?The comparison of a beautiful woman to a goddess is found regularly in European verse from Homer to modern army songs; Lieberg, as his subtitle shows, is concerned mainly (?) with the occurrence of this motif in Catullus. (?) He believes that the name Lesbian was intended to suggest Sappho, the tenth Muse and connects such associations with the topos of the beloved as source of inspiration (?). Thus to Catullus Lesbian is a mortal muse. In addition he passion of the poet is to be seen rivaling that of Sappho in its intensity, and Lesbian as similar to a girl in a ?thiasos ?(p.94). Such is Lieberg?s search for complex poetical overtones; this manner of interpretation goes beyond the kind of information that is to be found in the standard modern commentaries. (?) Lieberg regards the simile of Atalanta?s apple (2B) as part of the preceding ?passer? poem (2): the description of unfulfilled passion is followed by a contrasting mythological picture of a love that was happily fulfilled. (?) The work ends with a short discussion of occurrences of the divine comparison in later poets such as Dante, Goethe, Baudelaire and Rilke. (?) many passages of the original texts are translated into German in order to make the book more easily accessible to students of later literatures. (?) There is much to enjoy in this pleasing and well printed book.? (MICHAEL COFFEY in Gnomon, 1963, pp.575-77). From the library of Prof. Carl Deroux.