Leda and the Swan, William Butler Yeats, 레다와 백조, 윌리엄 버틀러 예이츠

 

 

Leda and the Swan

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?




Summary
The god Zeus, in the form of a swan, suddenly attacks Leda, striking her with his enormous wings. She stumbles as he looms above her, his webbed feet grabbing hold of her thighs while his bill latches on to her neck. She is overpowered, upright only because Zeus is holding her up, pressing their bodies close together as he assaults her.  

Is there any way Leda's terrified, disoriented fingers could prevent the god from parting her thighs and raping her? How could she, overwhelmed by this blur of white feathers, keep from feeling the alien heartbeat of her attacker, pressed against her own? 

The swan Zeus ejaculates into Leda's womb, and conceives the child, Helen, who will grow up to shape mythological history by causing the fall of Troy and the death of the Greek king Agamemnon. Was Leda too overwhelmed, too overpowered by her godly assailant, to realize the significance of this moment? Or did she possibly gain access to Zeus's godly foresight before he callously let go and let her fall?   

 

Theme

Sex and Violence
"Leda and the Swan" depicts an act of rape. The poem’s graphic imagery leaves no doubt that Zeus, in the form of a swan, violently assaults Leda. At the same time, however, the poem seems to revel in sensuality even as it lays bare the brutality of Leda’s rape and its equally brutal consequence—the Trojan War. This ambiguous depiction of sexual violence is a central tension of the poem, and it is left unresolved. The poem neither condemns nor approves of Leda’s rape, but seeks instead to capture the complexity of the moment in light of its enormous mythological significance.    

From the opening phrase, “A sudden blow,” it’s clear that the god Zeus is violating the human Leda. Words such as “staggering girl,” “helpless,” and “terrified” clearly articulate that Leda is taken by force. The fact that her thighs “loosen” indicates that, at first, they were clamped together, and she tries (but fails) to “push” Zeus away. The poem thus reflects Leda’s initial panic, confusion, and resistance upon being attacked, which in turn draws attention to her fragility. A human woman has no chance, the poem implies, against a god’s “feathered glory” and “white rush”—all she has are “terrified vague fingers” and a “helpless breast.” 

Despite the clear violence here, the speaker also lends the encounter a (controversial) sensuality. Words and phrases like “thighs, “caressed,” “nape,” “holds her … breast” and, later, “feathered glory” and “shudder in the loins” all lend a sensual urgency to the poem’s depiction of this union. What’s more, Leda’s fingers pushing Zeus away are described as “vague,” her thighs eventually “loosen,” and the speaker even suggests that her body (or any body) cannot help but “feel the strange heart” of Zeus. 

All of these details suggest that eventually Leda may not have simply surrendered to but even enjoyed the sex. This is troubling from a modern perspective but perhaps not surprising given the era in which the poem was written (1920s) or the era in which the poem takes place (ancient Greece). 

The poem’s description of Leda’s reaction to her rape then culminates in the end of the sexual act, which results in impregnation: “A shudder in the loins engenders there / The broken wall, the burning roof, and tower.” Here the poem’s scope opens up dramatically, from Leda’s body to the wider world, moving abruptly from the rape itself to its consequences—that is, the eventual fall of Troy. Now, the poem reveals its real concerns: not with the rape itself, but with what that rape will achieve on a mythological scale. This moment also thus offers what is perhaps the poem’s clearest take on sex and violence: that violence begets more violence, which is emphasized by the callous way Zeus treats Leda at the end of her rape, when his “indifferent beak” simply “let[s] her drop.” 

Ultimately, the ambiguous depiction of Leda’s rape suggests that it cannot be understood as an act of sexual violence alone. Rather, it is a tipping point in history, and at such a scale—the immense playing field of history, legacy, myth, and literature—only cause and effect can be traced, not right or wrong. The moral quandary of Leda’s body being violated is not the poem’s most pressing concern. Nevertheless, the speaker’s attention to Leda’s panic and fear are important; the speaker does not paper over the harm Zeus has caused, but instead contextualizes that harm within the larger scope of mythology and history. 


Fate and Free Will
To what degree do human beings have control over their destinies? In ancient times, there was no doubt that the gods held ultimate power over human beings. “Leda and the Swan” depicts this reality in no uncertain terms: Leda’s body and fate are at Zeus’s mercy. Nevertheless, the poem also suggests that humans possess enough free will to at least question their fates.  

Furthermore, by posing such questions directly of the reader, the poem speaks to more than just this specific Greek myth. It suggests that all human beings are subject to forces beyond their control—and meditates on whether human beings are capable of understanding their place in the grand scheme of destiny and history. 

