Blog Post 6: The relationship between Catullus and Lesbia

In the poem 2A, Catullus talks about the sparrow, which his lover Lesbia loved very much. He depicts the image of Lesbia playing with the sparrow beautifully using positive, warm words such as “precious darling of my sweetheart,” “held fast in her bosom,” and “she love to provoke.” In the second part of the poem, where Catullus talks about his point of view, we can see why he talks about this sparrow so much. He recognizes this sparrow not because it is just a cute little sparrow but because it’s a sparrow that may bring “just a smidgin of fun and games and comfort of the pain she’s feeling.” He wants her (or both himself and her) to be relieved from the “spirit’s black depression” as he says in the final lines of the poem: “…how I wish I could sport with you as she does, bring some relief to the spirit’s black depression!” The reason for the “pain she’s feeling” or the “black depression” may be that their relationship is an unhealthy relationship between a man and a married woman.

In the poem 3, Catullus describes the death of the sparrow in detail. He puts a decent effort to make the death of the sparrow into a poem, using fancy phrases such as “Now he’s traveling on that dark-shroud journey whence … non of the departed ever returns.” Again, why does he care so much about the death of a sparrow? It’s because this sparrow’s death makes his “sweetheart’s eyelids...sore and swollen red from all her weeping.” He shows a great deal of distress in this poem but it’s toward the sadness that Lesbia is going through, rather than the death of the sparrow. So this shows how much his emotions are affected by that of Lesbia and how much he loves her.

In the poem 8, Catullus talks to himself not to be foolish anymore with the relationship with Lesbia but be strong and “hang tough.” Apparently, Catullus loved Lesbia more than she loved him. He describes Lesbia as “that girl you loved as no one shall again be loved,” showing his passionate love toward her, but “things that [Catullus] wanted, …she didn’t quite turn down.” Catullus is the one who sacrifices to keep the relationship going as we can see where he says, “she’s said No, so you too, feeble wretch, say No.” He recognizes that trying to keep their relationship is a stupid and foolish thing and tries to remind himself to “keep [his] mind mad up, [and] hang tough,” after saying “goodbye” to his sweetheart. He describes that for him, “every day the sun shore bright” when he was with her, implying that at least, he considers their memories as bright and beautiful thing to remember.

This reminiscence of their past is no longer found in the poem11, where Catullus leaves a short and blunt little message to Lesbia. Here, he seems to be much more bitter and firm in the way he criticizes Lesbia. He doesn’t care what she does in the future with three hundred men, “loving none truly.” Here, he focuses more on his own feeling rather than Lesbia’s feeling as we could see in the first few poems. He describes how his love was forgotten and destroyed by Lesbia’s “fault” where he says “my passion, which through her fault lies fallen like some flower at the field’s edge, after the passing ploughshare’s cut a path through it.” We can see that at this point, he got over with her, and he can clearly see how much he got hurt from the relationship with Lesbia.