Amlan Roy Chowdhury

Prof. Carolyn Snively

Term Paper

Classics 330

Leda, the Swan and the Aftermath

One myth from Greek Mythology that has ample relevance even today is the myth of

Leda and the Swan. It is portrayed in numerous paintings, books, and other forms of art

that we consume on a regular basis. One of the most famous being a sonnet by W.B. Yeats.

This myth also has a high level of importance within the timeline of Greco-Roman

mythology. The events of this myth helped shape a chronological flow in the vital mythical

events that followed in its aftermath. Poetic depictions and modern conceptions of the

myth also gives us a glimpse into how the Greeks perceived women and is used widely by

critics to compare the scene in the myth to patriarchal control over women. The

significance of this myth is paramount; this paper will attempt to discuss the origins of this

story and outline its vast impact on mythology, literature and art.

The most common rendering of the myth introduces Leda as the daughter of

Thestios, the King of Pleuron. When she came of age, she became married to King

Tyndareus of Sparta and consequently became Queen of Sparta. Leda was supposedly very

beautiful; so much so that the Greek God Zeus became infatuated with her as he watched

her from Mount Olympus. Eventually, Zeus descended to Earth in the form of a swan and

forced himself on Leda and impregnated her. Later that night, Leda had intercourse with

her husband King Tyndareus and bore four children. Here is Apollodorus’s interpretation
of Leda’s sexual encounters: Zeus in the form of a swan consorted with Leda, and on the

same night Tyndareus cohabited with her; and she bore Pollux (also known as Polydeuces

in other versions) and Helen to Zeus, and Castor and Clytaemnestra to Tyndareus. (Apollod.

3.10.7). Castor and Pollux were collectively known as the Dioscuri. Two of these children,

namely Clytemnestra and Castor, were the children of King Tyndareus while the other two,

Pollux and Helen, were the children of Zeus (Rose, 192). Euripides’ Helen records Helen

recounting the tales of her origins: “my own fatherland, Sparta, is not without fame, and my

father is Tyndareus; but there is indeed a story that Zeus flew to my mother Leda, taking

the form of a bird, a swan, which accomplished the deceitful union, fleeing the pursuit of an

eagle, if this story is true” (Eur. Hel. 18). In her recollection, Helen doubts whether

Tyndareus is really her biological father because there is a common speculation that it was

Zeus, not Tyndareus, who impregnated Leda. Further evidence regarding the Zeus’s union

with Leda can be extracted from Ovid’s Heroides: “Leda makes Jove [Zeus] my father,

deceived by the swan, false bird she cherished in her trusting bosom.” (Ovid, Heroides 17.

51ff). As apparent from the sources cited above, the most renowned version of Helen’s

origin story follows from Zeus’s encounter with Leda.

Curiously, Leda did not receive any punishment from Zeus’s wife Hera. In many

other instances when Zeus is unfaithful with another woman, like in the story of Zeus and

Semele, the women would receive an often-fatal punishment. It is possible that Leda did

not receive such a punishment because even Hera felt sorry for her after what Zeus did to

her.
 In accounts from Homer and Hesiod, Helen is said to be the daughter of Zeus,

however these accounts provide a very vague and ambiguous description about Helen’s

maternal origins. According to the Iliad, Helen shared a mother with the Dioscuri, however

the mother is not named in this Homeric epic. (Henderson, 2). In Hesiod’s Ehoiai,

Tyndareus does not identify Helen as one of Leda’s children, presumably because, as Zeus’s

child, she was treated along with the Dioscuri at a later part of the work. (Henderson, 2).

