The Poems of Catullus: A Teaching Text 0819151513, 9780819151513

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Copyright © 1986by

UniversltyPress of America.®Inc. 4720 BostonWay Lanham.MD 20706 3 HenriettaStreet LondonWC2E8LU England Allrights reserved Printedin the UnitedStatesof America Co-publishedby arrangementwith the ClassicalAssociationof AtlanticStates ISBN(Perfect):0-8191-5151-3 ISBN (Clothl:0-8191-5150-5

All UniversityPressof Americabooksare producedon acid-free paperwhichexceedsthe minimumstandardsset by the National HistoricalPublicationsand RecordsCommission.

For my husband: James J. Forsyth For my teacher: Betty Nye Quinn For my grandmother: Mary Echlov Rosenthal

iii

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the University of Waterloo for granting me a sabbatical leave which made possible the writing of this text, and for a grant in aid of publication through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Thanks also to Herbert Benario and Harry Rutledge or the CW Special Series; to Ann Hodgins; and to James J. Forsyth. All in their different ways contributed greatly to this endeavor.

V

TABLE OF CONTENTS EDITOR'S PREFACE....................................

ix-x

INTRODUCTION ...........................................

1-

19

TlfE POEMS .................................................. 21 -

101

TlfE COMMENTARY ................................... 103 -

569

vii

Editor's Preface

This text is intended for use at the undergraduate level and is a result of my own experience at the University of Waterloo since 1969. Over the years, students have increasingly been entering university with little or no Latin, and now commonly arrive in a course on Catullus with just one or two years of instruction in the language. For these students texts of Catullus presently on the market ( e.g., Merrill, Fordyce, and Quinn) have proved a hindrance rather than a help, for their approach and their notes tend to leave bewildered students behind. One major problem stems from these texts' frequent references to Greek parallels (totally meaningless to the majority of students) or to emulations of Catullus in later Latin poets (with whom most students are not familiar). These texts are, to be sure, appropriate for a very senior or graduate student, but in my experience have deterred many a promising beginner from further pursuing an interest in Latin literature. For these reasons I have developed what I call a "Teaching Text", that is, a text and commentary specifically designed for the neophyte Latin student. The commentary concentrates on the poems themselves-on what makes them poetry, on what themes the poet is examining, and (importantly) on how the poems relate to each other. References to literary parallels have been removed in favor of more direct help with the Latin language; more attention has been given to assisting the student in recognizing the literary features of a poem, e.g., the use of sound and image; references to modern scholarly literature have been kept to a minimum, appearing only where an English-speaking undergraduate would benefit

.lX

from a concise article in a readily accessible classical journal; and help with vocabulary has been incorporated directly into the commentary on each poem. In regard to vocabulary, my approach to Catullus needs to be made clear at once. As any teacher who has studied the complete text of this poet well knows, Catullus can at times (especially in the epigrams) employ raw, even obscene language. It seems insulting to modern undergraduates (most of whom are in their twenties when they come to Catullus) to gloss over the more graphic words with delicate euphemisms. But, more importantly, such glossing of the text prevents these students from coming to know (and appreciate) the real Catullus; after all, his poetry was radical in its own time (indeed it shocked many of his contemporaries), and we do him a great injustice by our attempts to sanitize his poems. We should let the modern student meet the poet directly, and then judge for himself/herself the merit of the poems. To obscure on purpose vital aspects of Catullan verse is a disservice to both ancient poet and modern student.

P.Y.F. 1985

X

Introduction Catullus

Gaius Valerius Catullus (ea. 84-54 B.C.) was without doubt one of the greatest poets produced by either Greece or Rome. He stood in the front ranks of the so-called Novi Poetae (HNew PoetsH or "NeotericsH): Roman literary revolutionaries who were determined to resuscitate a poetic tradition they considered stale and stagnant. Prior to their advent, serious poets of Rome had concentrated their efforts on the epic genre, and lyric and epigrammatic forms had been the preserve of amateur dilettantes. The Novi Poetae, however, took the art of lyric and epigram seriously and approached it innovatively. Catullus and his colleagues brought a freshness and vitality to their verse that may have seemed shocking to more conservative Romans; and yet, this vitality was not gained at the expense of artistry, for the poems of Catullus are carefully crafted, indeed worked out so meticulously as to deny any rash image of the poet as an impetuous, artless emoter of passions. In the poems of Catullus, perhaps as nowhere else, ars and ingenium are perfectly united, and it is, in fact, this union which makes his poetry as important and as appealing today as it was in antiquity. About the private life of Catullus relatively little is known, although much conjecture has been put forward. Born in Verona to a prominent family (his fat her apparently was on friendly terms with Julius Caesar himself; cf. Suetonius' Life of Julius Caesar, 73), Catullus travelled south to Rome sometime around 60 B.C., and it was there that he pursued the love affair which was to play such a 1

