Leda and the Swan (Peter Paul Rubens) either Zeus or Tyndareus, each man is said to be the father of all four children. Castor and Pollux were called the Dioscuri meaning “Zeus’s sons,” even though Castor was mortal because he was the son of Tyndareus and Pollux was immortal because he was the son of Zeus. According to Hermes in Lucians’ "The Dialogues of the Dead", Leda and her daughter (Helen of Troy) are the only women worthy of the title “beauties of old.” Rubens’s depictions of Leda clearly embody the phrase. With Leda’s curvy figure, alabaster skin, and golden hair, she is a sight to behold.
Leda and the Swan Leda and the Swan Leda and the Swan is a story and subject in art from Greek mythology in which the god Zeus, in the form of a swan, seduces the mortal woman Leda. According to later Greek mythology, Leda bore Helen and Polydeuces, children of Zeus, while at the same time bearing Castor and Clytemnestra, children of her husband Tyndareus, the King of Sparta. In the W. B. Yeats version, it is subtly suggested that Clytemnestra, although being the daughter of Tyndareus, has somehow been traumatized by what the swan has done to her mother (see below). According to