Another version of the myth of Leda and the Swan ascertains the Greek goddess

Nemesis to be the biological mother of Helen instead of Leda. The goddess Nemesis, also

known as Rhamnusia or the goddess of Rhamnous, is the Greek deity for retribution or

resentment against all ill-deeds of humans (Rose, 17). The sixth century cyclic epic Cypria

introduces Nemesis as the biological mother of Helen by Zeus. The epic Cypria is an eleven-

part chronicle about the events leading up to the Trojan War. As we will discuss later in this

paper, the tale of Leda, Zeus and Nemesis plays a significant role in the instigation of the

Trojan War. The following is an excerpt from Cypria that presents the tale of Zeus’s

encounters with Nemesis, with the eventual birth of Helen:

Third after them (the Dioscuri) he bore Helen, a wonder to mortals, whom fair-haired

Nemesis once bore, united in love with Zeus, king of the gods, under strong compulsion. For

she fled and was unwilling to unite in love with father Zeus, son of Cronus, for she was

tormented by shame and misgiving. Over the land and barren dark water she fled, and Zeus

pursued, eager to catch her, now over the waves of the crashing sea, where she took form of a

fish, he roiled the vast deep; now along Ocean’s stream and the ends of the earth; now on the
loam rich land; and she kept changing into all the fearsome beasts that the land nurtures in

her attempts to escape him (Cypria Fragment 8, trans. Evelyn White)

As apparent from this extract of the Cypria, Nemesis desperately tried to escape the

grasps of Zeus, who in turn was relentless in his sexual pursuit of Nemesis. According to

Cypria, as Nemesis disguises herself as a goose, Zeus recognizes her animal form and

seduces her in the form of a gander. In Cratinus’s Nemesis, Zeus however is disguised as a

swan (Edmunds, 105). Cratinus’s version of the story is backed by Asclepiades of Tragilus,

who in his book Subjects of Tragedy contends that Zeus had intercourse with Nemesis in

the guise of a swan. (Henderson, 4). After he united with her, she laid an egg from which

Helen was born. There are multiple ancient sources that portray conflicting versions about

the fate of the egg and the subsequent birth of Helen from the egg. According to

Apollodorus of Athens, a certain shepherd found the egg in the groves and brought and

gave it to Leda; and she put it in her chest and kept it; and when Helen was hatched in due

time, Leda brought her up as her own daughter. (Apollod. 3.10.7). The poems of Sappho

acknowledges Leda as the founder of the egg: “They say that Leda once found an egg under

the hyacinths”, Sappho wrote about Leda’s discovery (Henderson, 3). Yet another variant of

the tale claims that it was Tyndareus who initially received the egg from Nemesis and then

passed it to his wife, Leda. The Greeks commonly attributed Nemesis as the one who gave

birth to Helen, while Leda adopted and nurtured her (Henderson, 3).

Centuries after the Greeks established their conceptions about Zeus, Nemesis and

Leda, the Romans adopted the myth and published their impressions. Records from

Hyginus’s Astronomica portray a story similar to that of the Greeks, with only a few minor
changes. The central idea is however preserved in Hyginus’s literature. According to

Hyginus, Jupiter in the guise of a swan, orchestrated an act in which he was to be hunted by

Venus in the form of an eagle. (Edmunds, 106). Jupiter took refuge with an unsuspecting

Nemesis, oblivious to Jupiter’s motives, as if fleeing from the eagle, and placed himself in

her lap. Nemesis fell asleep with the swan in her lap and Jupiter embraced the sleeping

Nemesis (Edmunds, 106). It is to be noted that Jupiter replaces Zeus in the Roman texts,

even though they are essentially the same in terms of their background, appearances and

functionalities (i.e. both are deities of thunder and king of gods in their respective

religions). Despite the minor alterations in the Roman texts, the main idea of the story is

basically the same.

The mythological implications of “Leda and the Swan” are manifold; while this is

where most of the myth stops here for Leda, each of her children had a lasting impact on

the mythological timeline, primarily in the build up to the Trojan War. In the aftermath of

the rise of Helen and the Dioscuri, a series of events would be triggered that would set off

the ten year long war between the Greeks and the Trojans. The latter of the four siblings,

Clytemnestra however did not play a role in provoking the Greeks to fight the Trojans.