central role in his poetry. The object of his passion bore the pseudonym of "Lesbia"; her real name (according to Apuleius in Apology, 10} was Clodia, and she was one of the three daughters of Appius Claudius Pulcer (consul in 79 B.C.}, and thus sister to the infamous Roman rabble-rouser, P. Clodius Pulcer. As all three sisters, however, were called "Clodia", there has been some debate as to which woman was the beloved of Catullus. What facts are now known seem to favor the Clodia who was the wife of Q. Caecilius Metellus Celer (the governor of Cisalpine Gaul in 62-61 B.C.) and the object of Cicero's scorn, for her scandalous behavior, in the Pro Caelio.

It was also in Rome that Catullus mixed and matched wits with other like-minded poetic rebels, men such as Calvus and Cinna, and with them honed his art to a fine edge (as witnessed by poem 50}. At some period, however, probably from 57-56 B.C., Catullus left Rome for a year's stay in the province of Bithynia. There he was apparently attached to the general staff of the provincial governor, C. Memmius. Apart from this journey (which may have included a side trip to Troy to visit the tomb of his brother; cf. poem 101}, fixed dates in Catullus' life are notoriously difficult to determine. It is not clear, for example, when his love affair with Lesbia-Clodia actually began, when his book of poems was published, or when, indeed, he died. All that can he said with regard to this last problem is that no extant poem can he securely dated later than 54 B.C.

The Poems

The text of Catullus as we now have it falls easily 2

into three distinct parts: 1) the polymetrics (1-60), i.e., short poems in various lyric meters; 2) the long poems (61-68); and 3) the epigrams (69-116) in the elegiac meter. Taken together, these poems bear witness to the versatility of Catullus as a poet, and, taken in turn, each group of poems illuminates a particular aspect of his achievement. The Polymetrics (1-60):

It is in the polymetric poems that Catullus displays his mastery of a genre with a very distinguished ancestry. Lyric poetry had begun in antiquity as verse that was meant to be sung to the accompaniment of the lyre. Its ultimate origin remains obscure, but lyric appears as a formal literary genre in Greece in the seventh century B.C., and it flourished thereafter for some two centuries. Greek lyric poetry succeeded the epic genre (best represented today by the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer) and differed greatly from it in being of a more introspective nature: this was verse of a personal sort, expressing the individual thoughts and emotions of the poet. Also unlike epic, lyric poems were generally short, some only a few lines in length, and the meters in which they were composed did not include the epic's stately dactylic hexameter. Within the overall genre of lyric verse, the Greeks developed several distinct types of poetry. There was, for example, iambic verse (commonly associated today with the name of Archilochus) which featured satire, ridicule and invective, often with a touch of the obscene. There was also lyric monody: songs in various meters, usually arranged in stanzas, designed for a single singer and generally sung at private gatherings. This type of lyric finds its best Greek representatives today in the extant fragments of 3

Sappho and Alcaeus. For a group of singers there was choral lyric: longer pieces, often quite complex in their meters, performed at public ceremonies or festivities, and thematically rich, often incorporating a significant amount of myth. Indeed, so complex was choral lyric that it itself could be subdivided into such types as epithalamia (wedding songs), epinicia (victory odes), or partheneia (maiden songs). The extant poems of Pindar are perhaps the finest examples of Greek choral lyric in all its complexity and variety. Not surprisingly, given the overwhelming influence that Greek culture exercised on the Romans, Greek lyric was eventually brought to Rome, where it began to thrive in the first century B.C. The poet most responsible for the development of Latin lyric verse was Catullus, even though in the Augustan Age the poet Horace attempted to claim this ho nor for himself ( Odes ffi.30). Catullus' achievement, however, lay not in simply adapting Greek lyric for a Roman audience, but in blending the old form with a newer literary style which we today refer to as "Alexandrian", since it arose in Alexandria in the third century B.C., when that city was winning renown for its great museum and extensive library. Scholarship was valued here, and so it is not surprising that the poetry written in Alexandria tended to be scholarly in tone, intended not for a wide public audience, but for an intellectual elite. Indeed, so scholarly was this verse that much of it seems to have been pedantically obscure. The greatest exponent of the Alexandrian style was the poet-scholar Callimachus (ea. 310-240 B.C.), to whom Catullus pays tribute in several poems (cf. 7.6; 65.16; and 116.2; moreover, poem 66 1s in fact a translation of a 4

Callimachean poem). Callimachus was not only a prolific poet (writing, for example, hymns, epigrams, elegiacs, and miniature epics), he was also an arbiter of literary style, encouraging the composition of short, elegant, and learned poetry. To Callimachus' concern for form and learning ( doctrina), Catullus would add his own passionate personality and his own fer tile imagination; the result was a lyric verse unlike any that had yet been written (for a more detailed analysis, cf. K. Quinn's The Catullan Revolution [1959] and D. 0. Ross' Style and Tradition in Catullus [19691).

