Ted Hughes: Fire-Eater

Length / Form 14 lines of 6 couplets varying in rhyme and punctuated by 2 single line stanzas

Allusion to Classical figure Semele; Orion

Relationship to Classical text Zeus became infatuated with and seduced the high priestess Semele without revealing his true identity. Hera, jealous of Zeus’s wandering affections, visited Semele in disguise and hinted to Semele that her lover was not what he appeared to be. Semele demanded Zeus reveal his true self. Reluctantly he did so, for casting her mortal eyes on an immortal deity caused her to perish in the flames of a lightning bolt. Zeus rescued her unborn child, Dionysus, and implanted his foetus in his thigh. Dionysus later rescued Semele from Hades and she became the goddess Thyone on Mount Olympus. Several myths tell the story of the hunter Orn.

Comment This poem is from Hughes’s second collection of poem Lupercal. Taking its name from the Lupercalia fertility festival of ancient Rome, Hughes laces his poems with images and symbols associated with the festival to the effect that the poems read like a series of incantations in an attempt to reinvigorate his writing. See also ‘Semele’, Tales from Ovid.

Further Reading

Stuart Hirschberg. Myth in the Poetry of Ted Hughes, Totowa, N.J.: Barnes and Noble, 1981.