I have returned to the poems of Catullus.
I first came across him in 1975, during a very messy moment at the end of a relationship.
He was born around 84 BC and died thirty years later and was “one of the most lyrical and passionate poets of any age, [who] found inspiration in the glittering Roman society of the late Republic.
There he met and fell in love with the Lesbia of these poems – a love that brought him ecstasy, pain, and disillusionment. But Catullus is more than a love poet, whether he is lamenting a dead brother, eulogizing his beloved yacht, or satirizing his acquaintances his sincerity is apparent”.*
Given how I was feeling at the time I was drawn to those poems relating to his love affair with Lesbia, which had also gone horribly wrong.
In poem 8 he opens with that bitter advice to himself which many of us will empathize with,
“Break off
fallen Catullus
time to cut losses”
Continuing,
“a clean break
hard against the past”
But he could also be more thoughtful, reflecting in no. 85
“I hate and I love. And if you ask me how,
I do not know: I only feel it and I am torn in two”.
Added to these there are many more poems, some very funny and unprintable and many more that fall into the category of “everyday life”.
My return was occasioned by a discussion on the wireless about Catullus, which in turn sent me off looking for that 1975 edition, only to discover it was lost.
Now having read other translations, Mr. Whigham’s best captured my sense of the poet, so I ordered up a new edition, which arrived on the day I found the old one.
Never mind my first copy was pretty battered, so it will sit beside the new one which I suspect will become equally well used.
Pictures; cover of The Poems of Catullus, Translated by Peter Whigham Penguin Classics, cover shows a portrait of Arteidorus from Hawara, Egypt, second century, British Museum 1974, reprint, and Catullus The Poems Translated by Peter Whigham Penguin Classics, 2004, cover shows a detail from a Roman mosiac 3rd-4th century AD in the Piazza Armenia villa of Maximinorous. Sicily, photoo AKGO/Eric Lessing
*Sleeve notes from The Poems of Catullus, Translated by Peter Whigham Penguin Classics, 1968
 |
| 1968 edition |
He was born around 84 BC and died thirty years later and was “one of the most lyrical and passionate poets of any age, [who] found inspiration in the glittering Roman society of the late Republic.
There he met and fell in love with the Lesbia of these poems – a love that brought him ecstasy, pain, and disillusionment. But Catullus is more than a love poet, whether he is lamenting a dead brother, eulogizing his beloved yacht, or satirizing his acquaintances his sincerity is apparent”.*
Given how I was feeling at the time I was drawn to those poems relating to his love affair with Lesbia, which had also gone horribly wrong.
In poem 8 he opens with that bitter advice to himself which many of us will empathize with,
“Break off
fallen Catullus
time to cut losses”
Continuing,
“a clean break
hard against the past”
 |
| 2004 edition |
“I hate and I love. And if you ask me how,
I do not know: I only feel it and I am torn in two”.
Added to these there are many more poems, some very funny and unprintable and many more that fall into the category of “everyday life”.
My return was occasioned by a discussion on the wireless about Catullus, which in turn sent me off looking for that 1975 edition, only to discover it was lost.
Now having read other translations, Mr. Whigham’s best captured my sense of the poet, so I ordered up a new edition, which arrived on the day I found the old one.
Never mind my first copy was pretty battered, so it will sit beside the new one which I suspect will become equally well used.
Pictures; cover of The Poems of Catullus, Translated by Peter Whigham Penguin Classics, cover shows a portrait of Arteidorus from Hawara, Egypt, second century, British Museum 1974, reprint, and Catullus The Poems Translated by Peter Whigham Penguin Classics, 2004, cover shows a detail from a Roman mosiac 3rd-4th century AD in the Piazza Armenia villa of Maximinorous. Sicily, photoo AKGO/Eric Lessing
*Sleeve notes from The Poems of Catullus, Translated by Peter Whigham Penguin Classics, 1968
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