Idem cum tenui carptus defloruit ungui,
Nulli illum pueri, nullae optavere puellae,—
may probably have been suggested by a passage in Sappho, of which these two lines remain,
οἵαν τὰν ὑάκινθον ἐν ὤρεσι ποίμενες ἄνδρες
πόσσι καταστείβοισι, χάμαι δέ τε πόρφυρον ἄνθος.
In the second simile, which is supposed to be spoken by the young men, the vine growing upon a bare field, scarcely rising above the ground, unheeded and untended, is compared to the maid who
'Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness;'
while the same vine, when wedded to the elm, is regarded as the symbol of the usefulness, dignity, and happiness which await the bride.
The absence of all personal allusion in this poem, and its resemblance in tone and rhythm to some fragments of the Lesbian poetess, might suggest the idea that it was translated, or at least imitated, from the Greek. But, on the other hand, from its harmony with the kind of subject and imagery in which Catullus most delights, and from the close observation of Italian Nature, shown in such lines as this—
Iam iam contingit summum radice flagellum,—