Dog days
The dog days as the hottest period of summer (mid-July to early August in the Northern hemisphere), named for the heliacal rising of Sirius (the dog star in Canis Major) and carrying a folkloric and classical tradition of dangerous heat: miasmic swamps that breed poison, wounds that refuse to heal, water that turns sickening, and the rising star as a portent of violence and death. Distinct from the spectral-canine register of Black dog (depression personified as a haunting hound); the dog days are a calendrical and astronomical phenomenon whose folklore tradition runs independently through the Iliad (Achilles killing Hector as the dog star rises), Seneca, and Virgil.
A period whose folkloric register holds danger, suspended healing, and ominous portent in a single image - invoked at moments where the speaker's suffering is at its hottest pitch and where the environment itself becomes hostile to recovery.
Appears in 1 song
“Or the violence of the dog days”
The dog days represent July's dangerous, violent period, connected to folklore traditions where wounds don't heal, water turns to poison, and swamps breed sickness, as well as classical associations with Sirius rising as a portent of violence and death.