Leda

Like so many women in ancient Greece (both real and mythological), Leda was important as a wife and mother. In legend, she was the wife of Tyndareus (a king of Sparta). Leda was the mother of many noble children, including the famous beauty Helen of Troy, the heroine Clytemnestra, and the twins Castor and Polydeuces (the pair, incidentally, were also know as the Dioscuri).

According to myth, Leda was approached by the god Zeus while he was masquerading as a swan. Indeed, Zeus made love to Leda in this form. And the memorable union between Leda and the Swan (who was actually Zeus) has long been immortalized by painters and poets, including Leonardo da Vinci. In addition to influencing artists, however, this coupling also influenced mythology. Here is another poetic plot twist – the legend is that Helen was born from an egg because her father Zeus appeared as a swan when he impregnated Leda (it should be mentioned that some versions of the tale instead claim that it was the goddess Nemesis who laid the egg from which Helen hatched). Additionally, some ancient sources state that Polydeuces was also the son of Zeus, while his twin brother Castor was Tyndareus’s child.

Like so many artists and poets of his time, Leonardo da Vinci captured the myth of Leda and the Swan in sketch, pencil and oil painting. Leonardo da Vinci’s original Leda & the Swan painting deteriorated completely by the 18th century, but his sketches and other’s copies of the painting still exist.