The Lyric Libellus One of the most controversial aspects of Catullan studies, especially in regard to poems 1-60, pertains to the arrangement of his poems. That Catullus published a volume of poetry seems clearly attested by poem 1: the dedication by the poet of a lepidum novum libellum/ arida modo pumice expolitum to Cornelius Nepos. But, what did this libellus contain? Was it in fact identical with the entire Catullan corpus as we have it today? Or, was it identical to only one segment, i.e., the polymetrics? Or, is our text a posthumous compilation which bears little or no resemblance to Catullus' own publication? In modern Catullan studies, few questions have been debated with as much vigor as these, and answers have ranged all the way Crom Ellis' disbelief that the present order of poems reflects the original plan of the poet ( cf. R. Ellis, A Commentary on Catullus [1889] xlv-1; and 1-5) to Wilamowitz' famous assertion that Catullus himself was responsible for the entire text as we know it ( c/. U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, Sappho und Simonides [1913] 292). 5

In dealing with this problem, some help is afforded by three poems of Martial: 1.7; 4.14; and 11.6. In the last piece, a poem set in the time of the Saturnalia festival, Martial states (lines 12-16): Possum nil ego sobrius; bibenti succurrent mihi quindecim poetae. da nunc basia, sed Catulliana: quae si tot fuerint quot ille dixit, donabo tibi passerem Catulli. "I can do nothing at all when I'm sober; but when I'm drinking, fifteen poets will come to my aid. Now give me kisses, but make them Catullan ones; if these be as many as he said, I will give you the passer of Catullus." The references here (in italics above) to basia and passerem turn the reader's mind to Catullus' poems 2, 3, 5, and 7; passer in fact is the initial word of the second poem which, if one excludes the prefatory dedication to Nepos, is really the poem that begins the Catullan corpus. It thus seems possible that Martial in this poem is actually referring to a collection of poems known in antiquity as the Passer of Catullus and which contained at least some of the initial poems of our modern text. That this is indeed the case is well supported by another poem of Martial, 4.14: again the setting is the Saturnalia, and Martial invites another poet, Silius Italicus, to relax by reading some of Martial's verse, stating (lines 11-14):

6

nee torva lege fronte, sed remissa lascivis madidos iocis libellos; sic forsan tener ausus est Catullus magno mittere passerem Maroni. "and not with a grim, but with a relaxed brow, read libelli dripping with wanton jokes; so perhaps tender Catullus dared to send his passer to great Maro [i.e., Vergil]."

In addition to the appearance of passerem in this poem, note the use of libellos, a word used by Catullus in his first poem to describe his collection. Finally, in 1.7 :Martial writes: Stellae delicium mei columba, Verona licet audiente dicam, vicit, Maxime, passerem Catulli; tanto Stella meus tuo Catullo quanto passere maior est columba. "The dove of my Stella (i.e., L. Arruntius Stella, the patron of Martial] - a favorite pet - let me say it even if Verona is listening-has surpassed, o Maximus, the passer of Catullus; my Stella is so much greater than your Catullus, just as a dove is greater than a passer." In sum, the most logical interpretation 7

of all three of these

poems is that a collection of Catullus' poems, popularly known as the Passer, was familiar to Martial and his contemporaries. Our next task, then, is to relate that volume to the present text of Catullus. First of all, it would seem reasonable to assume that any hypothetical later editor of Catullus intent on publishing a "complete edition" of the poems would not tamper with an already well known libellus in circulation; rather, as M. B. Skinner has written, "a libellus already in circulation at the time of the poet's death would serve as the point of departure for a posthumous edition: unpublished poems, scraps, and fragments would naturally be tacked on to the end of an extant volume. We should therefore look to the beginning of the collection for that material which was arranged and published by Catullus himself" ( Catullus' Passer [1981] 11). Our problem, then, is to determine just exactly where the original Passer ends in our modern text, and where any "posthumous collection" begins. There is at present a wide range of opinions on this matter. A few scholars, most prominently T. P. Wiseman, argue that the whole corpus as we have it (poems 1-116) was precisely the volume {the Passer) arranged and published by Catullus himself {cf. T. P. Wiseman, Catullan Questions [19691). Others have been less venturesome: Kenneth Quinn, for example, has stated that "on internal grounds only, the most likely (but quite unprovable) hypothesis is that Poems 1-60 were published by Catullus, whereas Poems 69-116 (a scrappier and shorter collection) are the work of somebody who gathered together complete poems and fragments" ( Catullus: The Poems [1970] xxi). Where this hypothesis would leave the so-called Long Poems (poems 61-68) is rather unclear. 8