From the start, by depicting an act of rape, the poem raises questions related to power and agency. Importantly, however, Zeus holds the power in this poem not because he is Leda’s rapist but because he is a god. Rape therefore takes on metaphorical significance, in which Leda’s assault is transformed into a symbol of the fate versus free will debate. 

In this poem, fate wins: Zeus easily overpowers Leda. What's more, readers familiar with the myth will know that Leda is no ordinary human, but a queen in her own right. By referring to her merely as a “girl,” the poem emphasizes her frailty. Between a god and a queen, the god still holds all the power, suggesting that all human beings are ultimately subject to the tides of history, fate, destiny, and change. 

As Leda's rape continues, the second stanza is then composed of two rhetorical questions, both of which essentially ask to what degree Leda has any free will within this situation. By leaving both questions unanswered, the poem asks the reader to draw their own conclusions. This is emphasized by the fact that the “body” in line 7 is assigned no pronouns: 

And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

This could be Leda’s body, or Zeus’s body, or even any body. In this moment, the poem pushes the reader to pose the rhetorical questions directly of themselves, and take the measure their own free will against the immense forces of fate and history. 

The suggestion in this stanza that Leda eventually consents to Zeus does not square with readers’ modern understanding of sexual assault. However, it’s important to note that regardless of whether she eventually consents, the poem overall makes clear that Leda has no control over the situation. The poem therefore suggests that no matter how human beings react to the forces dictating their fates, those forces are still immensely more powerful than human free will. 

The poem's most explicit depiction of fate takes place in the final stanza, at the moment of conception. Zeus’s loins literally plant the seeds of myth and history, and Leda, described as “caught up” and “mastered,” is powerless against the enormous forces of divinity and fate having their way with her body. 

That said, even as this moment serves as a reminder of Leda’s powerlessness, it also affirms her significance. Her body is literally where the conception occurs, and metaphorically where all the historical action comes to fruition. Zeus may be in control of her fate, but he needs Leda as the vessel. 

Importantly, the last two lines of the poem then consider the degree to which Leda comprehends what is happening to her. The speaker wonders aloud whether Leda was granted momentary godly insight into the bigger picture of her assault—or if she was left in the dark, simply a cog in the wheel of history. This is posed as another rhetorical question, again asking the reader to draw their own conclusions about whether a human being can understand their fate. While the poem clearly asserts that humans are powerless to resist fate, this conclusion suggests that they at least have the potential to grasp the greater meaning of their existence. 


History and Transformation
The clearest thesis of “Leda and the Swan” is that a single moment can reverberate throughout the entirety of history. Yeats famously believed that history was a series of interlocking and repeating patterns—he thought of them as “gyres,” which spiraled toward significant moments that triggered immense change. The significant moment of the poem is of course Zeus’s rape of Leda, which, according to myth, led to the Trojan War and the Golden Age of Greece—a modern age of art, literature, and democracy. The poem treats this significant moment between Leda and Zeus as a mythological and historical tipping point. 

Of course, the poem makes clear that the thing that set this all in motion was an act of sexual violation, and that this violence, in turn, led to more terribly violent events before that Golden Age emerged. The poem thus also implies that sweeping historical transformation is often tied to moments of violation and violence. 

Accordingly, the poem is also often read as an allusion to the dawn of Christianity, as well as a reference to the Irish War for Independence and Irish Civil War, which took place during the years when Yeats was writing “Leda and the Swan.” 

Indeed, to any reader versed in the Western canon, which Yeats certainly was, the poem’s close attention to Leda’s experience also calls to mind another woman’s experience with divine conception—Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ. Yeats himself wrote in his book A Vision that he saw Leda’s rape as analogous with the Annunciation—the moment when the angel Gabriel tells Mary she will conceive a child by God. Likewise, just like Leda’s children, especially Helen, have a transformative effect on Greek history, there’s no question that Mary’s son Jesus and the rise of Christianity had a transformative effect on global history, including Yeats’s own country of Ireland. 

Last but not least, many readers have interpreted the poem as an allusion to colonial relationship between Great Britain and Ireland, and more specifically to the Irish War for Independence. In this reading, Zeus represents not just the powerful forces of fate and history but the colonial power of England, which fully conquered Ireland in the 1500s, leading to famine, oppression, and violence—a kind of metaphorical rape, in the poem’s terms.  

Between 1916 and 1922, however, pro-Irish forces staged a rebellion that resulted in an Irish Free State (in which Yeats served two terms as a senator). Nevertheless, Ireland still technically remained under English control. Then, between 1922 and 1924, when Yeats was writing “Leda and the Swan,” Civil War broke out, resulting in the split between independent Ireland and a Northern Irish state that remained part of the United Kingdom. 

