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Tony Harrison: Cypress and Cedar

Poem Title

Original Publication

CP Page no

Cypress and Cedar

Times Literary Supplement, 8 July 1983

258-262

Allusion to Classical figure Phèdre, Hippolyte (Phaedre and Hippolytus, via Racine)

Allusion to Classical place Styx, Phlegethon

Relationship to Classical text Mentions Virgil’s advice on deterring snakes in Georgics III. Describes himself as ‘an avid reader / of the Odyssey and Iliad in Greek.’

Close translation of words/phrases/excerpts chelydrus.... / construed as the diamondback or cottonmouth’

Classical/post-Classical intertexts Racine’s Phèdre