Although only two poems of Catullus, 11 and 51, are specifically written in the Sapphic stanza, the figure of Sappho and the love lyric tradition he inherits from her occupy a privileged status within Catullus’ body of work. Ever since she composed her poems on the island of Lesbos at the end of the seventh century bc, the life and lyrics of Sappho have haunted the western imagination. Indeed, Sappho’s provocative images of homoerotic desire have disturbed readers through the ages, and have given rise to a multitude of fantasies, fictions, and myths about both her poetics and her persona.1 Not only is Sappho the earliest surviving woman writer in the West, but she is also one of the few and certainly one of the earliest woman writers before the twentieth century to express overtly in verse the (erotic) desire of one woman for another.2 Even in poems that do not deal explicitly with love, Sappho often depicts herself as part of a world in which the emotional and/or erotic bonds between women take center stage. Since ancient Greek society was largely male-dominated, Sappho’s ostensible focus on a ‘‘woman-centered’’ world in her poetry has, at least in part, made her a fascinating yet vexing subject of speculation and fantasy. In Latin texts, the Sapphic tradition becomes reconfigured as a vehicle for expression of heterosexual love. As a number of scholars have shown, this heterosexualization of Sapphic desire, the appropriation of feminine (homoerotic) desire by the male poetic voice, can be traced throughout the tradition of love lyric in the West.3
Like a number of Roman poets writing in the late Republic and early Principate, Catullus, quite self-consciously, attempts to bring into Latin the tradition of love lyric inherited from the ancient Greeks.4 Sappho is arguably one of the most widely read poets of Greek and Roman antiquity. Although only approximately 40 fragments of her work are long enough to be intelligible, her influence on the western poetic tradition is undeniable.5 For many male writers in ancient Rome, notably Catullus, Horace, and Ovid, Sappho represents the paradigmatic poetic voice of feminine desire and sexuality. Catullus’ adaptation of Sappho’s poems and literary tropes, Ovid’s depiction of Sappho in the Heroides, his collection of fictional letters from
Abandoned heroines, and Horace’s allusions to Sappho in his Odes show some of the attempts by Roman male poets to ‘‘translate’’ a feminine discourse within a male-dominant cultural context.
While Horace claims to have been the first to bring into Latin the verse written in the Aeolic dialect of Greek, produced at the close of the seventh century bc on the island of Lesbos, Catullus is the only Roman poet whose poetic affiliation with Lesbian poetry is exclusively focused on Sappho. Horace makes it clear that the poetry of Alcaeus, Sappho’s contemporary on Lesbos, is as critical to his lyric selfpresentation as is Sappho’s verse. But that is not the case with Catullus. The world of feminine desire and poetic imagination evoked in Sappho’s poetry is an integral feature of Catullan love lyric, and, more specifically, serves as a vehicle for Catullus’ implicit critique of aspects of Roman social and aesthetic values. Owing mainly to the homoerotic features of her verse and her powerful expressions of erotic desire, Sappho’s literary reputation in Rome is often associated with sexual impropriety and degeneracy.6 Catullus exploits that association to challenge, albeit implicitly, conventional Roman attitudes toward desire, masculinity, and a life devoted to artistic endeavor.
In general, the Romans had, at best, an ambivalent attitude toward the ancient Greeks. On the one hand, Romans admired and emulated the great achievements of the Greeks in the areas of philosophy, art, and literature. On the other hand, the Romans of the late Republic regarded the Greeks as morally decadent and excessively pleasure-seeking. In that context, the overt feminine sexuality and immersion in a life of beauty and imagination portrayed in Sappho’s poems would have been viewed as threatening to many of the values the Romans of Catullus’ era held most dear: manly virtue, duty, and obligation to the state. Catullus often expresses a commitment to a life of passion and poetic imagination through an identification with Sappho’s poetics and persona. In doing so, he flouts many aspects of Roman values and conventions, primarily the expectation that a Roman male citizen would maintain his dignity and social standing by exercising self-control with respect to emotions and desires. Giving in to personal pleasures and the unruly emotions associated with love would have been considered both un-Roman and un-masculine.7
One of the primary ways Catullus represents his identification with Sappho and her feminine-dominant world is by naming his female beloved ‘‘Lesbia.’’ Approximately 26 of Catullus’ poems are associated directly with Lesbia. In 13 of those poems, Catullus mentions Lesbia by name. But in at least 12 more poems Catullus refers to an unnamed mistress whom most readers assume to be Lesbia. Who is this Lesbia, whose presence clearly dominates Catullus’ work? On the most literal level, the name Lesbia may be a pseudonym for Catullus’ actual mistress. Many scholars believe that Lesbia refers to a woman named Clodia, generally thought to be either Clodia Metelli, a consul’s wife, or one of her sisters. Since the name Clodia is metrically equivalent to the name ‘‘Lesbia,’’ it could easily have been substituted for ‘‘Lesbia’’ if the manuscript circulated privately, as was often the case (Miller 1994: 102). But a more important reason for the use of this particular pseudonym is that Lesbia is the Latin adjective denoting a woman from Lesbos, and in the context of erotic poetry this appellation would most certainly refer to Sappho. Thus, direct and indirect references to Lesbia in Catullus’ poetry evoke the values represented in Sappho’s work as well as her iconic status as love poet.
