Erminia - No need to aplogise. I post messages to this list when I'm tired, depressed, pissed-off (and pissed) - it's called being human.

I should apologise to you for raising the issue of Sappho. To use an Australian colloquialism, it appears to have put you in "deep shit". Searched my bookshelves for Sappho, but couldn't find it - so perhaps my recall of her image is mistaken.

Thanks for the referral to the Lattimore translation of the Odyssey. Would you believe it (?), it was the Lattimore translation of the Iliad that I studied at university!

As to Catullus, one of the loves (in a literary sense!) of my life. I have the Penguin (1970) Peter Whigham translation, which I thoroughly recommend. Whigham dedicates the volume to William Carlos Williams, so you can probably guess the orientation. I have tried other translations, but have not found them as satisfying. This includes, from memory, when trawling the bookshops of Charing Cross Road on a stay in London in 1976, finding a translation by Louis Zukovsky (I think? in conjunction with his wife?), which I found "passing strange". Summation: I didn't like it at all.

On the Catullus/Lesbia question, here (for comparison with other translators, so I can post it without breaching copyright) is a Whigham:

Lesbia's sparrow!
          Lesbia's plaything!
in her lap or at her breast
when Catullus's desire
             gleams
and fancies playing at something,
                 perhaps precious,
a little solace for satiety
            when love has ebbed,
   you are invited to nip her finger
   you are coaxed into pecking sharply,
if I should play with you
             her sparrow
lifting like that my sorrow
             I should be eased
as the girl was of her virginity
when the miniature apple,
              gold/undid
her girl's girdle
  - too long tied.

Referring to my my earlier comments on DHL's poetry: when it comes to sensuality/sexuality, give me Catullus every time! (And, in response to Robin Hamilton's query, I would much rather be compared to Catullus than Ulysses - vain as I am/can be!)

And, continuing the vein of vanity, I'm going to re-post just the first section of my "In Imitation of Catallus" (on the basis that I recently posted sections of it to the list and - to continue my eschatological theme - I don't want to bore listees "shitless". But the Catallus/Lesbia theme is explored here.)

.1.
Okay, Gaius Valerius Catullus,
we won't talk about the divinity
of the gods, or our own reflected kind
of something-like-glory.
Look, this ruby-red wine
suffuses my brain, distends
my aging veins
with its soft, impetuous murmurs.
Lesbia. Ah, yes, Lesbia
              discerns
my somnolent state
and decides to drive home.
I slump on the back seat,
knowing an erection
of any kind
is questionable
     beyond question.
No swan for any Leda:
my squat neck, you understand,
and the fact that
    I am not
a god.
    Her murmuring lips
invoke the impossible.