Leda

And when the god possessed the swan, from need,
and found it beautiful, that terrified
him. Wholly shocked, he disappeared inside
it, but his trickery drove him toward his deed

before he could explore what that life must
have been like, though untried. Open to him,
she understood at once; at once saw through him:
this swan who’d come was asking just

one thing, which she, confused in her resisting,
could hide no more. The god came down, his white
neck pushing past her weakening hand. Insisting,

the god let go, and gave his love his strength,
finding his plumes—at last—a pure delight,
then turned true swan inside her womb at length.

In this sonnet, German poet Rainer Maria Rilke does not follow the conventional Greek myth of Leda’s encounter with the divine Zeus, who took the form of a swan to seduce her. Instead of a noble god descending in disguise to Earth, Rilke’s Zeus is a pathetic figure, so anxious for an encounter with his chosen woman that he effectively bungles his sought-after liaison.

He is even overwhelmed by the swan’s beauty, and Leda—no passive recipient of the god’s unwanted advance—becomes the director of the encounter: it is she who permits Zeus to advance and tames the king of the gods, who becomes “truly a swan in her lap” (l. 14).

Ironically, Zeus, well known in ancient myth for his prowess and profligacy, is easily managed by Leda, so that he becomes the ravished one—by the beauty of his chosen form (a majestic swan) as well as by Leda’s enthralling embrace.

Readers can readily perceive Freudian tones in the depiction of Zeus falling prey to Leda’s wiles, and he is clearly controlled by his desire for the feminine, while the feminine is clearly in control of the situation as Rilke presents it in this humorous version of the Greek myth.

Categories: British Literature, German Literature, Literature, World Literature

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