An example of W. B. Yeast’s style and message is Leda and the Swan composed in 1923 and published first in “The Dial” (1924), then was included in the collection The Tower.
The speaker retells (narra in modo nuovo) a story from Greek mythology: the rape of the girl Leda by the god Zeus, who had assumed (aveva assunto) the form of a swan (cigno). Two girls and two boys were born by this sexual intercourse (rapporto) – Clytemnestra and Helen and the war-gods Castor and Pollux, then protagonists of the Trojan War. In the poem it is important to know only the consequence of the war that brought the end of the ancient mythological era and the birth of modern history. Yeats sees in Leda the woman chosen by Zeus (Jupiter) for the “Annunciation” of the classical civilization.
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 looseningthighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?
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?
NOTE:
blow: colpo
beating: che battono
staggering: sgomenta
thights: coscie
webs: membrane
nape: nuca
bill: becco
loosening: che cedono
laid: preso
but: se non
shudder: fremito
loins: lombi
caught up: presa
mastered: dominata