Sparrow, pet of my lady-love, with you she will play; she will hold you in her bosom and give you her finger-tips to peck at, and tease to quicken your sharp bite, when my shining heart’s desire is in the humour for some darling jest. Doubtless, when the fever of passion dies away she seeks to find some little solace[56] for her pain. Oh, if I could only play with you as she does, and so relieve the gloomy sorrow of my soul!

And then the tear-moving sequel in the minor:

Lugete, o Veneres Cupidinesque,
Et quantum est hominum venustiorum.
Passer mortuus est meae puellae,
Passer, deliciae meae puellae,
Quem plus illa oculis suis amabat;
Nam mellitus erat suamque norat
Ipsam tam bene quam puella matrem,
Nec sese a gremio illius movebat,
Sed circumsiliens modo huc modo illuc
Ad solam dominam usque pipillabat.
Qui nunc it per iter tenebricosum
Illuc, unde negant redire quemquam.
At vobis male sit, malae tenebrae
Orci, quae omnia bella devoratis:
Tam bellum mihi passerem abstulistis.
Vae factum male! Vae miselle passer!
Tua nunc opera meae puellae
Flendo turgiduli rubent ocelli.

Mourn, all ye Goddesses of Love, and all ye Cupids mourn: mourn, all ye sons of men that know what love is. My lady’s sparrow is dead, dead; her sparrow, my lady’s pet, whom she loved more than her own eyes, for he was honey-sweet, and knew his own mistress as well as any girl her mother; nor would he stir from his lady’s bosom, but hopping about, now here, now there, he piped his little treble to her and her alone. But now he goes along the darksome road, to that place whence they say no one returns. Ah, my curse upon you! Cursed shades of Orcus, that devour all things beautiful! So beautiful a sparrow have ye taken from me! Alas for the ill deed done! Alas, poor little[57] sparrow! Now, because of you my lady’s dear eyes are swollen, they are red with weeping.

The tenderness of his voice when he came to the eleventh and twelfth lines, and the measured outburst of passionate imprecation, come back almost audibly. I wish I could reproduce the pathos. But in the poem he next read to me, the tenderness of Catullus and his perfection of form reach, I think, a climax. So I think he felt, he who so revived his manner in “Frater Ave atque Vale,” and his reading gave me that impression. I refer to the passionate poem:

Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus,
Rumoresque senium severiorum
Omnes unius aestimemus assis.
Soles occidere et redire possunt:
Nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux,
Nox est perpetua una dormienda.[58]
Da mi basia mille, deinde centum,
Dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,
Deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum.
Dein, quum millia multa fecerimus,
Conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus,
Aut nequis malus invidere possit,
Cum tantum sciat esse basiorum.

Let us live, my Lesbia, live and love; and, as for the slanderous tongues of greybeards, value them all at a farthing’s worth. Suns may set and suns may rise again, but for us, when our short day has ended, one long night comes, a night of sleep that knows no ending. Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred, and then another thousand and a second hundred, and then once more a thousand and again a hundred, on and on. And then, when we have made up many thousands, we will overturn the reckoning that we may not know the number, nor any villain cast an evil eye on us, though he discover all that huge amount of kisses.

Can’t you overhear his voice? Conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus, deep-toned and fast, like a pent-up stream in spate, bursting its barriers, till the tale is told.

Two other poems of Catullus I must mention. The first of these he had much on his mind, for he was just then in the mood for experiments on metre, and the famous poem “Boädicea” was, I think, the first of these,[59] echoing the galliambics of Catullus in the “Attis”: