Poem Title |
Original Publication |
CP Page no |
Ariadne on Naxos |
Life on Earth, Oldcastle: The Gallery Press, 2008 |
Not included in CP |
Length / Form Ovid's elegiac couplets become irregularly rhymed pentameter.
Allusion to Classical figure Theseus, Ariadne, Maenad, Minotaur
Allusion to Classical place Crete
Relationship to Classical text Approximately two thirds of the source text are omitted
Close translation of words/phrases/excerpts This is Mahon's interpretation of sections of Ovid's Heroides X
Comment This classically themed interpretation recalls the loneliness and sense of exile in Mahon's 'Calypso' (Harbour Lights, 2005) and is one of a number of his poems which depict classical figures in coastal scenes: see also ‘Harbour Lights’ (Harbour Lights, 2005), 'Quaderno' and 'Circe and Sirens' (both from Life on Earth), 'Ithaca', 'A Beached Whale' and 'Balcony of Europe' (An Autumn Wind, 2010) and 'Mediterranean' (Raw Material, 2011)