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Derek Mahon: XVI: Key West

Poem Title

Original Publication

CP Page no

XVI: Key West

 

The Hudson Letter, Oldcastle: The Gallery Press, 1995

215-217

Relationship to Classical text The lines from Lucretius are quoted in full and followed by Mahon’s translation. Mahon recalls a trip to Key West through a haze of intertextual references relating to the Island and to storms at sea.

Close translation of words/phrases/excerpts ‘it’s cool, when gale-force winds trouble the waters,/ to watch from shore the tribulations of others’ is Mahon’s somewhat Americanized translation of the opening lines of Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura, book II (Suave mari magno turbulantis aequora ventis/ e terra magnum alterius spectare laborem).

Derek Mahon