Zymrna mei Cinnae nonam post denique messem
Quam coepta'st nonamque edita post hiemem,—
and have kept it by him for years, elaborating the unfamiliar poetic diction in which it is expressed, and enlarging its original plan by the insertion of the long Ariadne Episode. It is the only poem of Catullus which produces the impression of the slow and reflective processes of art as distinct from the rapidly shaping power of immediate inspiration. From this circumstance alone we should regard it as a work on which his maturest faculty was employed. But it has been shown[579] that throughout the poem, and more especially in the episode of Ariadne, there are clear indications that Catullus had read and imitated the poem of Lucretius, which appeared about the end of 55 or the beginning of 54 B.C. We may therefore conclude that in the year 54 B.C.—the last of his life—Catullus was still engaged either in the original composition of his longest poem, or in giving to it the finishing touches. The concluding lines of the poem—
Sed postquam tellus scelere est imbuta nefando, etc.—
which are written in a more serious spirit, and with a graver judgment on human life than anything else he has left, perhaps indicate the path which his maturer genius might have struck out for itself, if he had ever risen from the careless freedom of early youth to the reflective habits and steady labour of riper years.
But although longer life might have brought to Catullus a still higher rank among the poets of the world, the chief charm of the poems actually written by him arises from the strength and depth of his personal feelings, and the force, freshness, and grace with which he has expressed them. Other Roman poets have produced works of more elaborate composition, and have shown themselves greater interpreters of Nature and of human life: none have expressed so directly and truthfully the great elemental affections, or have uttered with such vital sincerity the happiness or the pain of the passing hour. He presents his own simple experience and emotions, uncoloured by idealising fancy or reflexion, and the world accepts this as among the truest of all records of human feeling. The 'spirat adhuc amor' is especially true of all the poems inspired by his love for Lesbia. It is by the union of the utmost fire of passion with a heart capable of the utmost constancy of feeling that he transcends all other poets of love. We pass with him through every stage of his passion, from the first rapture of admiration and the first happiness of possession, to the biting words of scorn in which he announces to Lesbia his final renunciation of her. We witness the whole 'pageant of his bleeding heart,' from the fresh pain of the wound on first fully realising her unworthiness, through the various stages of superficial reconcilement,—the 'amoris integratio' following on the 'amantium irae[580],'—on to the state of torture described by him in the words 'Odi et amo[581],' till at last he obtains his emancipation by the growth of a savage rancour and loathing in the place of the passionate love which had tried so long to sustain itself 'like a wild flower at the edge of the meadow[582].' Among the many poems, written through nearly the whole of his poetical career, and called forth by this, the most vital experience of his life, those of most charm and power are the two on the 'Sparrow of Lesbia' (ii and iii) written in tones of playful tenderness, not without some touch of the luxury of melancholy which accompanies and enhances passion;—the two, v and vii,
Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus,
and
Quaeris, quot mihi basiationes, etc.,—
written in the very height of his short-lived happiness, in the wildest tumult and most reckless abandonment of passion, when the immediate joy is felt as the only thing of any moment in life;—the 8th poem—