Triton Since The Renaissance
The largest moon of the planet Neptune has been given the name Triton, as Neptune is the Roman equivalent of Poseidon.
In Wordsworth's sonnet "The World Is Too Much with Us" (ca 1802, published 1807), the poet regrets the prosaic humdrum modern world, yearning for
glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.
In Jacob Jordaens' 'The Family of the Artist', now in the Prado, Madrid, a Triton is depicted gripping, perhaps crushing, a child with its snake-like tail, a scene watched over by an exotic parrot. The significance of this motif in the context of a painting of domestic happiness is unclear, but it may involve a transfer of functions in that that the child appears to be blowing on the conch shell (referred to above) in order to frighten away those forces that threaten family peace..
A family of large sea snails, the shells of some of which have been used as trumpets since antiquity, are commonly known as "tritons", see Triton (gastropod).
The name Triton is associated in modern industry with tough hard-wearing machines such as the Ford Triton engine and Mitsubishi Triton pickup truck.
The mascot of the University of California, San Diego and the University of Missouri–St. Louis is the Triton.
Read more about this topic: Triton (mythology)
Famous quotes containing the words triton and/or renaissance:
“I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
“People nowadays like to be together not in the old-fashioned way of, say, mingling on the piazza of an Italian Renaissance city, but, instead, huddled together in traffic jams, bus queues, on escalators and so on. It’s a new kind of togetherness which may seem totally alien, but it’s the togetherness of modern technology.”
—J.G. (James Graham)