Is Yeats' Sonnet a FAKE Copy?

What if some animals are just transformed gods or goddess that want to enjoy a little bit life in the mortal world? And, is the real story related to the poem between a woman named Leda and one of this animals written by Yeats?

* The Author of the poem:

William Butler Yeats, the writer of the sonnet "Leda and the Swan", born in Sandymount, Ireland, during the 1860s was a one of the main men behind the Irish Literary Revival and, along with others, he also founded The Abbey Theatre. In 1923, he was honoured with the Nobel Prize in Literature and was described as "inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation". After being awarded, he is one of the fewest people that had completed their greatest pieces of art or wonders without failing.

"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.

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 broken wall, the burning roof and tower

And Agamemnon dead.

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?"

-Yeats-

"Leda and the Swan", as mentioned above, is a poem adapted from a story from the Greek Mythology. It takes the reader into old mythical times where god Zeus, who took the form of a white, enormous and beautiful swan, seduces and intimates with Leda, the Queen of Sparta.

* Do you want to know more about the story?

You can have a look in here and read one of the adaptations made by Dellz, an author in the Blog: "豪華なところ" (Gōkana tokoro) with some anime-like or Japanese-like illustrations that makes reading something fast and easy.

* What does the Swan represent?

The bird is generally seen as a symbol of freedom, it can walk on earth, swim in the sea as all humans do but, and something not less important and that is impossible for us is that they have the ability to fly into the sky. Some cultures think that this animal is a clear symbol of the eternal life; a link between heaven and earth. Another way of symbolizing the swan is by seeing it as an image of solitude, as other civilizations, 

* Is the poem expressing the real "truth" in a first-read according to what the real and Greek mythology story tells?

The real story, based on the story that was published in the Blog* above, is about a love conflict between two couples, Zeus & Hera and, Tyndareus (The King of Sparta) & Leda (The Queen of Sparta). In basic words and as a fast summary: Zeus falls in love with the Queen while being in love with the goddess Hera. 

The tale begins when on one day, the god saw an extraordinary beautiful and young woman by the lake and found her fascinating, so he desires her as many other women on Earth by those times as he usually "trapped" any woman he wanted and did what he pleased. But, while learning more and more about her every new second he stared at that marvellous body lying on the enormous garden the King had from the Olympus, he "falls" in love with her.

Zeus tries to make the married woman fall in love with him as he does with her by transforming himself into a swan and help her whenever she is in trouble or in pain, but sadly she never gives up on loving her husband until something else occurs and makes everything get out of control. 

Because of loneliness as Leda's husband is always fighting on war, Zeus begs her by the lake, where they usually met, to stay with him and accept his love because he will try to teach the lady how a "god's love" is. After all this happens, they start spending nights together, one after another while The King is away, following the "wrong" path of infidelity. 

On the one hand, the sonnet written by Yeats describes a male swan that apparently rapes a young woman without letting her decide whether accept it or not but, on the other hand, the story tells us a love story mixed with another one because of a confusing feeling of "love" from a god to a mortal already married. 

Is the adaptation of Yeats the opposite of what the main story tries to express, or is it that he tries to communicate the same but somewhat fails to do when fast readers take a quick look to his poem? Here we have the poem again to make sure what is he trying to state:

"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.

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?(...)"

Doesn't she seem a little bit scared? The story is shortened into the act of mating as animals, showing somehow the female terrified waiting for was is meant to be, everything happens in just a sudden blow so, the authors transforms the event and the whole tale into a mating sonnet where two animals, a mammal or human being and a bird (swan) are just trying to reproduce. As this is a fictitious story and poem, she gets pregnant without questioning the difference in race type giving birth two her 2 first children (human beings), Castor a mortal and Pollux an inmortal as his father.

As a conclusion, Yeats may not truly use the whole story with all its events as they occurred but he gets the essence and tries to use it to create something new and artistic when Modernism was on its apex. He may not describe the events as they where happening but what he does is to simplify them and make them one within the final result. 

In my point of view, I believe that if there are many ways to see things in life, there are also tons more to see or do things, one of these can be adapting or creating new texts using he same skeleton but reconstructing from ashes to create a new and unique whole body. There is no wrong way but a right way that is:

Notes:

* I believe it is worthy mentionable that there are many adaptations and interpretations of the mythological story, I based my discussion on the one I read at Gōkana tokoro's Blog because it was illustrated, it was catchy and it may help my readers to understand things better and, as said before, faster.