Fragment 38
38And I flutter like a child after her mother.
Ὠς δὲ παῖς πεδα μάτερα πεπτερύγωμαι.
Like a child whose mother’s lost,
I am fluttering, terror-tost.
— M. J. Walhouse.
After my mother I flew like a bird.
— Frederick Tennyson.
Quoted in the Etymologicum Magnum as an example of Aeolic. It may have related to a sparrow, and been imitated by Catullus, 3, 6 ff.:
Sweet, all honey: a bird that ever hailed her
Lady mistress, as hails the maid a mother.
Nor would move from her arms away: but only
Hopping round her, about her, hence or hither
Piped his colloquy, piped to none beside her.
— Robinson Ellis.