by Coleridge · Cluster: Unrequited Frustrated Love · Unattainable Beloved · Petrarchan Sonnet
Abstract
A light love-epigram after Lessing in which the poet asks what classical pet-name to give his fair one, who answers that names are but air: only call me Thine.
Connections
Archetypes: Lover Motifs: Love Themes & Concepts: Romantic Love Forms & Genres: Epigram, Translation Historical References: Classical Antiquity
Testo integrale / Full text
[FROM LESSING]
I ask’d my fair one happy day,
What I should call her in my lay;
By what sweet name from Rome or Greece;
Lalage, Neaera, Chloris,
Sappho, Lesbia, or Doris, 5
Arethusa or Lucrece.
‘Ah!’ replied my gentle fair,
‘Belovéd, what are names but air?
Choose thou whatever suits the line;
Call me Sappho, call me Chloris, 10
Call me Lalage or Doris,
Only, only call me Thine.’
1799.