Catullus

In poem 83 Lesbia heaps abuse on her lover Catullus in the presence of her husband. Kerianne Pfleger argues the tone of Catullus 83 is arrogant and almost victorious, as Catullus he has already won Lesbia and is married to her himself. The extreme view of love here as a sickness is consistent with other poems in Catullus’ preserved work.

Lesbia mi praesente viro mala plurima dicit:

haec illi fatuo maxima laetitia est.

Mule, nihil sentis? Si nostri oblita taceret,

sana esset: nunc quod gannit et obloquitur,

non solum meminit, sed, quae multo acrior est res,

irata est. Hoc est, uritur et loquitur.

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