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Zeus takes on his true form in front of his horrified beloved.

In the eyes of mortals Zeus is lightning and thunder.

The whole palace catches fire and also the poor Semele.

She just manages to give birth before the flames devour her, miraculously the fire spares her child, it is a boy.

Zeus takes him in and gives him the name Dionysus.

Zeus can only unite with mortals through a great deal of cunning, sometimes he is an eagle, sometimes a pig or a golden rain, his pleasures vary through manifold transformations of love.

When he sees a beautiful young woman on the beach, Zeus falls in love again. She is a princess, the daughter of a king on the coast of Asia.

How should he approach her?

She leads her herd to pasture, so Zeus transforms into a magnificent bull with snow-white fur, a muscular neck and horns more translucent than a diamond of purest water. He is so attractive that the beautiful woman wants to stroke him. The bull gives himself more to her, touches her breast with his warm mouth and lies down at her feet.

The princess loses all fear, despite the warnings of her servants she climbs on the back of the animal that immediately rises and storms towards the shore. In full gallop Zeus races with her to the sea and kidnaps the unhappy woman all the way to Crete.

When Zeus arrives there, he takes on the form of a human being again and steps into action.

This princess from Asia, who will now live here in Crete, is called Europe.

Zeus places her in the midst of the stars to thank the bull for enabling him to kidnap the princess.

When you look at the sky, you see the big bear not far away from the bull.

The real name of the bull is Callista, the Greek expression for the most beautiful. So it was no wonder that Zeus also burned for her.

However, she belongs to the line of the goddess Artemis.

Artemis is the goddess of hunting but also of virginity, therefore Callista took a vow of chastity. No man is tolerated near her or her friends. the virgin huntresses.

The last one who broke this rule, a hunter named Actelion, found a terrible end. Artemis turned him into a deer and let him eat by his own dogs.

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