Catullus and Sappho: Mohammad Awal: Response to Catullus And Sappho

Catullus and Sappho

Catullus:
86
Many find Quintia stunning. I find her attractive:
Tall, “regal,” fair in complexion—these points are granted.
But stunning? No, I deny it: the woman is scarcely venerious,
There’s no spice at all in the length of her body!
Now Lesbia is stunning, for Lesbia’s beauty is total:
And by that sum all other women are diminished.

39
Egnatius, because he has bright white teeth,always smiles: If someone comes to the defendant'sbench, when the speaker arouses weeping,he grins; If there is weeping at the funeral pyre ofa dutiful son, when the bereaved mother laments her only son,he grins. Whatever it is, wherever he is,whatever he is doing, he grins: he has this disease,neither elegant, as I think, nor refined.Therefore I must warn you, my good Egnatius.If you were a city man or a Sabine or a Tiburnanor a thrifty Umbrian or a fat Etruscanor a swarthy or toothy Lanuvian ora Transpadane, to touch on my own people as well,or anyone you like who cleans his teeth with clean water,I still should not want you to smile on all occasions:for nothing is more silly than a silly smile.Now you are a Celtiberian: in the land of Celtiberia,whatever each man has urinated, with this he is accustomedin the morning to rub his teeth and gums until they are red,so that the more polished those teeth of yours are,the more urine they proclaim you to have drunk.

70
My woman says there is no one whom she’d rather marry
Than me, not even Jupiter, if he came courting.
That’s what she says—but what a woman says to a passionate lover
Ought to be scribbled on wind, on running water.

94
Mentula is an adulterer. Why certainly he is. How could he be anythingelse with a name such as his. It is as natural as for a pot to gather vegetables.

Excerpts from Sappho
‘Some say horsemen, some say warriors’

Some say horsemen, some say warriors,
Some say a fleet of ships is the loveliest
Vision in this dark world, but I say it’s
What you love.

It’s easy to make this clear to everyone,
Since Helen, she who outshone
All others in beauty, left
A fine husband,

And headed for Troy
Without a thought for
Her daughter, her dear parents…
Led astray….

And I recall Anaktoria, whose sweet step
Or that flicker of light on her face,
I’d rather see than Lydian chariots
Or the armed ranks of the hoplites.

‘Stand up and look at me, face to face’

Stand up and look at me, face to face
My friend,
Unloose the beauty of your eyes.....

‘Love shook my heart’

Love shook my heart,
Like the wind on the mountain
Troubling the oak-trees.

‘He’s equal with the Gods, that man’

He’s equal with the Gods, that man
Who sits across from you,
Face to face, close enough, to sip
Your voice’s sweetness,

And what excites my mind,
Your laughter, glittering. So,
When I see you, for a moment,
My voice goes,

My tongue freezes. Fire,
Delicate fire, in the flesh.
Blind, stunned, the sound
Of thunder, in my ears.

Shivering with sweat, cold
Tremors over the skin,
I turn the colour of dead grass,
And I’m an inch from dying.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Mohammad Awal: Response to Catullus And Sappho

I believe Catullus is a materialistic person, who defines love and beauty by his sights rather than his heart. As he talks about Quintia that she is not “stunning”, for “there is no spice at all in the length of her body”. He judges people based on their appearance. I also think his love is very shallow. People’s appearance may not last forever. So does it mean a person will love someone only because that person looks good, and dump in the next day because that person don’t looks as great as before? I would argue that it is unfair.

To me a romantic love is not necessarily the way someone looks, though it is a part of it, but the most important part is the personality of that person. The reason is a person may looks great, but one can’t stand the way other person talks, thinks, or views certain thing. It is very hard to grow emotion and have romantic feeling for such a person. In order to have a romantic love, one should love and enjoy each other in every moment of their lives. It reminds me of the lyric “ I love you for what’s you are” (not the way you look). Any thing a couple does can be romantic; even it is just staring at each other’s face silently.

In the Poem #33, the poet is talking about a father and a son who might be involving with homosexual activities. The poet is saying to them, especially to the son that why don’t you flee from this place where your father is abusing you? He wants them to get ride of this bad behavior and get a better life. I don’t know of any situation where a father abused his son sexually; however it comes in the news sometime that man rapes his daughter.

In the poem #35, he is talking about a poor girl who was dumped by a man. The cause is not clear why the guy has left her, yet the girl is fully in love with him. The poet says, “That girl now… perishes in uncontrollable love.” In our modern time we see that this kind of incident happen very often; A guy walks out of a girl and a girl walks out of a guy without thinking of the consequences. In effect, the person may break down psychology and never recover from it. As the author says, “…wretched fires have been eating the inner marrow of the girl”.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...: I definetly agree that Catullus is a materialistic person. At no point in any of his poems does he mention Lesbia's intellect, he only focuses on her beauty. I also think that he is very shallow as well because he does not care that he is calling all of these other women unattractive.; September 27, 2009 at 12:01 AM
Liudmila Solovyeva said...: You showed a good picture of Catullus being a person attracted to beauty, but at the same time if you were attracted to a person you would automatically see him/her as being better than others in all aspects. The phrase “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” is the best example in here.; September 27, 2009 at 11:47 AM
Richard Pelosi said...: I agree with you Mohammad, I think Catullus is basing his idea of love on physical appearance. Another student in a later blog mentioned that he saw things the opposite way that Mohammad and I see it. He said that Catullus was very into intellect and looks beyond physical beauty. I guess this poem can be interpreted very differently depending on the person.; September 27, 2009 at 12:31 PM
Duan said...: I would pretty much agree on above material all of you covered. In Catullus of view love is absolute "just for myself", thus the slef-centered way of viewing everything else including love affiar would be biased: Only that woman can bring you in physical arousal. He definitly regradless other parts like personality and intellgence.; September 27, 2009 at 6:50 PM