Clytemnestra became the wife of Agamemnon, who led the Greek army into battle against

the Trojans. Even though, she played a trivial role in the instigation of the Trojan War,

Clytemnestra will forever live in infamy for the murder of her victorious husband

Agamemnon upon his return from the Trojan War.

As previously mentioned, the Dioscuri and Helen play vital roles in prompting the

Trojan War. According to the accounts of Apollodorus, the Dioscuri aspired to marry the
daughters of Leucippus, Phoebe and Hilaeira, who were both betrothed to cousins of the

Dioscuri, Idas and Lynceus of Thebes. Castor and Pollux carried the daughters away from

Messene and married them and consummated the marriage by making children. This led to

a feud between the cousins. An altercation broke out between the cousins after a cattle-raid

in Arcadia; the dispute arose after Idas and Lynceus took over a greater share of the booty

from the cattle-raid. The Dioscuri plotted retribution and they marched against the twins in

Messene. In the ensuing battle, Castor was slain by Idas and Lynceus was killed by Pollux.

Consequently, Idas nearly overpowers Pollux before Zeus intervenes by smiting Idas with a

thunderbolt, thus protecting his son from death. On the request of Pollux, Zeus granted the

Dioscuri immortality; the twins would have to take turns in spending one day in the realm

of Hades and the other in paradise (Apollod. 3.11.2). It is speculated by some that the

Dioscuri left a feast at their uncle’s house, where Helen was present too, to exact revenge

against the rival twins. Paris, who was also a guest in the feast, grabbed the opportunity to

abduct Helen in absence of her brothers. Even though this version of the tale is not widely

renowned, it does make sense in the context of the Trojan War. Mythical tales such as these

do not have concrete historical evidences to back them up. For all we can estimate, this

myth about the Dioscuri may have contributed, at least in part, to the initiation of the

Trojan War.

According to most ancient sources, Helen was the primary cause of the Trojan War.

Helen, like Leda, was described as a woman of elegance and immense beauty. She chose

King Menelaus of Sparta as her suitor in marriage. Together, they conceived a child named

Hermione. Meanwhile, the Prince of Troy, Paris was appointed by the goddesses Hera,

Athena and Aphrodite to settle a dispute amongst them: “Who is the most beautiful
goddess of the three?” Each goddess tried to bribe Paris with valuable gifts. Paris

eventually accepted Aphrodite’s offer: the most beautiful mortal on earth, Helen. He

subsequently announced Aphrodite as the most beautiful goddess. With Aphrodite’s

blessings, Paris visits Sparta where he is united with Helen (Morford, 477-480). Ancient

sources provide conflicting reports as to whether Helen was abducted or eloped with.

According to Herodotus, Helen was indeed abducted by Paris and taken to Troy. But others

such as Sappho argue that Helen fell in love with Paris and voluntarily left behind her

husband Menelaus and her daughter Hermione. The abduction of Helen of Paris is what

prompted the leaders of Greece to unite and declare war on Troy, leading to the ten year

long war. The connection between the tale of Leda and the Swan and the Trojan War may

seem pretty faint; however, these two events in the mythological timeline are certainly

correlated, and based on the arguments presented in this paper, it can be concluded that

Leda’s encounter with Zeus elicited a chain of events that effectively started the Trojan

War, the significance of which is paramount in classical mythology.

The brilliance of classical antiquity lies within the fact that myths can manifest in

different artistic forms other than literary texts. The literary adaptations from ancient texts

and epical works play a major role in enhancing our knowledge of classical mythology.

However, throughout the ages, artists have adopted the stories of classical mythology as

subjects for their works. The thousands of different forms of art depicting mythological

events that have survived till date introduce a vast array of artistic and literary elements;

symbolism, allegory etc. Most of these forms of art may be visually aesthetic, but there are

others that evoke a multitude of emotions in the human minds just by the use of mere

words.
 Arts depicting the tale of Leda and the Swan can be traced back to potteries and

craftsmanship from ancient times. One of the most notable illustrations of this classical tale

is the Greek marble sculpture, the origins of which can be dated back to the late fifth

century BC (Museum of Boston, 15). The outline of this sculpture was inspired by

Euripides’ version of the tale. According to art critics in the Museum of Boston, the

sculpture depicts Zeus, in the form of a swan, fleeing from a pursuing eagle and taking

refuge in Leda’s arms. The marble represents her as springing forward to protect the swan;

her left arm hoisted her robe as a shield against the eagle and it is at this moment that her

garments slipped off from her right shoulder, revealing her voracious form. Zeus, in his

incessant lust, grabs this opportunity to seduce Leda. Seventeenth century excavations in

