Sappho and Catullus: Sexual Politics

Although Catullus' poem differs from Sappho's in several ways, the problems it presents for the modern translator - and their readers - are strikingly similar: Firstly there are same sort of textual problems that we find over and over again in ancient Greek poetry.

To start with, the text itself is damaged, so the last line of the second stanza is missing, with its probable eaning supplied by textual scholars. How should a translator approach this problem? Should they include the reading, a well-established and universally accepted conjecture, in their translation of the poem? Should they leave the line incomplete? Or should they complete the line but indicate in some way what they have done? In my translation, I followed the last route, using square brackets to illustrate a conjectural reading. Meanwhile, Peter Whigham leaves the line trailing off and C.H. Sisson translates it straight, without indication of a textual problem. Again, as in Sappho's poem, the last stanza of Catullus' version is also problematic? Is part of the main poem? Or a later interpolation? It certainly doesn't seem to bear much relation to Sappho's version. Commentators often argue that it has been transposed from another Catullus poem during the process of copying manuscripts. Or that Catullus added it at a later date, when his affair with Lesbia was over. None, however, are certain. 'I have found myself changing sides so often,' claimed one great Latin scholar 'that I now feel despondent.' If the textual experts can't agree on the text, how can translators translate it? In such a situation, all we can do is read the arguments, weigh up the pros and cons and decide a course of action for ourselves. In my version, I made a clearer, longer break between the third and fourth stanzas. This prolonged pause, this silence, gives the final stanza a weightier emphasis, as if summing up not just Catullus' response to this one situation but to his life in general and making the poem, like Sappho's, far more universal. Similarly, Peter Whigham offers the stanza as a 'Coda' to his poem but changes the Latin text to make it far more specific to Catullus' love affair with Lesbia. By contrast, C.H. Sisson omits the stanza from his translation of 51, offering it as a separate poem, Catullus 51a.

Why not post your solution to this problem on the Discussion Boards?

Read more... How does Catullus read Sappho's Poem?

Top of page

Back to previous page