A Pen-Drawing of Leda

    Image: Leonardo da Vinci, Study for a Kneeling Leda (c. 1503). Black chalk, pen and ink on paper. 126 x 109 cm. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. http://www.wga.hu/html_m/l/leonardo/07study1/7leda1.html , 23 September 2015.

    Sodoma

    The Grand Duke's Palace at Weimar
     

    ‘TIS Leda lovely, wild and free,
    Drawing her gracious Swan down through the grass to see
    Certain round eggs without a speck :
    One hand plunged in the reeds and one dinting the downy neck,
    Although his hectoring bill
    Gapes toward her tresses,
    She draws the fondled creature to her will.

    She joys to bend in the live light
    Her glistening body toward her love, how much more bright !
    Though on her breast the sunshine lies
    And spreads its affluence on the wide curves of her waist and thighs, 
    To her meek, smitten gaze
    Where her hand presses
    The Swan's white neck sink Heaven's concentred rays.

     

    Sodoma

    The Grand Duke's Palace at Weimar

    ‘TIS Leda lovely, wild and free,
    Drawing her gracious Swan down through the grass to see
    Certain round eggs without a speck :
    One hand plunged in the reeds and one dinting the downy neck,
    Although his hectoring bill
    Gapes toward her tresses,
    She draws the fondled creature to her will.

    She joys to bend in the live light
    Her glistening body toward her love, how much more bright !
    Though on her breast the sunshine lies
    And spreads its affluence on the wide curves of her waist and thighs,
    To her meek, smitten gaze
    Where her hand presses
    The Swan's white neck sink Heaven's concentred rays.