Palatine Hill in Rome led to the discovery of another marble artefact of Leda and the swan

that was sculpted in the first century AD (Getty). This artefact is believed to closely

resemble the sculptures of ancient Greek artist Timotheus, who also fashioned a marble

statue of Leda and the swan in 4th century BC. These are only a handful of the numerous

ancient art forms that depict the tale of Leda and the swan. In some of these portrayals, the

feminine figure is not identified as Leda, but rather as Nemesis in agreement with

mythological theories that recognize Nemesis as the receptor of Zeus’s lovemaking and as

the biological mother of Helen. The sequel to the story of Zeus’s intercourse with

Leda/Nemesis is the birth of Helen. Helen’s birth has been a topic of wide debate with

scholars questioning whether it was Leda or Nemesis that bore Helen. According to a

popular theory, Helen was hatched from an egg laid by Nemesis in the form of a goose, after

she was impregnated by Zeus, the swan. The birth of Helen has been the subject of

countless ancient artworks. An Apulian vase by Python from the fourth century BC
illustrates a non-comic scene of Helen’s emergence from the egg while Leda, Tyndareus,

Aphrodite, Hermes, Phoeba and Papposilenus all look on (Henderson, 4). This artefact is

closely associated with satyr dramas due to the presence of Papposilenus (a satyr who acts

as a companion to Dionysus) (Henderson, 4). The aforementioned list of artworks are just a

few of the many different forms of ancient art that have embodied and illustrated the

mythical accounts of Leda, the swan and the birth of Helen.

The story of Leda and the swan not only inspired a major theme in classical arts, but

it was also invariably featured in Renaissance paintings. The Renaissance was

characterized by the revival of Greek and Roman literature and thus the major themes of

Renaissance Art relied on the erotic contents in Greek Mythology. Hence, eroticism and

Greek mythology were common motifs in Renaissance art. The tale of Leda and the swan is

one that combines these elements into a single artistic entity. One of the most famous

depictions of Leda and the Swan in Renaissance Art is Leda and the Swan by Michelangelo

shown in the illustration below.

The use of symbolism and metaphor in Michelangelo’s masterpiece is evidently

extensive. The painting shows a depiction of Zeus, in the form of a swan, seducing Leda.
The swan seems to be in a dominant position as evident from Leda wrapped in its

remarkable wingspan; Leda lying helplessly in the swan’s embrace. This could easily be a

euphemism to the controlling nature of men in society dominated by the patriarchy. Hence,

by painting a mythical scene from the classical periods, Michelangelo successfully

highlighted the existence of a patriarchal society during the Renaissance or even during the

ancient Greco-Roman periods. Other prominent paintings of the Renaissance featuring

Leda and the swan include one done by Antonio Allegri da Correggio, who was renowned

for his paintings on Greek Mythology and Christian symbolism. His paintings greatly

featured Ovidian poetry. Correggio’s expertise in art is reflected by the amatory virtuosity

that is seen conspicuously in his painting of Leda and the Swan (Barolsky, 19). The painting

illustrates Jupiter making love to Leda at the edge of a pond; the swan’s soft feathers softly

caressing the inner thighs of Leda (Barolsky, 19). Correggio’s approach to the depiction of

Leda and the swan is more playful compared to that of Michelangelo. It almost seems as

though the mating between the two is consensual and displays a certain degree of

promiscuity. In other words, Jupiter’s actions are not forceful. Correggio strived to induce

visualizations of sexual experience in human minds by using Leda and the Swan as a vivid

portrayal of playful and romantic eroticism.

