Lesbia's Pet Sparrow
by Catullus
translated by Ad Blankestijn
Sparrow,
my sweetheart's pet,
with whom she plays,
who she holds in her lap,
to whose greedy attack
she gives her fingertip,
teasing you to peck her sharply,
whenever it pleases her
(the radiant object of my desire)
to play some dear game,
and a small comfort for her grief, I believe,
so that her serious passion may calm down.
If only I could play with you the way she does
and lift the sad cares from my heart,
that would be as welcome to me - as they say -
was to the swift girl the golden apple,
which loosened her girdle too long fastened
Gaius Valerius Catullus (c. 84-54 BCE) was the first great Latin lyricist. He was one of the most influential poets of the 1st century BCE of the Ciceronian period; there are about 116 poems by his hand left to us. His style is varied and his work includes love poems, mock poems (even some obscene ones, as Catullus 16) and epigrams.(Catullus 2 & 2b)
passer, deliciae meae puellae,
quicum ludere, quem in sinu tenere,
cui primum digitum dare appetenti,
et acris solet incitare morsus,
cum desiderio meo nitenti,
carum nescio quid lubet iocari,
et solacium sui doloris,
credo, ut tum gravis acquiescat ardor,
tecum ludere sicut ipsa possem,
et tristis animi leuare curas...
tam gratum est mihi quam ferunt puellae,
pernici aureolum fuisse malum,
quod zonam soluit diu ligitam.
[Lesbia, by John Reinhard Weguelin (1878)]
Little is known with certainty about his life. Born in Verona, he belonged to a wealthy family, so he could go to Rome to complete his studies. There he joined the circle of a group of emerging poets who wrote in a new and lighter style.
He is known to have undertaken a long journey through Asia Minor, where he visited the tomb of his brother, who had died and was buried near Troy during military service. Catullus himself died at a young age, between 54 and 47 BC. It is not clear what the cause of death was.
Catullus is known for the poems he addressed to his great love, a woman he gave the nickname "Lesbia" because the Greek poetess Sappho from the island of Lesbos was his great poetic example. Scholars have made considerable efforts to discover the real identity of Catullus' lover. Many have concluded that Lesbia was Clodia, sister of the Roman statesman Publius Clodius Pulcher and a woman known for her generous sexuality (in fact a sort of femme fatale), but this identification rests on rather fragile assumptions and it would in fact be better to acknowledge that we don't know Lesbia's true identity.
Catullus displays a wide range of highly emotional and seemingly contradictory responses to Lesbia, ranging from tender love poems to sadness, disappointment, and bitter sarcasm. His poems show the whole range of a love affair, from first infatuation to aftermath.
The poem cited above about Lesbia's pet sparrow is one of Catullus' most famous pieces. By playing with her sparrow, who nips at her finger and causes a little bit if pain, Lesbia is able to forget the greater pain caused by her love - Catullus surmises. Birds were common love-gifts in the classical world, and it is entirely possible that Lesbia’s sparrow was given her by Catullus, which might explain the poet’s identification with it. As Catullus was an expert at double entendres, there could also be a sexual innuendo involved here. Catullus clearly wants to spend time with Lesbia in a romantic and playful way. He calls her “the radiant object of my desire” which shows how much he loves her.
The rather cryptic last three lines refer to the Greek myth of the swift-footed
Atalanta, a virgin huntress who killed every man who tried to approach her. In the most famous part of her story, Atalanta offers to marry any man who can outrun her - but she will kill those she overtakes. One contender, Hippomenes, has received three golden apples from the goddess Aphrodite. When he on purpose drops them near her feet, Atalanta stops to pick them up and so loses the race - but we are given to understand that she stops on purpose, as she has taken a liking to him! Catullus writes about how playing with Lesbia is as welcome to him as
the golden apple was to the maiden "who loosened her girdle after having
it tight for too long" - in other words, who stopped being a virgin. Translated to Catullus' situation with Lesbia it means that he needs Lesbia
to help him relieve the pressure and metaphorically, "lighten his load."
[Guido Reni – Atalanta and Hippomenes (1618-19)]
As the transition is rather abrupt, some scholars have speculated that a few lines have been lost here; others even think that the lines about Atalanta belong to a different poem - but that seems not to be the case and in my view the lines perfectly fit what goes before.
This poem inspired a whole genre of poems about lovers’ pets, classic
examples of which include Ovid‘s elegy on the death of his mistress
Corinna’s parrot and Martial’s epigram on a lap dog.
Catullus himself wrote one more such poem: an elegy on the death of the same sparrow, which caused his lover to cry so that her eyelids became red and swollen. It is very much a tongue-in-cheek poem, but also straightforward in meaning. This poem was sometimes combined with the first one, but the two poems were separated by scholars in the 16th c. The second poem is not quite as good as the first one:
On the Death of Lesbia's Sparrow
Mourn, oh Venuses and Cupids,
and all men of finer feeling,
the sparrow of my girl has died.
The sparrow, my lady's pet,
whom she loved dearer than her own eyes,
for it was honey-sweet and it knew
its mistress just as well as a girl her mother,
nor would it move from her lap,
but hopping around from here to there,
it used to constantly chirp to its mistress alone.
It now goes through the dark journey
to that place from where no one returns.
But curse on you, evil shadows
of Orcus, who devour all beautiful things,
you have taken such a beautiful sparrow from me,
oh what evil deed,
oh unfortunate little sparrow -
now because of you,
my girlfriends' little eyes
are swollen red from weeping
Catullus was a popular poet in the Renaissance and a central model for the neo-Latin love elegy. By 1347 Petrarch was an admirer and imitator; Catullus also influenced other humanist poets, as well as English poets as Andrew Marvell, Robert Herrick, Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe, and William Wordsworth. Several poems by Catullus were set to music by Carl Orff as the Catulli Carmina.
The poem above is my translation (with thanks to some felicitous phrases from others).
Translations of poems by Catullus:
The Poetry of Catullus at Wikibooks (very useful, includes Latin and grammatical explanation)
The Poems of Catullus at Wikisource
List of Poems by Catullus at Wikipedia
The Carmina of Catullus at Gutenberg
Photos:
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons