Sappho and Catullus: Sexual Politics

Is there any way in which the English reader can be made aware, however subconsciously, that the text they are presented with is a third-hand version? Or should Catullus' poem be treated completely independently of Sappho's original? The most obvious starting point here is its poetic form. Catullus sticks faithfully to the Sapphic stanza, so should translations of his poem do the same? I felt so and translated his Latin as I had translated Sappho's Greek - in fact far more strictly - by keeping to a Sapphic form, here an 11/11/11/5 syllable count. Others aren't so sure. Peter Whigham echoes the spirit of Sapphics, if not their form, in his occasional shorter lines while C.H. Sisson's Translation  eschews them altogether. But it is the irony of Catullus' poem, written for an audience who knew the original well and appreciated the wit of his transformations, that is hardest for the translator to pin down. Peter Whigham attempts a twentieth-century equivalent of this with his reference to 'headlights gone black' and the colloquial 'tears me / to tatters', while Sisson opts for playing Catullus' poem straight. In my version, I wanted to create a light, knowing mood, especially in Catullus' description of Sappho's physical sensations of desire which seem in his Latin to be playfully evoked. I also wished to convey the teasing internal rhymes of the Latin which echo the musicality of Sappho's Greek

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