LEDA

Below: Leda and the Swan was painted in 1601 by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens (1577—1640).

In one of the most famous stories of Greek mythology, the beautiful Leda became an object of the amorous attentions of Zeus, who took the form of a swan in order to pursue her.

Leda was the daughter of King Thestius of Aetolia and sister of Althaea, the mother of Meleager. She married Tyndareos, the king of Sparta. Her beauty was so great that she attracted the attention of Zeus, the king of the gods. When he went off on his various amorous adventures, Zeus took on a wide range of physical forms in order to escape the watchful eye of his jealous wife, Hera. He came to Leda disguised as a great white swan that flew into her arms for protection from a pursuing eagle.

According to the most popular version of the myth, after her union with Zeus, Leda laid two eggs. From one egg hatched two sons. Although they were known together as the Dioscuri, from the Greek dios kouroi, “sons of Zeus,” only one of them, Pollux (or Polydeuces), was the son of the god. The other son, Castor, was sired by Tyndareos. From the second egg two daughters were born: Clytemnestra, who was fathered by Leda’s mortal husband, and Helen, who claimed Zeus as her father.

A less familiar version of the story suggests that Leda laid only a single egg, from which the Dioscuri hatched. Clytemnestra, the daughter of Tyndareos and Leda, was born in the normal way. Helen, meanwhile, was a child of Zeus and Nemesis, who mated while transformed into birds. Their egg was tended by Leda. When Helen hatched,

Above: This ancient Greek painting of unknown date depicts Zeus, in the form of a swan, abducting Leda.

Leda raised the child as her own daughter. Helen grew up to believe that the sufferings of her life sprang from the bizarre circumstances of her birth. To commemorate the form Zeus had taken during his union with Leda, the god placed the constellation Cygnus (Latin for “swan”) in the Milky Way.

Leda also had three other daughters by Tyndareos: Timandra, who married Echemus, king of Arcadia, but then ran off with Phyleus, king of Doulichium; Philonoe, who was made immortal by Artemis; and Phoebe, who is mentioned only once in ancient literature, in the play Iphigeneia at Aulis by Greek dramatist Euripides (c. 486—c. 406 BCE), but who appears on several Attic vases depicting Leda’s family.