Word: actium
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...years later, when Cleopatra flees the battle of Actium, Antony runs after her. He abandons his legions, abandons his empire at a woman's whim. Back in Egypt, he falls on his sword as Octavian (Roddy McDowall) approaches, and Cleopatra receives from an indifferent asp the famous kiss of death...
THOM Gunn's third and latest book of poems takes its title from a jaded but "treble-sinew'd" Antony's invitation to "one other gaudy night" before the reeking dishonor of Actium. Insofar as this volume has a central theme, it is a study in types of heroism, which are finally indistinguishable from what Mr. Gunn calls "modes of pleasure." On one side stand the byrnied and terrified warriors of the age of Ethelred and such perennial noblemen of the suicidal beau geste as Claus von Stauffenberg. Different only in degree are the tattooed and/or black-jacketed hoods...