Dála Actaeon

Publication Instance Details #1984

Publication Overview

Translation	Is Multilingual	Explicit Irish Context?	Ekphrasis	Has Paratext?	Reference to News, Media or Technology
No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes

Details

Human Rights Issues	HR & Environment HR & Weapons of Mass Destruction (incl. nuclear)
Languages	Irish
Genre	Short Lyric
Medium	Print Collection
Paratext Text	'Nor are, although the river keep its name, Yesterday's waters and today's the same.' - John Donne
Notes	This poem uses the moon landings of 1969 (framed here as a sign of wanton consumerism and colonization) as a frame of reference for human consumption and greed. 'Diana', the goddess of the moon and virginity, has been violated by the grotesque creatures of Earth, humans. Like Actaeon, who, in Greek myth, saw Diana (or Artemis) bathing nude, we will suffer, as Diana set turned him into a deer and set his own hunting dogs upon him. Similarly, we will be burned by our own scientific knowledge, our consumerism, and our greed. We will be washed back into the water whence we came by acid rains. There are mentions of consumer culture (burgers), never-ending greed, acid rain, and possible allusions to nuclear disaster.