Leda (mythology)

Leda ( ancient Greek Λήδα ) is in Greek mythology the daughter of the Aetolian king Thestios and eurythemis . Her sisters are Althaia and Hypermestra . She was the wife of the Spartan king Tyndareus .

myth

Zeus fell in love with Leda. He approached her in the shape of a swan and impregnated her. But Leda's husband Tyndareos also slept with her that night. Leda gave birth to two eggs with four children - from Zeus Helena and Polydeukes (Latin Pollux), from Tyndareos Klytaimnestra and Kastor , which is why the former were immortal, the latter, however, mortal. In some versions it is only Helena hatching from an egg, in others Castor and Polydeukes are born from the same egg.

Helena, famous for her beauty, married the Spartan King Menelaus and was later kidnapped from Paris to Troy ; Clytaimnestra, however, married Menelaus' brother Agamemnon , king of Mycenae , who then led the Greek campaign against Troy in order to regain Helen.

Castor and Polydeukes are referred to as the Dioscurs ("Zeus younger ones ") (see Kouros ) and are worshiped as divine helpers in shipping.

Another version says that the divine egg was slipped under Leda by the goddess of vengeance, Nemesis , who was hostile to the Atrids , and that Leda was therefore only Helena’s milk mother .

In the history of art , Leda with the swan has long been a popular erotic motif . Michelangelo created a famous painting of Leda around 1530; but it was lost.

The story of Zeus and Leda was handed down in a different version in the oldest times, according to which Zeus did not fall in love with Leda, but with Nemesis. In order to escape the lover's stalking, Nemesis turned into all kinds of animals, most recently into a goose. Zeus was immediately there in the form of a beautiful swan, seducing and impregnating her.

gallery

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  Study by Leonardo da Vinci on a painting that is now lost and was created between 1503 and 1507

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  Copy of Michelangelo's lost painting.

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  Painting by Correggio from around 1532

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  Painting by François Boucher from 1742

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  Sculpture by the French sculptor Auguste Clésinger from 1864

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  Painting by Paul Cezanne , from the years 1880–1882

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  Detail of a splendid baroque bedroom ( Burgk Castle )

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  Roman relief of Leda ( Castle Museum Linz )

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  Fountain in Prenzlau

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  Roman copy of a Greek sculpture from the fourth century BC. BC, Capitoline Museums

literature

• Steffen Schneider: Leda. In: Maria Moog-Grünewald (Ed.): Mythenrezeption. The ancient mythology in literature, music and art from the beginnings to the present (= Der Neue Pauly . Supplements. Volume 5). Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2008, ISBN 978-3-476-02032-1 , pp. 408-412.

Web links

Commons : Leda  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Leda with the swan in the National Gallery in London

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Guus Houtzager: Illustrated Greek Mythology Encyclopedia . Edition Dörfler im Nebelverlag, Eggolsheim 2006, ISBN 3-89555-400-6 , p. 156 (Dutch: Geïlustreerde Griekse mythologie encyclopedie . Translated by Michael Meyer).
2. ↑ Panaghiotis Christou, Katharini Papastamatis: Greek Mythology. 2008, ISBN 978-88-476-2283-8 , p. 19.