The idea in this last line was probably taken from Bion’s celebrated _Idyllium_—the lamentation of Venus for the death of Adonis, where there is a similar complaint of the unrelenting Orcus—
This poem on the death of Lesbia’s sparrow has suggested many similar productions. Ovid’s elegy, _In Mortem Psittaci_(474), where he extols and laments the favourite parrot of his mistress, Corinna, is a production of the same description; but it has not so much delicacy, lightness, and felicity of expression. It differs from it too, by directing the attention chiefly to the parrot, whereas Catullus fixes it more on the lady, who had been deprived of her favourite. Statius also has a poem on the death of a parrot, entitled _Psittacus Melioris_(475); and Lotichius, a celebrated Latin poet, who flourished in Germany about the middle of the 16th century, has, in his elegies, a similar production on the death of a dolphin(476). Naugerius, _In Obitum Borgetti Catuli_, nearly copies the poem of Catullus—
“Nunc raptus rapido maloque fato, Ad manes abiit tenebricosas,” &c.
It has been imitated closely, and with application to a sparrow, by Corrozet, Durant, and Monnoye, French poets of the 16th century—by Gacon and Richer, in the beginning, and R. de Juvigny, in the end, of the 18th century. In all these imitations, the idea of a departure to regions of darkness, whence no one returns, is faithfully preserved. Most of them are written with much grace and elegance; and this, indeed, is a sort of poetry in which the French remarkably excel.
4. _Dedicatio Phaseli_. This is the consecration to Castor and Pollux, of the vessel which brought the poet safe from Bithynia to the shores of Italy. By a figure, daring even in verse, he represents the ship as extolling its high services, and claiming its well-earned dedication to Castor and Pollux, gods propitious to mariners. From this poem we may trace the progress of Catullus’s voyage: It would appear that he had embarked from Pontus, and having coasted Thrace, sailed through the Archipelago, and then into the Adriatic, whence the vessel had been brought probably up the course of the Po, and one of its branches, to the vicinity of Sirmio.
There have been nearly as many parodies of this poem, as imitations of that last mentioned. The collector of the _Catalecta Virgilii_, has attributed to Virgil a satire on Ventidius, (under the name of Sabinus,) who, from a muleteer, became consul, in the reign of Augustus, and which is parodied from Catullus—