For the most part, readers of Catullus have regarded Sappho as his poetic muse, his inspiration for carrying on a tradition of love lyric. Some readers, however, have emphasized the ways in which use of the pseudonym ‘‘Lesbia’’ allows Catullus to explore sex-role reversal in the context of heterosexual love relationships. In Latin texts women desiring other women are typically portrayed as masculine. Horace, for example, referred to Sappho (Ep. 1.19.28) as mascula (‘‘mannish’’ or ‘‘strong’’). Since Sappho’s powerful expressions of active erotic desire contravene the conventional amatory ideal of women as subordinate and men as dominant, it made sense for Latin authors to characterize Sappho as usurping the traditional masculine role. This is especially relevant to Catullus’ Lesbia poems. In those poems Catullus often assumes the subordinate, feminine role and, for the most part, depicts his mistress Lesbia as cruel, unfaithful, and domineering. While we certainly cannot equate the figure of Lesbia with Sappho, it is nonetheless fair to say that allusions to Lesbia in Catullus’ poetry evoke in varying ways the poetics and persona of Sappho.
My discussion of specific poems in which Catullus incorporates Sappho into his own work will be organized according to the three main stances he adopts toward Lesbia in his poems. The first part of my chapter will deal with poems 5 and 7, the two poems of Catullus in which he expresses a sense of joy at the blissful happiness of his union with Lesbia. In these two poems Catullus implicitly celebrates an identification with the world of erotic fulfillment and imagination that we see in a number of Sappho’s surviving poems. But, in addition, Catullus uses the celebration of his union with Lesbia, and implicitly his association with Sappho, to reject the crass commercialism and mercantilism of Roman society.
In the second part, I will examine poem 51, Catullus’ translation/adaptation of Sappho’s poem 31, which expresses Sappho’s anguished passion and feelings of powerlessness at the sight of her (female) beloved. Sappho 31 is perhaps her most famous poem, possibly because of Catullus and many subsequent poets who imitated it, but more importantly because it is arguably her most powerful articulation of desire for the ever-elusive beloved. It is in this poem that Sappho conveys so poignantly the bittersweet nature of love (Carson 1986). Catullus’ adaptation of Sappho’s poem provides a striking illustration of how his incorporation of her work in general is shaped both by his cultural distance from her and by his gender; in particular, by conceptions of masculinity prevalent in Roman culture. It also expresses most dramatically the characteristically Catullan conflict between the demands of negotium, that is, the world of business and male power relations, and the attractions of Sappho’s apparently feminine, private world. It must be understood that, despite Catullus’ clearly strong identification with Sappho, he does not appropriate the homoerotic elements in Sappho’s poetry. Rather, he attempts to reconstruct many aspects of Sappho’s poetic world as expressions of male heteroerotic desire. This has especially important implications with regard to Catullus 51, a poem in which Catullus tries to adopt Sappho’s poetic voice in the context ofdescribing his emotions upon seeing Lesbia.
The third part of this chapter will focus on poem 11, in which Catullus expresses anger, disappointment, and bitter sarcasm toward Lesbia. Catullus berates himself for his attachment to a woman he usually portrays as perpetually unfaithful. Lesbia is depicted as not only unworthy of Catullus’ love but also morally degenerate. This negative portrayal of Lesbia would seem to contradict Catullus’ positive identification with the Sapphic poetic tradition. How is it that Lesbia can evoke Catullus’ poetic muse and all that she represents and, at the same time, be characterized as a figure who is so reprehensible? My view is that these seemingly opposite portrayals of Lesbia in Catullus’ poems encapsulate the difficulties of translating Sappho’s discourse of feminine desire and poetic imagination into a Roman, masculine context.
World History
