Ingleheart finds
epigrammatic features in the poem, including a connection with Greek epigrams: the poem, starting with the first word, reads like an
epitaph. Tradition of epigrams to dead pets was well established at the time (Thomas points to a potential borrowing from
Meleager). The Hellenistic epigrams about dead pets are somewhat
parodic, exploiting the disconnect between the ultimately serious topic of death and an insignificance of an animal. Catullus utilizes this effect to focus the attention of the reader on the girl, not the sparrow, producing a celebration of
mea puella and essentially turning the girl's loss into his own gain with certain amount of mockery. In the beginning of the poem, the poet "controls the proceedings", directing Venuses and Amores, and later all men of refine (
venustiores) to mourn, following the script of Roman funerals, where a family member or a professional mourner (
praefica) would ask the crowd to remember the loss. The fact that all the commotion is about a dead bird is quickly revealed; the standard
eulogy would have proceeded along the standard Roman lines: genealogy (skipped in the poem, as pets – and slaves, that also could have been characterized as
deliciae – were considered to be creations of their masters), deeds (also none), and character. The latter includes good disposition and loyalty, wording typical for epitaphs. At the end poet refers to the
Hades and addresses the deceased in the second person, as was traditional for Roman
laudatio funebris. The traditional reading of the poem (and Catullus 2) is thus straightforward: the poet borrows from the literary tradition of using either a real (or a fictional) connection between a lover and her pet, so he can inject himself into the story as an observer and describe his own relationship with Lesbia. Pomeroy suggests that the poem also reflects on the power relationships in the Roman society, in particular, between a child slave (
deliciae, symbolized by the bird) and their master.
) Following the printing of Catullus' works in 1472, Poems 2 and 3 gained new influence and ignited the dispute on the meaning of the
passer, with some scholars suggesting that the word did not mean a sparrow, but was a
phallic symbol, particularly if
sinu in line 2 of
Catullus 2 is translated as "lap" rather than "bosom". Other scholars, however, have rejected this suggestion. Pomeroy suggests that the clearest arguments "for" belong to Giangrande and "against" – to Jocelyn, Thomas mentions also opposition from Adams, while Vergados and O'Bryhim highlight a collection of papers in a book by Gaisser. This reading of Catullus 3 suggests a description of the end of an amorous affair, while
Catullus 2 provides the details of the sexual activities. In Hooper's interpretation, Catullus 3 is a lament about a temporary impotence. The idea that the word
passer in Catullus 2 and 3 is a
euphemism for penis apparently dates back to
Classical antiquity (cf.
Martial with his "I shall give you the sparrow of Catullus"); scholars argued about this interpretation for hundreds of years, since the mid-16th century, when
Muretus disagreed with the
Politian's 15th century view of
passer as a code for obscenity. The dispute even embroiled the Latin dictionaries, with mentions of peculiarly
lascivious behavior of
passer birds dropped by the
Harpers' Latin Dictionary at the end of the 19th century. Elerick credits the longevity of the dispute to Catullus' reputation as a master of
double-entendre, and comes up with a translation that keeps the euphemistic interpretation. Ingleheart states that the sexual interpretation of
passer is "certainly not impossible" (suggesting an English equivalent, "
pecker"), and points, in addition to the position taken by Martial, to similar reading of the
Meleager's epigram on a death of a hare and
Catullus 2 imitation of Meleager. Hooper states that not only the sparrows were associated with general salaciousness by
Pliny the Elder (in his
Natural history) and
Sextus Pompeius Festus, while in Egyptian hieroglyphics an image of the bird denoted "little, evil", but the bird in lines 8–10 of the poem (and in the beginning of Catullus 2) behaves in a very un-sparrow-like way. Festus, in particular, points to mimes that "call the lewd phallus
strutheum, evidently from the salaciousness of the sparrow, which in Greek is called
strouthos". Thomas stresses that it is unlikely that Catullus was unaware of the metaphorical meaning of a sparrow and points out to the Meleager's poem about a dead hare, where the girl suggestively says, "'Do you see ... that I've stirred up the
hare for others." Vergados and O'Bryhim mark the large erotic vocabulary in Catullus 2 and 3 and suggest a "middle" way: the sparrow is indeed the bird, but it was used by its mistress for sexual acts. Genovese offers interpretations of a passer as a
love charm or a symbol of a love rival, Thomas disagrees, but finds these ideas "plausible". Green analyses the natural behavior of a sparrow and the attitude of Romans towards this bird and suggests that the poem eulogizes either a common house sparrow (
Passer domesticus) or the Italian sparrow (
Passer italiae). == Influence on later poetry ==