Europa was born in Tyre, the Phoenician city on the coast of Lebanon, to King Agenor and Queen Telephassa. She had three brothers: Cadmus, who would found Thebes by sowing dragon's teeth; Cilix, whose name would be given to Cilicia; and Phoenix, whose name became that of the Phoenicians. Europa was renowned for her extraordinary beauty. She dreamed Asia and a nameless land fought over her, with the nameless land prevailing. The dream was an omen, though Europa did not understand it.

One day, while Europa played with her maidens on the seashore near Tyre, a white bull appeared among them. The creature was beautiful, hide gleaming like snow, horns curved like the crescent moon, breath smelling of crocuses. It was gentle and tame, and the maidens dared to approach it. Europa, enchanted, wove flowers into its horns and climbed upon its broad back. The moment she was seated, the bull plunged into the sea and began to swim. It was Zeus, the king of the gods, who had transformed himself to escape his wife Hera, queen of Olympus, notoriously jealous of his affairs with mortal women. The bull swam across the Mediterranean with Europa on its back, while the Nereids, fifty sea-nymph daughters of the old sea-god Nereus, rose to marvel, and Poseidon calmed the waters.

They landed on Crete, beneath a cypress on Mount Ida, the mountain where Zeus had been hidden as an infant to escape his father Cronus, the Titan who swallowed his own children. There Zeus shed his bull form and revealed himself. He lay with Europa beneath the cypress, and from their union three sons were born. The first was Minos, who would become king of Crete. The second was Rhadamanthus, a man of such justice that after his death he would be made a judge of the dead in the underworld, realm ruled by Hades. The third was Sarpedon, who would rule Lycia and fight at Troy. After bearing these sons, Europa married Asterion, king of Crete, who raised the boys as his own heirs.

Minos became the most famous of her children. He prayed to Poseidon for a sign of divine favour, and Poseidon sent a white bull from the waves. Minos was supposed to sacrifice it, but he kept it, and in revenge Poseidon caused Minos's wife Pasiphae, daughter of the sun-god Helios, to fall in love with the bull. From that union came the Minotaur, a creature half man and half bull that fed on human flesh, which Minos imprisoned in the Labyrinth designed by Daedalus. Rhadamanthus was driven from Crete by Minos and became a judge of the dead in the underworld. Sarpedon went to Lycia and became a great warrior. When the Trojan War broke out, he led the Lycian forces to Troy and was slain by Patroclus, beloved companion of Achilles.

Europa herself did not return to Phoenicia. She remained on Crete, honoured as wife of the king and mother of heroes. But her name lived on in ways she never imagined. The land to the north and west of the Greek world came to be called Europe in her honour, and the name eventually covered the continent. In the heavens, Zeus placed the image of the white bull among the stars as the constellation Taurus, so that the animal that carried her across the sea would be remembered. In art, Europa was depicted riding the bull across the waves, her garments flowing behind her, a scene that became one of the most enduring images of Greek mythology, painted by artists from vase-painters to the Renaissance masters.