Leda
mythological figure · 8 works · 10 mentions · 16 anchored passages
daughter of Thestius · neat-ankled Leda · the daughter of Thestius
in the texts
Protrepticus
Mortal woman seduced by Zeus as a swan; declared 'dead' by Clement as part of his argument that Zeus's myths are obsolete.
" For Zeus is dead — do not take it ill — like Leda, like the swan, like the eagle, like an amorous man, like a serpent.
and, approving the picture of the female, they impress it on their seal-rings, using a seal suited to the licentiousness of Zeus.
Helen
Mortal mother of Helen, seduced by Zeus in the form of a swan; she hangs herself out of shame at her daughter's disgraceful reputation.
but there is indeed a story that Zeus flew to my mother Leda, taking the form of a bird, a swan, which accomplished the deceitful union, fleeing the pursuit of an eagle, if this story is true.
through shame of my disgraceful marriage she tied a noose around her neck.
Leda sought death by hanging, in anguish over my disgrace.
Orations
Mother of Helen, Castor, and Polydeuces
For the men, they held, were Pelopids and newcomers to Greece, while they themselves were Achaean women, daughters of Tyndareus and Leda.
Iphigenia in Aulis
Wife of Tyndareus, mother of Helen, Clytemnestra, and Phoebe, said in some accounts to have been visited by Zeus as a swan.
if indeed it is a true report that Leda bore you to a winged bird, when Zeus transformed himself there, or whether, in the tablets of the poets, fables have carried these tales to men’s ears idly, out of season.
Leda, the daughter of Thestius, had three children, maidens,
Orestes
Wife of Tyndareus and mother of Clytemnestra and Helen, who helped raise Orestes as a child.
and so did Leda;
Odyssey
Wife of Tyndarus, mother of Castor and Pollux.
"And I saw Leda the wife of Tyndarus, who bore him two famous sons, Castor breaker of horses, and Pollux the mighty boxer.
Hymn 33 To the Dioscuri
The mother of Castor and Polydeuces, joined with Zeus and giving birth beneath Taygetus.
When Leda had lain with the dark-clouded Son of Cronos, she bare them beneath the peak of the great hill Taygetus, — children who are deliverers of men on earth and of swift-going ships when stormy gales rage over the ruthless sea.
Helen
Mortal woman whom Zeus approached in the form of a swan, mother of Helen and her brothers.
While he was devoted most of all to the son of Alcmena and to the sons of Leda, yet his preference for Helen, as compared with Heracles, was so great that, although he conferred upon his son strength of body, which is able to overpower all others by force, yet to her he gave the gift of beauty, which by its nature brings even strength itself into subjection to it.
For in the likeness of Amphitryon he came to Alcmena, and as a shower of gold he united with Danae, and in the guise of a swan he took refuge in the bosom of Nemesis, and again in this form he espoused Leda;