Leda and The Swan_ Yeats 丽达与天鹅 _ 叶芝

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? 突然袭击：在踉跄的少女身上， 一双巨翅还在乱扑，一双黑蹼 抚弄她的大腿，鹅喙衔着她的颈 项， 他的胸脯紧压她无计脱身的胸脯。 手指啊，我惊呆了，哪还有能力， 从松开的腿间推开那白羽的荣耀？ 身体啊，翻倒在雪白的灯心草里， 感到的惟有其中那奇异的心跳。

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? 腰股中一阵颤栗，竟 中生出 断垣残壁 · 城楼上的浓烟烈 焰 和阿伽门农之死。 当她被占有之时， 当地如此被天空的野蛮热 血制服 直到那冷漠的喙把她放开 之前 她是否获取了他的威力和 他的知识？

the reason why I choose it Yeats is a poet loved by so many people. The Nobel Prize is a reward of his achievement on writing poems. In our minds, his poem is full of something mysterious and not easy to be understood. It can especially be seen in this poem. This poem of Yeats is thought as a milepost in the history of symbolism poetry. People have debated a lot about this poem in history. Somebody may say its theme is that the change of history is based on sex and war. Others think that history is the mixture of human's creative and destructive power after reading this poem. Although the story stems from Greek Mythology, I think the inspiration of Yeats writing it comes from his perceptual view on life.

some new words · staggerin g : frighteni ng 令人惊愕的 · thigh ：大腿 · caress ： embrace 爱抚，拥抱 · indiffere nt ：漠不关心的， 中立的 · shudder ： tremble 发抖，战栗 · engender ： cause 使产生，造成 · brute ： irrationa l 无理性的，残忍的. beak : 鸟嘴，鹰 钩鼻子

analysis of the poem The content of this poem comes from a story in Greek Mythology. The king of Sparta Tyndareus was taking a bath with his wife Leda in a river one day. Zeus caught sight of it and changed into a swan and raped Leda. The poem discribes the violent encounter of Zeus and Leda and all the things caused by this encounter. I think the poem can be divided into two halves. The first comprises the violent encounter of Zeus and Leda ending in "A shudder in the loins", whereas in the second both spatial and temporal perspectives widen into infinity. On the one hand, Yeats discribes the physical love of Zeus and Leda naturally, on the other hand, he try his best to do some tentative probe of the bad result and evil caused by the relation. The poem is a blank verse, it have no obvious rhyme. The poem's partition matchs the the division of the sonnet into octave and sestet.

As far as meter is concerned, it is apparent that the diction only unwillingly complies with the train of the iambic pentameter. The poem uses anastrophe. such as"By the dark webs,her nape caught in his bill," it should be"He caught her nape in his bill by the dark webs,". The poem end up with a question. It also leaves a lot of imagination and discussions for people. In the poem, the swan stands for" oracle". It brings the creativity of Zeus to man's world and combines it with mankind. The combination of body and soul brings about two natures that people can't overcome: love and wars, creativity and ruins. The poem uses the technique of symbolism and reflects poet's preference to mysticlsm fully. It is regarded as a landmark poem in the history of western symbolism poetry.

Thank you !