Tony Harrison: Newcastle is Peru

Allusion to Classical figure ‘Venus, Vulcan, Cupid stare / out vacantly on City Square’ (reference to Leeds statuary).

Relationship to Classical text Prefaced by an excerpt from Seneca’s Medea (375-9). Newcastle’s motto ‘ Fortiter et Triumphans Defendit ’ and Latin vocabulary linked to the poet’s memories of school (‘ Mercator; miles ’) represent the language of a city ‘purposeful in its affairs’.

Close translation of words/phrases/excerpts A motto above a Leeds bank reading Deus iuvat impigros is mockingly translated as ‘God helps those who help themselves’.

Classical/post-Classical intertexts In addition to the Seneca excerpt (see below) the poem is prefaced by a quotation from a poem attributed to John Cleveland, ‘News from Newcastle’ (1651).

Comment Note the implied relationship between school-Latin and civic ideology, projected through Latin mottoes; this idea becomes subject to further elaboration in Harrison’s film poem ‘The Big H’ (1984).

Note Originally published by Eagle Press (Leeds) as a pamphlet in 1969.