Quotes from work
The Cure at Troy

Seamus Heaney

The Cure at Troy: A Version of Sophocles' Philoctetes is a verse adaptation by Seamus Heaney of Sophocles' play Philoctetes. It was first published in 1991. The story comes from one of the myths relating to the Trojan War. It is dedicated in memory of poet and translator Robert Fitzgerald.

“Believe in miracles
and cures and healing wells.”

Seamus Heaney The Cure at Troy

"Doubletake", from The Cure at Troy (1990)
Poetry Quotes, The Cure at Troy
Context: History says don't hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.
So hope for a great sea-change
on the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
and cures and healing wells.

“History says don't hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.”

Seamus Heaney The Cure at Troy

“Human beings suffer,
they torture one another,
they get hurt and get hard.”

Seamus Heaney The Cure at Troy

"Doubletake" from The Cure at Troy (1990) - The Cure at Troy http://www.panhala.net/Archive/The_Cure_at_Troy.html excerpts
Poetry Quotes, The Cure at Troy
Context: Human beings suffer,
they torture one another,
they get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
can fully right a wrong
inflicted or endured.

“Call the miracle self-healing:
The utter self-revealing
double-take of feeling.”

Seamus Heaney The Cure at Troy

"Doubletake", from The Cure at Troy (1990)
Poetry Quotes, The Cure at Troy
Context: Call the miracle self-healing:
The utter self-revealing
double-take of feeling.
If there's fire on the mountain
Or lightning and storm
And a god speaks from the sky That means someone is hearing
the outcry and the birth-cry
of new life at its term.