Leda And Her Swan

Only the gentle are ever really strong. This quote by the late
James Dean depicts the essence of Leda in both Yeats and Cliftons
versions of Greek myth Leda and The Swan. Both Clifton and Yeats put
a new spin on the popular myth; they use Leda as a way of conveying
a message to the reader. Each poem shows the downfall of man and
his strength in their own way. It shows the power that man has over
women, and the devastation that they cause not only for themselves
but for everyone. Wars like the Battle of Troy were fought on the ill
findings of men, and both Clifton and Yeats use this poem to express
man and his strive for greatness. A goal that man can never achieve
without the gentle touch of one like Leda. However, Yeats and Clifton
use different techniques to bring this theme to the light. Yeats
describes the Greek tragedy and the eventual war, whereas Clifton
takes the concept of Leda and connects her to our more modern
culture. Each author takes the view of Leda, and gives their own theme
to how Leda overcomes this Swan.
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower/And Agamemnon
dead. These two lines come from Yeats version of the myth, titled:
Leda and The Swan. These lines depict the Greek tragedy that took
place long after Ledas encounter with the swan. The broken wall is the
Battle of Troy, which left the Agamemnon dead. Yeats is able to

connect this into the rape of Leda because he believes that the swan
is still present in the battle of Troy. Heck, this swan has been present
throughout history. In his depiction, Yeats uses the swan as a symbol of
the brute force of man. Through his swan we can see how man,
throughout history, has taken what he wanted. The Swan takes Leda
and we never see the full characterization of the Swan. Yeats only
gives us brief characteristics; as if the Swan is moving so fast we only
catch a glimpse of it. The whole event seems to be caught in the blink
of an eye. He uses descriptions like great wings, and dark webs, to
describe the physical characteristics of this swan. He depicts our Swan
as this glory. The god of all men, and shows his knowledge and
power, and the knowledge and power that man have. In Yeats
depiction, the god Zeus is only seen as this brute, powerful man. The
Swan, however, isnt the most knowledgeable person in Yeats poem.
Even though Zeus is a god, it is actually Leda that holds the power and
knowledge at the end of the poem. Zeus may think his brute strength
has won him Leda, but in the last line of the poem, we see how Yeats is
able to spin this Greek tragedy.
Leda is described as this gentle and beautiful creature. But that,
in its own right, is powerful. The poem ends with the lines: Did she put
on his knowledge with his power/Before the indifferent beak could let
her drop? This finally can be viewed in many different ways, but the
entire line revolves around the phrase put on. In a way it seems that,

in this rare moment, Leda is the one who holds the knowledge. Even
though Zeus is this incredibly powerful god, who is all-knowing, it
seems that at this moment the gentle Leda is the one who has
knowledge. In this poem Zeus is just an image of brute force and
power. Leda will strike back at man; not herself per say, but her eggs
that she leaves after being raped by Zeus. These eggs become the
children that start the Battle Of Troy, the greatest battle in Greek Myth,
the battle that kills many of Zeus accomplishments; a Battle in which
knowledge overcomes power; a similar theme not just in Greek Myth,
but also in our current biblical culture.
Clifton takes the myth of Leda and updates it in her own way. Her
first poem titled Leda 1, shows the Greek myth as something of total
tragedy, he views the rape much differently than Yeats. She believes
that in the Greek myth, nothing is gained from this rape. She uses the
line: there is nothing/luminous about this at the beginning to
illustrate how awful this event really was. Clifton argues a similar point
to Yeats however, that this brute force and power are what brings the
downfall of man, and it is the gentle, forgiving nature of these women
that actually save us. In Leda 2, Clifton takes this same event and
actually connects it to Mary and her birth of Jesus. She writes: the inn
is strewn with feathers,/the old husband suspicious,/and the fur
between her thighs/is the only shining thing. These few lines at the
end of her sonnet show how the myth of Leda can be connected to

Virgin Mary, and that Mary was given a similar hand as Leda, and that
she too must give birth to the child of a god, a child that would change
our entire world. Clifton uses this as another way of expressing this
same motif, that this gentle nature of both Mary and Leda are what
makes these awful tragedies into something immortal. Cliftons final
poem, Leda 3, expresses the myth from the view of Eve. You want
what a man wants,/next time come as a man/or dont come. This line
ends the trilogy of Cliftons poems. This line is possibly the most
powerful in the entire group, it shows that in order for man to obtain
this woman, or have this great life, to live in the garden of Eden, he
has to be a man. Now Clifton questions our idea of a man, hes not
this big brute we saw in the myth, but a combination of all of these
features, of both Leda and her Swan.
The only greatness for man is immortality. Another James Dean
quote, one that I believe sums up our depiction of Leda and Her Swan,
the fact that man IS this brute force, and man must learn to be great.
That only through these gentle characteristics can man live a life of
greatness. Requite not evil for evil, if a man should hit you on your
right cheek, turn unto him your left. A phrase from the sermon on a
mount, a phrase which describes all of Jesus goals in creating
Christianity, a phrase that shows exactly what Yeats and Clifton
describe in their poems about this Greek Tragedy. Great thinkers like
Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi have acted upon this belief, and

these are men who live immortal. If theres anything that we can
take from Leda and The Swan, its that power and strength isnt
everything. As we see in Cliftons interpretation, the gentle and loving
characteristics often portrayed by women are the ones that actually
created many of the powerful men we see today. Her ending to the
poem shows that in order to be a man and not just a beast we
must be both gentle and powerful. This is what makes someone
immortal, and what gives us the ability to bridge the fearful gap
between life and death, and what allows someones thoughts and ideas
to echo forever. Gandhi believed in the sermon on a mount for a
reason, because it is these requite of forgiveness that makes man
immortal.