Catullus 2 is a poem by Roman poet Gaius Valerius Catullus (c. 84 – c. 54 BCE) that describes the affectionate relationship between an unnamed puella ('girl', possibly Catullus' lover, Lesbia), and her pet sparrow. As scholar and poet John Swinnerton Phillimore has noted, "The charm of this poem, blurred as it is by a corrupt manuscript tradition, has made it one of the most famous in Catullus' book."[1] The meter of this poem is hendecasyllabic, a common form in Catullus' poetry.[2]
This poem, together with Catullus' other poems, survived from antiquity in a single manuscript discovered c. 1300 CE in Verona, from which three copies survive. Fourteen centuries of copying from copies — the "corrupt manuscript tradition" mentioned above — left scholars in doubt as to the poem's original wording in a few places, although centuries of scholarship have led to a consensus critical version.[3] Research on Catullus was the first application of the genealogical method of textual criticism.
Lines 1–10 represent the preserved core of the poem. Lines 11–13 are denoted as "Catullus 2b" and differ significantly in tone and subject from the first 10 lines. Hence, these latter three lines may belong to a different poem. In the original manuscripts, these thirteen lines were combined with Catullus 3, which describes the death of Lesbia's sparrow, but the two poems were separated by scholars in the 16th century.