I loved reading Yeat's section, but have always liked reading "Leda and the Swan." I love mythology, and use it frequently in my own writing. The poem relates the rape of Leda by Zeus in swan form. Not depicted in the poem is that she lays eggs and has several children, Helen and Clytemenestra as told us in the footnote, but also Castor and Polydeuces, gods of war, among others. In this depiction, we see how immediate acts can have drastic and long term consequences, and how every action effects future history.

The poem draws the reader immediately into the action--"A sudden blow:the great wings beating still...her thighs carressed...her nape caught in his bill..." The rape remains fresh in our heads, and Yeats emphasizes the brutality of the act in depicting the end: "A shudder in the loins" is as graphic and unromantic as you can get. The "broken wall, the burning roof and tower and Agamemnon dead" refers to future events, the great Trojan War, after returning from which Agamemnon the king was murdered by Clytemenestra, blind prophet and concubine to the king and sister to Helen. The act of rape created world-changing events later on in time. Also, I thought it was brilliant how Yeats was able to describe with immediacy the rape while at the same time distancing it in relation to time.

The poem ends in a question: Did Leda take on Zeus's power and foresee the many and complicated consequences of her attack? The purpose of this is to make the reader ask himself the same question, in that can he consider the future implications of his actions when all is subject to the sweep of time? The answer is probably no, since too many variables exist. But the poem also makes me ask about the role of destiny in our lives--was it destiny that Leda be raped and therefore "engender," or create, the actions of her children in the future? Or could they have chosen differently. Keats wrote in one of his journals that he saw the Trojan war as an event that seperated ancient history from modern history. Without such a break would we still be living in ancient times?