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).