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In Greek mythology, Leda was a Spartan queen, wife of Tyndareus and mother of
the double sets of mixed twins, Castor and Polydeuces and
Clytemnestra and Helen, as well as
Phoebe, Philonoe and Philonoe.
Leda was seduced by Zeus. As the myth
developed, it appeared that on a single night Zeus, in the guise of a swan, lay with Leda, who conceived Polydeuces (Pollux) and
Helen 'of Troy', and her mortal husband, Tyndareus, king of Sparta, lay with his wife
too, with whom she conceived Castor and Clytemnestra. Thus one set of twins
were wholly mortal, the other set half-immortal. Homer (Odyssey XI, 298) gives a simpler earlier version.
See also Leda and the Swan for the motif in the visual arts
and the poem by William Yeats.
Reference
Harry Thurston Peck, Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, 1898.
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