Time for my regularly-scheduled Sunday night poem — or poems in this case. I’m moving up in time to the Romans, and Gaius Valerius Catullus, one of the many later poets who translated Sappho or wrote poems in emulation of hers. Unlike with Sappho, we have almost all of Catullus’s poems, many of which are concerned with his on-again off-again only-partially-requited love for “Lesbia,” the sister of one of Catullus’s fellow Roman aristocrats. This is one of his more famous ones, in a translation by Charles Martin:
Sparrow, you darling pet of my beloved, which she caresses, presses to her body or teases with the tip of one sly finger until you peck at it in tiny outrage! — for there are times when my desired, shining lady is moved to turn to you for comfort, to find (as I imagine) ease for ardor, solace, a little respite from her sorrow-- if I could only play with you as she does, and be relieved of my tormenting passion!
But also:
Either a lioness from Libya’s mountains or Scylla barking from her terrible bitch-womb gave birth to you, so foul & hard your heart is: the great contempt you show as I lie here dying with not a word from you! Such a beastly coldness!
(Before I comment further about Catullus, note that I’ve adopted the practice of crediting the translators in the titles of these posts along with the original poet. That’s because with poetry the translator is almost as much of a creator as the original poet. No one wants to read a blandly literal translation of a poem in a language they don’t know; they want something that reads as a poem and hits like a poem.)
Martin’s translation includes lots more along these lines, along with many poems where Catullus obscenely insults friends who have (to his mind) betrayed him, various Roman politicians (including one of Julius Caesar’s associates), and random people who are the subject of his disdain. In short, poetic talent aside, he was a rich entitled asshole, and definitely not the sort of person you’d want to meet in real life.
This was especially true if you happened to be a woman. “Lesbia” is conjectured to be the sister of Publius Claudius Pulcher, another wealthy aristocrat, and the wife of a third, Quintus Metellus Celer. She had no name of her own; she, along with her two sisters, was called Clodia, after her brother. But her station did offer her a measure of protection; if she had been a slave, or even less well-born, Catullus would presumably have just raped her — and perhaps written a poem about it.
If you’d like to read more
- Poetry Foundation: A long critical essay on Catullus and his poems. This page also links to several poems as translated by various poets.
- Internet Archive:
- The Poems of Catullus, translated by Charles Martin.
- Catullus, by Charles Martin. This is a companion volume to Martin’s translations, discussing various aspects of the poems along with Catullus’s life and times.
- Bookshop.org:
- Martin’s translation is out of print, but you can find used copies at Biblio.com.
- Catullus, by Charles Martin. This is Martin’s companion volume to the poems, not the full translations.
- _The Poems of Catullus: A Bilingual Edition, translated by Peter Green. This is a more recent translation that is well-reviewed; it contains the original versions in Latin. I haven’t read it myself, so I can’t speak to its quality.
Here’s more information about Charles Martin:
- Poetry Foundation: A biography of Charles Martin, and selected poems.
- Internet Archive:
- Starting from Sleep: New and Selected Poems is presumably the best place to start.
- Steal the Bacon is Martin’s first book.
- What the Darkness Proposes.
- Bookshop.org: Most if not all of Martin’s own books of poetry appear to be out of print, but Bookshop.org does have his translations of Euripides’s play Medea and the Bhagavad Vita (with Gavin Flood). Biblio has used copies of Starting from Sleep and other works.