LEDA • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Leda

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Leda

noun

(Greek mythology) a queen of Sparta who was raped by Zeus who had taken the form of a swan; Helen of Troy was conceived in the rape of Leda.

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Etymology of 'Leda'

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"Leda" Quotes from Famous Books

... Anadyomene; Hercules and Nessus, a superb groupe; a young Bacchus; and an exquisitely chiselled group representing Pan teaching Olympus to play the syrinx, tho' the attitude of the former is rather indecorous from not being in a very quiescent state; a fine statue of Leda with the swan; a Mercury, both worthy of great attention. I remarked also in particular a statue of Marsyas attached to a tree and flayed. It is of a pale reddish marble, and tho' I perfectly agree with Forsyth, that colored marble is not at all adapted ...

— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye

... saw two Swannes of goodly hewe Come softly swimming downe along the lee*: Two fairer birds I yet did never see; The snow which doth the top of Pindus strew 40 Did never whiter shew, Nor Jove himselfe, when he a swan would be For love of Leda, whiter did appear; Yet Leda was, they say, as white as he, Yet not so white as these, nor nothing near: 45 So purely white they were, That even the gentle stream, the which them bare, Seem'd foule to them, and bad his ...

— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser

... texts, is alone responsible for a vicious national habit which, for aught any one knows to the contrary, may be a growth of comparatively modern times, we call to mind the Horatian poetaster, who began his account of the Trojan war with the fable of Leda ...

— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles

Words linked to "Leda" : mythical being, Greek mythology