death’s head moth. A hawk moth (Acherontia atropos) with markings resembling a skull on the back of the thorax. Its sci- entific name Acherontia means “woeful river of Hell” and atro- pos means “the Fate who cuts the thread of life.” The moth is an image in much English verse, including Keats’s poem “Ode on Melancholy”: No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist Wolf ’s bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine. Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be Your mournful Psyche. See a thing of beauty. |