Post-renaissance painters also adopted the story of Leda and the swan in their

paintings. A more graphic edition of Leda and the Swan was painted by Francois Boucher in

1740. This painting shows Leda lying naked with a blank expression on her face, as if she

were unconscious. This painting appears to follow the theory Hyginus as told in

Astronomica. Hyginus’s theory describes Jupiter having intercourse with an unconscious

Nemesis. One final example of the numerous painting of the Leda and the Swan myth was
by Paul Cezzane in 1882. This painting has more similarities with the neoclassical style of

art; the use of darks colors on the swan coupled with the fact that the swan seems to be

creeping up from behind give this painting a rather grim undertone. Not only is Leda in the

Swan prevalent in paintings from the post-renaissance period, it has also been frequently

featured in more recent works of art and literature. For instance, Cy Twombly’s painting of

Leda and the Swan portrays an abstract version of the tale. However, the most popular

literary text highlighting the story of Leda is Leda and the Swan by W.B. Yeats.

As previously asserted in this paper, the tale of Leda and the Swan is not just limited

to artistic depictions. Writers and poets also had their fair share in analyzing the scenes

from the tale and putting their findings in words. The most noteworthy version of the myth

in literature came from W.B. Yeats. He wrote a sonnet titled Leda and the Swan in 1924. In

the sonnet, Leda is the personification of the victim of sexual assault. The sonnet clearly

establishes that the swan is not seducing her, but rather that he is forcing himself on her.

Barnwell’s evaluation of Yeats’ sonnet suggests that Leda was undoubtedly raped by the

swan. He writes, Leda is clearly a victim of the aggressor swan. She staggers under the

impact of the sudden blow of his body and reels in a numbed daze while he works his will.

She cannot fend him off and is unable to avoid the results of the act (Barnwell, 63). The

sonnet brutally describes the horror scene from the perspective of Leda adding a new twist

to the story. The sonnet concisely, but vividly, shows Leda struggling to fight off the swan

but the swan overpowers her. This sonnet is much darker than how the Greek myths

portray the scene. The ending line in the story is one of the most disturbing part of the

sonnet, it reads: “Did she put on his knowledge with his power, Before the indifferent beak

could let her drop?” This line indicates that Zeus used Leda as no more than a disposable
pleasure. In his article, Barnwell concisely elucidates the horror of the situation with a

single sentence: “Leda is being raped by a force unconcerned for her existence as a

questioning entity” (Barnwell, 63). Barnwell argues that Leda was being raped by a

dominant force, a force that did not care about the consequences of its action. While it can

be used to describe the actions of men in a patriarchal society, it is also a delineation of the

interaction of Greek/Roman gods with their mortal counterparts; the gods were ruthless in

their interactions with the relatively powerless, puny humans. The story of Leda and the

Swan is just one of the many playful sexual encounters of Zeus/Jupiter. The authority of the

gods over humans gave them the ultimate power of governance; it gave them the ability to

simply toy with the humans without any fear of consequences. Such an interpretation of

Leda and the Swan could be a representation of how the wealthy, powerful and the corrupt

in the modern society tend to get away with almost anything by exercising their privileges.

This sonnet pushed the boundary as to what is fair game in the world of literature.

Its brutality of language is unforgiving in its imagery and for this reason, W.B. Yeats’ Leda

and the Swan is considered the most famous piece of literature on the myth of Leda and the

Swan.

The portrayal of Leda as the helpless victim demonstrates vividly how the Greeks

thought of women. The fact that Leda was easily seduced by a swan is symptom of the

Greeks’ well-established philosophy that women were irrational human beings as well as

inferior to males. Greek philosophers, including Aristotle, Plato, and Cicero, all believed and

preached that the main function of women was to produce men. This aspect of their beliefs

is found in the Leda and the Swan myth when Zeus intentionally impregnates her thus
causing her to give birth to two men. They also believed that women were defective men

and that the decision-making processes of the women’s mind were not developed. This can

also be seen in the Leda and the Swan myth when Leda succumbs easily to the swan’s

seduction. The act of the seduction is a manifestation of their views of how women are

irrational and cannot be trusted as leaders and that men must take charge over women in

order to have a functional society.

