Ancient Art, Love, and Zeus

Dr. Richard Freund’s lecture, “Love and Desire: Examples from Ancient Art and Archaeology”, offered an interesting insight into the depiction of love in religious and mythological icons. People tend to go crazy for anything within a religious context that is erotic, but they hardly ever consider its connotations within the time period in which it was born.

Zeus, for example, was a very interesting god, not just in his actions, but in the ways that he is perceived today. What I knew of Zeus growing up was what I learned from the Disney movie, “Hercules” and from the little I learned when we took a regrettably small detour through mythology in my high school literature class freshmen year. What I collected from the little information that I was given was that Zeus was bad-ass. He was the Greek god to aspire to--the ruler of the gods. He could hurl thunderbolts, for goodness sake!  

My ideals of Zeus were soon shattered when I read the poem “Leda and the Swan”, by William Butler Yeats, in which Zeus takes the form of a swan and rapes Leda (who later gives birth to Helen of Troy). But, new perceptions emerged. Sure, Zeus wasn’t this awesome, righteous god anymore, but I began to harbor some perverse admiration for him. He did whatever he wanted, unabashedly (and he still hurled thunderbolts).

As Dr. Freund expressed in his lecture, love and desire is how a particular person perceives something. I found this to be very profound. When Dr. Freund brought up the painting of Leda and Zeus in swan form, I knew exactly what was being depicted. And although, in retrospect, the painting seemed very gentle and loving (the way Dr. Freund initially saw it), Yeats’ words from his poem-- “How can those terrified vague fingers push the feathered glory from her loosening thighs?”--  were swimming through my head and all I saw was a strange and horrible rape.

At first sight, that painting appeared to tell a completely different story to someone who did not know the mythology of Leda and the swan. So, it is no surprise that people can convince themselves of things like "love at first sight". You know nothing of the person but what you initially perceive of them, and it can be easy to hold on to this idea even when you have evidence that says otherwise.