"Captive Greece," wrote Horace, "took captive her ferocious captor [Rome]"; Roman writers were deeply influenced by Greek literary models, studying and copying them assiduously. Sometimes they actually translated them into Latin. At the hands of a master such as Catullus, the result can be haunting and powerful. In this example, one sees how he adapts a poem by the Greek lyric poet Sappho, adding personal and cultural references in such a way as to make it not only clearly Roman, but also peculiarly his own. First, an English rendition of Sappho's Greek original, and then a translation of Catullus's version:

Sappho, Fragment 31 [Lobel/Page]
He seems to me to be equal to the gods,
who sits opposite you
and listens nearby to you
sweetly speaking
and laughing alluringly, the laugh that, oh,
sets my heart fluttering in my breast;
since when I look...