Derek Mahon: Roman Script

Length/Form Eleven stanzas, followed by a sonnet

Allusion to Classical figure Nero, Julia, Diocletian, Persephone, Endymion

Allusion to classical place Janiculum, Rome, Pompeii, nympheums, bath-house, Colosseum, gym, forum, Ostia. ‘Endymion’s actual grave’ is a reference to Keats’ burial in a Roman cemetery (Keats’ poem ‘Endymion’ was first published in 1818).

Classical/post-Classical intertexts The poem presents a Rome viewed through numerous stacked lenses: the toursist’s gaze, the poetry of Passolini, the city as film-set and as the setting for ‘Byronic masquerade and Goldoni, farce.’ Nero, Julia and Diocletian sit side-by-side with ‘grim popes’ whilst, at the periphery, Passolini’s cast of ‘sedated girls and boys/ put out for a few bob [...] in the cloudy imperium of ancient night’.