Ted Hughes: Cleopatra to the Asp

Length / Form Twenty lines of five quatrains

Allusion to Classical figure Cleopatra; Julius Caesar; Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus; Marcus Antonius; Augustus

Allusion to Classical place Egypt; Rome

Relationship to Classical text Cleopatra speaking to the asp before her suicide, anticipating the relationship between Egypt and Augustan Rome. Metamorphosis suggests Hughes early interest in Ovid. Imagines Cleopatra’s final thoughts before taking her own life

Comment  Note how Cleopatra’s curse to ‘Ruin [Augustus] with virginity’ in the final stanza of this poem is followed by the fertility rites in the next sequential poem, ‘Lupercalia’. Indeed, the figures alluded to in this poem were also known to have participated in the festival which ‘Lupercalia’ celebrates.

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.