Modern feminists characterize rape as a sexual act done by a man to a woman as a

way of claiming property or as part of a legal right to the woman’s body. Leda’s rape is a

notion that has been widely critiqued by modern feminists. It has been regarded as a

universal symbol of the patriarchy. Sword writes, “for women, of course, rape is not merely

an abstract concept; even if no woman actually fears being violated by a swan (or, one

would hope, by Zeus in any form), tales like the Leda myth, in which human contact with

the divine is couched in the vocabulary of sexual conquest, can serve as telling metaphors

both for female poets' real-life experiences of male domination and for their anxieties of

male literary influence”. The brutality of this vile sexual encounter is described by Jane

Levinson Reid in her article Leda, Twice Assaulted. She writes “the god, then, is all-present-

alarming, caressing, enveloping, rushing, pounding in brute blood, always in that large

feathered glory, and always indifferent to the fate of mortals, in his pleasure creating a new

world of misery and glory, of brightness and dark falling” (Reid, 380). Yeats’ uses phrases

such as “beating” and “white rush” of the swan’s wings to describe the culmination of

sexual tension and violence. Leda, on the other hand, remained passive in her struggle

against the god-swan. She attempts a struggle with “terrified vague fingers” but eventually

gives up with the “loosening thighs” and her body “laid in that white rush” (Reid, 380). The
helplessness of Leda is apparent from this analysis of Yeats’ poem. This portrays how

women in the society are defenseless against the brute nature of men assaulting them.

Despite their attempts to resist, they are forced to surrender to men’s violent sexual

desires. Yeats’ poem provides a detailed interpretation of Zeus’s motives in the myth of

Leda and the Swan. Many feminists would cite this myth as a systematic way to oppress

women in the ancient civilizations.

Numerous other interpretations of the Leda and the swan portray Leda as the

aggressor and the god-swan as the victim. Bernard Levine, in his work The Dissolving Image

discusses the possibility that Zeus, the notorious womanizer, was so “staggered” by Leda’s

great beauty that he had no other choice but to attempt a vehement assault upon her. Leda,

on the other hand, placed herself in the position of vulnerability, possibly to gain

supernatural knowledge from the ensuing encounter (Barnwell, 63). Levine says: "the girl

may be construed as struggling in such a way as to have forced 'her nape' into 'his bill' ...,

making him 'helpless’ (Sword, 307). Bernard Levine is not the only one to support the

theory of Leda being the aggressor. John F Adams, another critic of Yeats’ poem, argues that

Leda actively participates in the sexual experience in order to gain a mastery over the man

(Sword, 307). Despite multiple literary sources citing this theory, it is not a widely accepted

one. “The Rape of Leda” still remains the more prevalent perception of the myth, in which

Leda is the victim rather than the aggressor.

The myth of Leda and the Swan is one that is thorough and rigorous in its portrayal

of the rape culture. A vast majority of the different versions of the story cited in ancient

texts confirm that Zeus/Jupiter indeed lusted after Leda/Nemesis and forcefully assaulted
her in the guise of a swan. Due to the powerful personifications that the myth portrays,

writers and artists throughout the ages have illustrated the story in their works. While

most of these works, including that of W.B. Yeats and his critics, categorize this mythical

occurrence as rape, others such as Correggio’s painting represent a playfully romantic

version of the same story. Rape or not, the main idea of this story is essentially the same in

all the representations. The myth of Leda and the Swan acts as the origin story for many

other myths including the birth of Helen and the Dioscuri twins, the ventures of the

Dioscuri and most importantly, the abduction of Helen that leads to the Trojan War. Hence,

the mythological implications of the chain of events triggered by Zeus/Jupiter’s sexual

encounter with Leda/Nemesis is of great significance.

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