This was an immense turning point in the history of Ireland and England, and the beginning of a new era for Ireland. Thus, just as Zeus’s rape “engenders” the rise of the Greek Golden Age, the English domination of Ireland eventually gave rise to Irish independence. This could not take place without violence, however, which the poem also vividly reflects. 






레다와 백조
 
불시의 공격 : 큰 날개가 비틀거리는
소녀 위에 펴덕 거리며, 그녀의 허벅지가
검은 물갈퀴에 애무당하고, 목덜미는 부리에 잡힌 채,
꼼짝 못하는 그녀의 가슴을 그의 가슴 위로 안는다.
어떻게 저 두려운 모호한 손가락들이 그녀의 느슨해지는
허벅지로부터 깃털의 영광을 밀어내겠는가?
그리고 어떻게 하얀 공격에 쓰러진 몸이 내맡긴 그것의
낯선 심장의 박동 소리를 느끼지 않겠는가?
 
허리의 전율이 거기 부서진 성벽,
불타는 지붕과 탑을, 그리고 아가멤논의
죽음을 낳았다.
하늘의 잔인한 왕족에
그렇게 붙잡히고 그렇게 정복 당했을 적에
무관심해진 부리가 그녀를 떨어뜨리기 전에
그녀가 그의 힘과 그의 지식을 얻었을까?
 

 
약강 오보격(imbic pentameter), 각운은 abab cdcd efgefg의 소네트 -> 중간 휴지의 사용이 독특하다.
(G.M Hopkins의 두 시 'God's Grandeur'와 'The Windhover'도 모두 소네트이다)

 

희랍(greek)신화의 내용에서 상상력을 얻어 만듦 : 올림푸스 최고의 신 Zeus신이 하늘에서 내려와 백조로 둔갑하여 물에서 놀고있는 Leda를 겁탈하여 두 개의 알을 낳으면서 인류의 운명이 시작되었다고 함 -> 인간이 이지력을 갖게 된 배경을 시로 설명하였다.

 

신은 이지(knowledge)라는 속성을 가지고있고, 인간은 감정의 속성을 가지고 있음 -> 인간과 신이 결합 -> 인간이 서로 상반(모순)된 이성과 감정이 부여된 속성을 동시에 가지게 되었다고 말함

 

시 전체에 나오는 거센 파열음과 마찰음은 제우스가 레다를 습격하고, 레다의 놀람과 공포, 그 결과 트로이의 멸망을 효과적으로 표현하는 음이다.
 
 
H. D. (힐다 둘리틀)의 시 "헬레네" (Helen)에서 헬레네의 어머니 레다(Leda) 이야기를 하였다. 스파르타의 왕비였으나, 그녀에게 반한 제우스가 백조로 변신하여, 그녀를 유혹하여, 그 사이에 난 딸이 헬레네라고 하였다.

제우스가 유혹을 하였다고 듣기 좋게 이야기하였지만, 사실은 강제로 폭행한 능욕이다.

이 사건으로 레다는 두 딸을 낳았는데, 헬레네와 클리템네스트라(Clytemnestra)이다. 헬레네는 트로이의 왕자 파리스(Paris)와 사랑의 도피를 하여 트로이 전쟁을 야기했다.

클리템네스트라는 미케네의 왕 아가멤논(Agamemnon)의 왕비이다. 트로이 전쟁에서 승리를 거두고 돌아온 아가멤논을 애인과 공모하여 살해했다.

클리템네스트라의 아가멤논 살해 이유는 여러 가지 설이 있다. 가장 잘 알려져 있는 것은 아가멤논이 딸을 죽여 아르테미스 여신에게 바친 것이다. 

트로이를 공략하러 갈 때, 바람이 불지 않아 배를 띄울 수가 없게 되자, 신전의 예언자가 아가멤논의 딸을 희생시키면 바람이 불 것이라고 하였다. 

아가멤논은 딸을 아킬레스에게 결혼시킨다고 속여 아내 클리템네스트라에게 딸을 보내라고 하였다.

제우스의 레다 능욕은 신화 이야기이지만, 예술가의 영감과 상상력을 자극하여 수많은 시가 쓰이고 그림들이 그려졌다. 미켈란젤로, 레오나르도 다빈치, 루벤스가 그림을 그렸으며, 폴 세잔, 구스타프 클림트의 그림도 있다.

이 이야기를 소재로 1923년 쓰인 이 시는 예이츠의 걸작으로 평가되고 있다. 예이츠는 이 해 노벨문학상을 받았다. 비평가 카밀 팔리아(Camille Paglia)는 이 시를 "20세기의 가장 위대한 시"라고까지 극찬했다.​

이 시는 신화 속의 사건을 옮기면서, 선명하고, 생동적이고, 대담한 시각적 이미지를 전달하고 있다.