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A sudden blow: the great wings beating still Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill, He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.
How can those terrified vague fingers push The feathered glory from her loosening thighs? And how can body, laid in that white rush, But feel the strange heart beating where it lies
A shudder in the loins engenders there The broken wall, the burning roof and tower And Agamemnon dead. Being so caught up, So mastered by the brute blood of the air, Did she put on his knowledge with his power Before the indifferent beak could let her drop? |
5
10
15 |
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Though not written from the view of a female like the other two poems discussed, this poem , whether intentionally or not, has a somewhat feminist point . The narrator seems to be commenting on how women don't have control of certain situations and are often violently and sexually abused, and that they are usually oblivious to what is happening or the possible outcome of these situations.
The myth of
Leda doesn't
necessarily say that she was raped by Zeus.
In one case it is said that Zeus, the King of the gods,
gave an
egg
which was the outcome of his mating with
Cygnus,
the swan seen in the stars, to Leda, from which
Helen
was born (or hatched). This
poem, however, takes the stance that it was a rape and Leda's control and
freedom was taken from her. We know, right away, that the act is against her
will by the word choice: the first three words, "A
sudden blow", tell us that it was not expected; the term "staggering" used
in line 2, shows that
Leda is struggling to get free; we know that Zeus is using force on her by the
word, "caught" in line 3; he is holding "her
helpless breast" in the last line of the first stanza. The second
stanza also lets us know of her struggle. In lines 5
and 6 the narrator asks how can Leda possibly push the
swan, all the weight of the mighty Zeus, off of her body. There seems to
be an attempt at justifying Zeus' apathy for her emotions, on lines
7-8; as if
his inability to feel her heart beating is what allowed him to feel that he
could continue, but given Zeus' past with women, there is much more evidence
backing up the fact that he is fully aware of what he is doing. The final
comment about her loss of control is on line 13, where
it is said that she is "mastered" by the swan; she is
now his slave.
She is oblivious to what is really happening; to the outcome of this act. That same night, she supposedly had intercourse with her husband, Tyndareus, which led to the birth of twins, her two sons Castor and Polydeuces (the Dioscuri brothers), mortal and immortal, respectively. Helen was also born of Zeus and her sister Clytemnestra was born of Tyndareus. Both daughters had a role in the Trojan War: Helen of Troy was abducted, causing the war to begin in the first place and Clytemnestra's husband, Agamemnon, (mentioned on line 11) fought in the war, and sacrificed their daughter, Iphigenia in order to appease the goddess Artemis and allow the wind to blow at Aulis. This act began a tragedy of murder within the family ending with only Orestes surviving, after having killed his own mother and being pardoned by the goddess Athena. It could be said that this act of rape is brought these events to happen, for without Helen the Trojan War was we have to know it wouldn't have happened, and without Clytemnestra, the tragedy outlined in the Oresteia.
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