represents beauty and imagination while the real world embodies time and decay Greek Myths and Civilization Yeats also used Greek myths to explain human history and civilization In Leda and the Swan he retells the story of Zeus and Leda From their union came Helen of Troy whose beauty caused the Trojan War Yeats sees this event as the beginning of a new age in human history He believed that every two thousand years a new civilization is born Thus Yeats uses myth to explain the cycles of history and human destiny Cycles of History In The Second Coming Yeats presents his famous idea of history moving in circles He thought that each civilization lasts for about two thousand years and then gives birth to another The poem begins with the image of a turning gyre The poet says Turning and turning in the widening gyre the falcon cannot hear the falconer This means that order has broken down and chaos is coming He feels that the Christian age is ending and a new age dark and violent is about to begin He says And what rough beast its hour come round at last Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born It is a symbol of that new civilization Here Yeats uses both myth and philosophy to explain the fall and rebirth of history Irish History Yeats s love for Ireland is clearly shown in Easter This poem deals with the Irish rebellion against British rule Yeats portrays the rebels who died for Ireland as heroic symbols He writes All changed changed utterly A terrible beauty is born Their deaths make Ireland spiritually new The poet mixes real history with mythic meaning Myth and Moral Philosophy In A Prayer for My Daughter Yeats joins myth and philosophy to show his fear for modern civilization A wild storm rages outside while his baby daughter sleeps inside The storm stands for the violence and disorder of the world He remembers Helen of Troy whose beauty brought destruction So he prays May she be granted beauty and yet not Beauty to make a stranger s eye distraught Through myth Yeats teaches a moral lesson about beauty pride and peace In summary W B Yeats handles myth and history with great art and wisdom He uses them not only to tell stories but to explain human life and change His Irish legends give his poetry a national spirit His historical and philosophical ideas make it universal Through poems like The Second Coming and Easter Yeats shows that myth and history together reveal man s endless struggle for meaning and renewal