"The broken wall, the burning roof and tower / and Agamemnon dead." Leda's body is broken through penetration, and Troy's wall also becomes broken. Zeus' desire burns, like the roofs and towers of Troy will burn. And men will die, including the great general Agamemnon. Time rushes forward in an instant.

Leda's pregnancy resulted in Helen, for whom the Trojan War was waged. Yet the future war is also a kind of synecdoche for the violence done to Leda. The violence of war and the violence of sexuality are intertwined, and become metaphors for one another. The reader is suddenly aware that he or she has been reading an extended metaphor, both for how one sexual act can lead to violence, and also how violence is at the heart of all sexual activity. The poem reaches its climax with the sexual act, which foreshadows the horror to come.

Then, the...
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