Catullus’ Dream

The “Candidi Soles” experienced by Catullus are only a distant memory: now Lesbia, the name given by him to his beloved Clodia, becomes a distant dream, shrouded in darkness, where she reappears in the two roles in which the poet knew her: in the company of the sparrow he loved, revealing herself as the source of desire that has inspired thousands of immortal verses.

Lesbia here is a metaphysical presence that illuminates like a distant, crystallized memory. The face of the young woman is the face of any unrequited love—pursued, lost, never forgotten, and thus—divinized.

Catullus’s lover is a goddess who has no merits to become one, except through the gaze and memory of the poet, who has elevated her to an immortal and perfect statue, yet still as an ineffable spirit.