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  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Erminia Passannanti 
  To: [log in to unmask] 
  Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 1999 12:35 AM
  Subject: Re: Apologies to Saffo.


  Dear Viv,

  thank you dearly for your kind note.
  You seem to be the sort of man who likes talking schatologically.
  So, -my suggestion is that you read De Sade's 120 days of Sodom.
  Or maybe you know it already.
  There is also Norman Brown's Life against Death, section: Studies in Anality (University of Pennsylvania Press, year?)
   
  Warmest regards,


  EP
    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: Viv Kitson 
    To: [log in to unmask] 
    Sent: Saturday, April 22, 2000 1:01 PM
    Subject: Re: Apologies to Saffo.


    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.)

    In Imitation of Catullus
    .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.