Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Poem of the Month
Dicebas quondam solum te nosse Catullum,
Lesbia, nec prae me velle tenere Iouem.
dilexi tum te non tantum ut vulgus amicam,
sed pater ut gnatos diligit et generos.
nunc te cognovi: quare etsi impensius uror,
multo mi tamen es vilior et levior.
qui potis est, inquis? quod amantem iniuria talis
cogit amare magis, sed bene velle minus.
Catullus LXXII
At one time you said that you alone knew Catullus,
Lesbia, neither did you wish to know Jupiter instead of me.
At that time I loved you not as the common men love a girlfriend
but as a father loves his sons and sons in law.
Now I know you; how even if I'm hotter for you,
you are cheaper and more vile to me.
You say how can this be? Because a hurt of such a kind
forces a lover to love more, but to wish her less well.
Catullus 72
I'm with him except for the sons and sons in law part. I've felt a lot of things for a lot of women through my life, but never have I felt for a lover what I feel about my son and (perhaps in the future) my sons in law. Catullus refers to poem 70 in the second line with the repetition that Lesbia once said she'd rather know Catullus than the king of the gods. He even reasks the question in poem 85, how it can be that he hates and loves at the same time. I hope you don't recognize the lover who betrays or hurts you another way and that very action makes you want her the more even as you rationally think less of her. Catullus knew that sweet pain. So kind of a pastiche poem during the end period of his love affair with the inconstant Lesbia, but a good one, and short.
Lesbia, nec prae me velle tenere Iouem.
dilexi tum te non tantum ut vulgus amicam,
sed pater ut gnatos diligit et generos.
nunc te cognovi: quare etsi impensius uror,
multo mi tamen es vilior et levior.
qui potis est, inquis? quod amantem iniuria talis
cogit amare magis, sed bene velle minus.
Catullus LXXII
At one time you said that you alone knew Catullus,
Lesbia, neither did you wish to know Jupiter instead of me.
At that time I loved you not as the common men love a girlfriend
but as a father loves his sons and sons in law.
Now I know you; how even if I'm hotter for you,
you are cheaper and more vile to me.
You say how can this be? Because a hurt of such a kind
forces a lover to love more, but to wish her less well.
Catullus 72
I'm with him except for the sons and sons in law part. I've felt a lot of things for a lot of women through my life, but never have I felt for a lover what I feel about my son and (perhaps in the future) my sons in law. Catullus refers to poem 70 in the second line with the repetition that Lesbia once said she'd rather know Catullus than the king of the gods. He even reasks the question in poem 85, how it can be that he hates and loves at the same time. I hope you don't recognize the lover who betrays or hurts you another way and that very action makes you want her the more even as you rationally think less of her. Catullus knew that sweet pain. So kind of a pastiche poem during the end period of his love affair with the inconstant Lesbia, but a good one, and short.
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 4:54 PM 
