“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.”
The poetry erupts with narration of a seismic incident from Greek myth: the rape of Leda by Zeus in the form of a massive swan. From the beginning, the speaker uses vivid images and dramatic language to clench the readers in the venture of violent passion. The readers can envisage the violence imposed with “a sudden blow” upon the “staggering girl” who stands “helpless” while the God holds her breast and assaults her.
“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?”
The speaker wonders if the petrified girl, Leda, could push the feathered glory of the swan from between her thighs. ‘Leda and the Swan’ is an ambiguous poem and the readers cannot decipher whether Leda was not strong enough to resist or whether she was empowered by lust. The act shows how patriarchal society subdues the women and the presentation of violent acts always glorifies men by beautifying the consequences of their acts.
“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,”
Here comes the culmination of the act while they experience a shudder in their loins. With Zeus’s orgasm, Leda got impregnated with the seed of destruction. She would give birth to Helen who would become the cause of great Trojan War and her second daughter, Clytemnestra, would lead Agamemnon to death. The destruction that will come in the course of time is symbolized by “the broken wall, the burning roof and tower”. The poem initially narrated the incident of glorification of God and patriarchy but ends up by empowering the moral woman.
“Did she put on his knowledge with his power Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?”
Leda has learned something disastrous from her experience with Zeus. She now carries with herself the knowledge of what is to come: destruction of the entire Greek civilization. The tables are turned while Leda not only gains the knowledge but also the power of “the indifferent beak,” Zeus.
