Metre: Sapphic stanzas.

See issued printed notes: "Supplementary Material".

1-5	"The significance of the poem's opening lines (1-5) is that they elevate a normal human occasion to the status of an 'epiphany' in which the participants become divine: for Catullus the man in Lesbia's company not merely equals, but surpasses, the gods and she, by implication, is a goddess." (Arkins, 61)
2	si fas est: "The measured seriousness of the statement requires restraint in hyperbole." (Quinn1, ad loc.)
3-5	The sense-order is qui, sedens aduersus, identidem spectat et audit te ridentem dulce, lit. "who sitting opposite, repeatedly looks-at and hears you laughing sweet".
4	identidem spectat: This is obsessive behaviour.
5	dulce: cognate accusative. (MBA 236-238)
5-6	misero quod ... sensus mihi: lit. "(a thing) which snatches-away all the-senses to-the-disadvantage-of-me unhappy". mihi: dative of disadvantage. (JH 136-137)
6	simul = simul ac, "as soon as".
7	This pseudonym for Clodia is particularly apt in a poem composed in a metre associated with the name of Sappho, the most famous Lesbia ("woman of Lesbos") in history. Indeed, the poem is largely a translation of a poem by Sappho. See also the note on Poem 5.1. est super = superest: an example of tmesis (Greek, "a cutting"), on which see ILH 58. Tmesis often occurs today in abusive or angry speech, e.g. many ALP stalwarts contine to gnash their teeth about "Mundingbloodyburra", which, in February 1996, thrust the conservative forces back into power in Queensland. MEU 624 gives more polished examples.
8	This line is missing in the extant MSS of Catullus. uocis et artis is one of the many tentative suggestions to fill the gap. See the translation.
10	suopte: an emphatic form of suo. (GL 102, Note 3)
11-12	geminã is ablative, as the scansion shows. Hence it goes with nocte, not lumina, with which it belongs in sense, and is thus an example of hypallage, or transferred epithet. (DPLT 435)
13-15	otium ... otio ... otium: a striking example of anaphora, a rhetorical device which gives emphasis and cohesion to what is being said. (PDLT 40-41)
14	exsultas: "run riot". (OLD 658, s.v. "ex(s)ulto", 2)
15	perdidit: a gnomic perfect, i.e. it states what has happened in the past but carries with it a clear implication that the same thing happens now and will continue to happen in the future. In essence, it is a brief way of conveying the thought "as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be". Cf. Robert Burns, "Faint heart ne'er won a lady fair." (To Dr Blacklock, 1800) beatas: here "wealthy". (OLD 227, s.v. "beatus", 3)

"If carm. 51 was an erotic 'feeler', a measure of humour in the otium-stanza would not defeat this purpose. Catullus might well have accounted such humour a stylistically pleasing and emotionally useful device. The poem would function as a subtle declaration of love which steered clear of giving the impression that he was 'crawling' at Lesbia's feet." (H. A. Khan, "Observations on Two Poems of Catullus", Rheinisches Museum 114 (1971). 165)

On the mood of the poem, see also Quinn², 56-60.

Metre: hendecasyllables, the commonest metre in Catullus.

See issued printed notes: "Supplementary Material".

1	deliciae: The bird is a love-object. For Lesbia it is an adequate substitute for a real lover. But no such substitute can satisfy Catullus.
2-3	quem in sinu: The elision suits the sense. So too in line 3, dare appetenti.
2-4	These are the games that human lovers play. "Though only a substitute for sex, they are intensely sexual in character." (Arkins, 82)
5-7	Lit. "when (taking cum as the conjunction) for-my radiant desired-one it-is-pleasing to-frolic some (frolic), that-is (taking et (7) as explanatory) a-small-solace of-her grief".
8	credo: an anguished affirmation tinged with irony, "ah yes". "He would like her ardor to be grauis but is it really?" (Quinn1, ad loc.) "Can she really love him if she is able to bring her feelings so readily under restraint? He senses already that the affair means more to him than it does to her." Quinn2 83-84)
9	possem: subjunctive of desire. (MBA 150)
9-10	Here is an ironic contrast: Lesbia's pain seems easily soothed; Catullus knows his is not.
11-13	For the story of Atalanta, see OCCL 69.
12	malas: from mâla, mâlae, f., "cheek, cheek-bone". Cf. mâlô,* "I prefer"; mâlum, "apple"; malus,* "bad"; mâlus,* f., "apple-tree"; mâlus, m., "mast". (Unmarked vowels are short.) The words marked * are covered in the following old mnemonic: malo - I would rather be malo - in an apple tree (local ablative) malo - than a wicked man (ablative of comparison) malo - in adversity. Willard Espy comments, "It is a marvel that four identical Latin words can be plausibly translated into a complete and complicated English sentence." (Another Almanac of Words at Play (1981), 21) True, but I look forward to the day when someone devises a mnemonic to cover all six confusable words.

