The White Bull
The story is based on the Greek mythological tale of Europa and the bull, where the white bull is the king of the Greek gods, Zeus, in disguise. Zeus, the sky and thunder god of the Olympic pantheon, often wore a disguise when romantically pursuing mortal women, so as to avoid the eye of his wife and sister, Hera.
Anu
According to Walter Burkert, an expert on ancient Greek religion, direct parallels also exist between Anu and the Greek god Zeus. In particular, the scene from Tablet VI of the "Epic of Gilgamesh" in which Ishtar comes before Anu after being rejected by Gilgamesh and complains to her mother Antu, but is mildly rebuked by Anu, is directly paralleled by a scene from Book V of the "Iliad". In this scene, Aphrodite, the later Greek development of Ishtar, is wounded by the Greek hero Diomedes while trying to save her son Aeneas. She flees to Mount Olympus, where she cries to her mother Dione, is mocked by her sister Athena, and is mildly rebuked by her father Zeus. Not only is the narrative parallel significant, but so is the fact that Dione's name is a feminization of Zeus's own, just as "Antu" is a feminine form of "Anu". Dione does not appear throughout the rest of the "Iliad", in which Zeus's consort is instead the goddess Hera. Burkert therefore concludes that "Dione" is clearly a calque of Antu.