Dear Robin,
I was right, then? (of course the translated fragment was dedicated to
Lesbia (or else called Clodia+Claudia, sister of the
powerful Roman Tribune, Clodio! And (corrupted, most beautiful, and pervert)
wife of Quinto Metello
Celere (who she lately poisoned as we know from Cicerone's (Cicero)in his
very famous speech " Pro Caelio"
(I cannot remember in what year, I am sorry: all my Latin and Greek
reference books left in my home in my father land).
These very few notions (as well as the beginning of "Ille mi par esse deo
videtur ..." just emerged from the pool of memories from the even deeper
pool of my Latin classes at high school).
In the Saffo's fragment translated by Catullo, the jealousy scene is caused
by young girl (let's call her Lebia I) sitting by a very very handsome men
who would overshadow with his beauty poor Saffo, who remains unnoticed and
in despair.
Erminia
----- Original Message -----
From: Robin Hamilton <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, April 21, 2000 10:30 PM
Subject: Yet Another Sappho/Catullus/Lesbia spin...
> ... since I just noticed this on looking up the poem.
>
> Catullus translates (his only extant translation of a poem by Sappho)
> Sappho's second-longest surviving fragment, "The equal of the gods, he
> seems to me ...", in a poem beginning,
>
> Ille mi par esse deo videtur ...
>
> [written appropriately enough in Sapphics, so-called after the stanza form
> which Sappho invented].
>
> Interestingly, the poem is presented as addressed to Lesbia ...
>
> nam simul te, / Lesbia, aspexi, nihil est super me / vocis in ore ...
>
> ... for whenever I see you, Lesbia, at once no sound of voice remains
> within my mouth ...
>
> Lor', what a tangled thread we weave ...
>
> Robin Hamilton
>
>
>
>
>
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