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  3. Derek Mahon: XII: Aphrodite’s Pool

Derek Mahon: XII: Aphrodite’s Pool

Poem Title

Original Publication

CP Page no

XII: Aphrodite’s Pool

The Yellow Book, Oldcastle: The Gallery Press, 1997

247-248

Allusion to Classical figure Aphrodite, nymphs. Mahon imagines himself as a satyr or as ‘some corrupt, capricious emperor’.

Allusion to classical place Cyclades, temple to the Muses, Atlantis

Relationship to Classical text The ‘god-familiar hills’, nymphs and mention of a ‘mythic moment of metamorphosis’ evoke an Ovidian idyll, punctured by surf-boards and ‘disco-ships’

Derek Mahon