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| Roman Empire Leda 1st century AD marble Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| Roman Empire Leda (detail) 1st century AD marble Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| Francesco Colonna (author) Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (opened to illustration - Leda on Triumphal Car drawn by Elephants) 1499 woodcuts attributed to Benedetto Bordone published by Aldus Manutius in Venice Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Leonardo da Vinci Leda ca. 1510-15 oil on panel Galleria Borghese, Rome |
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| Raphael Leda and the Swan ca. 1507 drawing Royal Collection, Great Britain |
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| Jacopo Pontormo Leda and the Swan 1512-13 oil on panel Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence |
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| Anonymous French Maker Leda and the Swan 16th century sardonyx cameo Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
The Welty Tour
In the next room, Peter's gloved hands crack
cordoned-off spines: he has been granted
permission, his agent's call his pedigree.
So the tour itself is only the docent and me.
He is docile, eager to please, leads me
up the stairs and takes me to the bed.
The coverlet is authentic, he says.
He lectures me on the heating system, offers
an anecdote of a broken casserole, recites
all of the Welty lore he has rehearsed.
She taught him when he was young, and now
her serves her legend, lets me lean in
toward the books – I cross the line
of what's allowed, never touching.
He shows me photos – two loves lost, one
a married man – then on the way down,
pauses before a feather in a box,
reciting Yeats's "Leda and the Swan."
He begins to weep at Let her drop, adds,
Like Welty's loves! Now I stop –
Is he comparing her to the god, or Leda?
He cannot bear her, her Unfulfilled Love.
I cannot bear this either – how dare he conjure up
for her such disappointment, such wasted longing?
I want to be the mirror of her photographs,
to be her figure of my own conjuring. I want
to believe I, too, could be happy here, in this
solitary house, in this small town, amidst
the rows and stacks of books. Untouched.
–Rebecca Morgan Frank (2017)
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| attributed to Giovanni Battista Palumba Leda and the Swan with infants Castor and Pollux, Helen and Clytemnestra ca. 1500-1520 drawing (print study) British Museum |
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| Marco da Ravenna Leda and the Swan ca. 1510-27 engraving British Museum |
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| attributed to Bartolomeo Ammanati Leda and the Swan ca. 1535 marble Victoria & Albert Museum |
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| Bacchiacca Leda and the Swan before 1557 oil on panel Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Eugenio Cajés Leda and the Swan 1604 oil on canvas Museo del Prado, Madrid |
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| attributed to Michele Rocca after Nicolas Bertin Leda and the Swan before 1751 oil on canvas Broadsworth Hall, Doncaster |
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| Anonymous printmaker after Correggio Leda and the Swan 19th century lithograph British Museum |
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| Anonymous Italian Maker Leda and the Swan ca. 1825 onyx cameo Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
from Astrophil and Stella
Some lovers speak, when they their muses entertain,
Of hopes begot by fear, of wot not what desires,
Of living deaths, dear wounds, fair storms and freezing fires.
Some one his song in Jove, and Jove's strange tales, attires,
Broidered with bulls and swans, powdered with golden rain.
Another, humbler wit to shepherd's pipe retires,
Yet hiding royal blood full oft in rural vein.
To some a sweetest plaint a sweetest style affords,
While tears pour out his ink, and sighs breathe out his words,
His paper, pale despair, and pain his pen doth move.
I can speak what I feel, and feel as much as they,
But think that all the map of my state I display,
When trembling voice brings forth, that I do Stella love.
– Sir Philip Sidney (1591)