The Abduction of Europa

Ovid has Zeus act on his own desire this time, with no jealous scheme from Hera driving the story. He notices Europa, daughter of the Phoenician king Agenor, playing on the shore with her companions, and decides to have her without frightening her off by appearing as himself. He transforms into a bull unlike any real one: pure white, with small jeweled horns, and a look so gentle that Europa loses her fear of him entirely. The disguised god mingles peacefully with her father's grazing herd until Europa, charmed, begins petting him and eventually garlands his horns with flowers.

The bull lies down at Europa's feet and offers his broad back so invitingly that she climbs onto it herself, not realizing what she is doing until it is already too late to stop him. The moment she is seated, the bull rises, walks calmly down to the shore, and then keeps walking straight out into the sea. Europa, terrified, looks back at the retreating beach and clings to one of his horns with one hand, holding her billowing robe with the other, while the bull swims on through open water with no land in sight.

Zeus swims all the way to Crete and only there, safely away from Europa's family and her own homeland, reveals his true identity to her. Ovid leaves the scene at their arrival on the island; the union that follows there gives Crete a founding dynasty. Minos and Rhadamanthys are named as their sons in the earliest sources, Minos above all going on to shape Crete's own legendary reputation for kingship and law - a reputation strong enough that later tradition sets him as one of Hades's own underworld judges of the dead after his death. A later tradition also adds Sarpedon as a third son, though the sources disagree on whether he belongs to this same generation or is a later descendant carrying the same name.