Helena K. Dettmer observes that the introductory sequence of Lesbia poems (2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 11, 13) all end with a reference either to a part of the face or the loss of virginity. As face and genitalia are closely related in sexual activity, this gives the poems a common link. From this we may conclude that 2 and 2b are rightly regarded as one poem. ("Closure in the Lesbia Polymetra 1-13", The Classical World (1988-1989). 375-377)

Metre: hendecasyllables.

1-2	"The appropriate circle of mourners is set out in an increasing triad." (Quinn1, ad loc.)
2	quantum est hominium uenustiorum: lit. "as-much-as there-is of-men more-than-ordinarily-sensitive-to-loveliness". uenustus in Catullus covers a wide range of qualities referring to both people and poetry. It includes physical attractiveness, urbanity, elegance, wit, charm, discernment and subtlety - and finally transcends all its parts.
5	oculis: ablative of comparison.
6	norat = nouerat. (KMP 113) ipsam: For the colloquial use of ipse referring to the head of the house, compare the Irishism "Is himself at home?".
7	ipsam tam bene quam puella matrem: sc. nouit from norat (6).
8	nec sese a gremio illius: The elision between sese and a suits the sense. So too in 3.14 (quam omnia) and 3.15 (passerem abstulistis).
10	pipiabat is strikingly onomatopoeiac. It echoes amabat at the end of 5.
11-12	"Naturally, the ancients did not seriously suppose that animals went down to Hades." (Quinn1, ad loc.)
12	Did Shakespeare have this line in mind when he had Hamlet refer to "The undiscover'd country from whose bourn (i.e. boundary) No traveller returns"? (Hamlet 3.1.79-80)
14	bella: The adjective bellus survives in the Romance languages (French beau, bel, belle; Italian bello, bella), which are derived not from formal written Latin but from Latin as it was spoken in everyday usage.
15	mihi: dative of disadvantage.
16-18	miselli ... turgiduli ... ocelli: It is important to note the wide range of effects produced by the use of diminutives: Basically, the diminutive indicates relative smallness. Thus gladiolus, a diminutive of gladius, which we have adopted in English as the name of a plant and flower, properly means "a little sword". Similarly our own word "gosling" (a diminutive of "goose") has as its basic meaning "a little goose; mannikin, "a little man". However, as well as indicating relative smallness, the diminutive may also become charged with one of the emotions normally inspired in us when we encounter relative smallness - such as affection, or pity, or contempt. So filiola ( diminutive of filia) may take on the enlarged sense of "a dear little daughter", homunculus (a diminutive of homo) may come to mean "a poor little man; and ratiuncula (a diminutive of ratio) may bear the sense of "a contemptibly slight reason". Next the diminutive, while retaining its emotional content, may lose its original reference to relative smallness. Thus muliercula (a diminutive of mulier) may be used as a term of contempt - "a mere woman" - for any woman, large or small, just as "darling" (a diminutive of "dear") may be applied simply as an endearment by the tiniest of wives to the largest of husbands. Lastly, the diminutive may be used simply as a synonym of the original word. In miselle passer the diminutive has its basic force, "poor little thrush". In meae puellae ocelli it has lost its basic force: Catullus would hardly suggest that the woman he loved had tiny, beady eyes but instead conveys affection, "my sweetheart's dear eyes". In flendo turgiduli rubent the diminutive has again lost its reference to size but now is charged with pity, "are red and sadly swollen with weeping".

"Poem 3 is a delicately ironical, graceful love poem, wary of any surrender to sentimentality, its claim on our emotions all the surer because the claim is not overpitched." (Quinn¹, 96)

"The original function of the poem, we may safely assume, wasn't to console Lesbia at the moment when she had lost control of her feelings, but to detach her from her grief later, to get her to smile a little at a clever poem, and thus to acknowledge to herself that her reaction had been excessive. Catullus' sympathetic, sensitive treatment of his mistress's grief is the core of the poem. Though they mock pathos, the concluding lines are among the most delicately pathetic in Catullus." (Quinn², 85-86)

H. D. Jocelyn, "On Some Unnecessarily Indecent Interpretations of Catullus 2 and 3", American Journal of Philology 101 (1980). 421-441, rebuts convincingly the attempts of many scholars to read sexual references into the two poems about Lesbia's thrush.