Leda and the Swan 1923

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 Irish civil war at that time when Irish was
being colonized by British. Irish as Leda and British as the swan. British,that time, was seen to
be very great and powerful after the industrial revolution. This fit the character of Zeus the God
who is also very great and powerful.
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 angel Gabriel said to Mary, “The Holy Spirit will
come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be
born will be holy; he will be called Son of God” (Lk 1:35). At that moment when Mary gave her
consent, she became the Mother of God

The broken wall, the burning roof and tower - burning of Troy: Homer’s “Iliad” and the Trojan
War = waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans (Greeks) after (prince) Paris of Troy
took Helen of Sparta from her husband Menelaus, king of Sparta. ⇒the destruction of ancient
Greek civilization
And Agamemnon dead. - As well as giving birth to Helen of Troy,whose beauty would bring
about the outbreak of the Trojan War, with Tyndareus, Leda will also conceive Clytemnestra,
the wife of Agamemnon; she will later kill her husband, after the Trojan War, for sacrificing
their daughter in exchange for fair winds from the gods.

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?