SLEEPING EUROPA FROM PLATO COMICUS TO MOSCHUS AND HORACE

Abstract

The rape (or threatened rape) of a sleeping Europa in Plato Comicus has curiously not attracted any attention from critics commenting on later texts which narrate the story of Europa. Yet, the motifs of night, sleep and dreaming play a prominent role in the Europa poems of both Moschus and Horace. This article will investigate the role of these motifs and argue for a closer connection between these two poems than has thus far been allowed. It will also maintain that, in both poems, the suggestion that the heroine was (or could be) raped in her sleep is lurking in the background and that, if taken into consideration, it can significantly expand our scope of interpretation and perhaps account for some features which would otherwise be hard to explain. While it is not unlikely that the two authors to be discussed here had direct access to Plato Comicus' Europa, my argument does not rely on knowledge of this comedy, which could, after all, be parodying an earlier tragedy. Rather, the main thesis of this article is that a classical or early Hellenistic version of Europa's myth (which Plato Comicus may either reflect or be the source of) had the young woman raped in her sleep. This tradition, then, informs these two later poems, which may or may not have been directly influenced by Plato Comicus’ rendition.