on the architecture of Chelsea.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/where-george-eliot-meets-mick-jagger