Recent scholarship, however, seems rather more inclined to Quinn's view than to Wiseman's: W. Clausen, for example, has argued that poem 1 would be most appropriate as a dedication to poems 2-60, although he also sees in poem 50 a Hperfect endingH for the original libellus; for Clausen, a second libellus, compiled by a later editor, begins at poem 61 and includes poems 62, 63, and 64; while a third libellus (also the editor's) includes poems 65-116, all in the elegiac meter ( c/. W. Clausen, Catulli Veronensis LiberH, in Classical Philology 71 [1976] 37-43). Somewhat similarly, M.B. Skinner has put forth the hypothesis that the original libellus, the Passer, is to be found in poems 1-51 of our text (Skinner, op. cit., 86-92), an hypothesis which this editor finds most plausible given the internal unity and coherence of poems 1-51 (c/. commentary on individual poems). Poems 52-60, on this interpretation, would be scraps of verse found by an editor and tacked onto the end of the Passer. H

As for the corpus as a whole, a bit of speculation

may be allowed at this point. Years of work on the poems of Catullus have convinced this editor that meaningful juxtapositions of poems are to be found not only in the polymetrics, but also in the long poems and epigrams. Poems 65-116 seem to me an especially neat package" ( cf. my articles "The Gellius Cycle of CatullusH in Classical Journal 68 [1972-3] 175-177; "Comments on Catullus 116H in Classical Quarterly 27 [1977] 352-353; HOrder and Meaning in Catullus 97-99H in Classical World 12 [1979] 403-408; and HQuintius and Aufillena in CatullusH in Classical World 74 [1981] 220-223), and if they were in fact compiled by a later editor, he was certainly concerned about the order of the individual poems in his edition. I would indeed go so far as to present the following hypothesis: perhaps Catullus H

9

himself, after the publication of his Passer, set about preparing his next (and complementary) volumes of verse-one containing poems 61-64; the other poems 65-116. The poet, however, never lived to see these volumes actually published, but a later editor incorporated them into a completeH edition. To echo Quinn, this hypothesis is at present unprovable, but it does not seem entirely without foundation. Certainly more work is needed on poems 61-116, and especially on the elegiac poems, to help solve this still outstanding Catullan question. H

The Long Poems (61-68):

Poems 61-68 were once considered labored, artificial ("Alexandrian in the worst sense), and unsuccessful poetic experiments. While the polymetrics and epigrams were said to reflect the real Catullus the long poems were dismissed as uninspired oddities. Closer examination of these poems in recent years, however, has shown such a simplistic view to be untenable: far from being artificial exercises, poems 61-68 are as authentically HCatullanH as any in the corpus, incorporating themes and concepts also present in the shorter poems. HExperimentalH they are indeed, as the poet sought to express his thoughts and feelings in a more expansive form, but Hunsuccessful" they are not; the poetic quality of these poems, as seen in the poet's skilled manipulation of language, imagery, and sounds, is the equal of that displayed in the shorter pieces. The difference is that of form and quantity, not quality. H

H

H,

The present order of the long poems in the text does not seem to be without design. Poem 61, for example, shares in the lyric meters of the preceding polymetrics, and poem 65, the first elegiac piece we meet in the corpus, 10

contains a programmatic statement that establishes the elegiac meter of all the ensuing poems ( cf. commentary on poem 65). This selection of meter for the long poems by itself separates the group into two halves of four poems each: first, poems 61, 62, 63, and 64; then, poems 65/66 (taken as one; cf. commentary on poem 65), 67, 68A, and 688 (for the division of poem 68 into two distinct pieces, cf. commentary on each). While the latter group all share the elegiac meter, the rormer group displays an alternation of lyric and hexameter meters. Moreover, poems 61-64 share a common theme which binds them together-that of "union achieved". Poems 61 and 62, for example, are both wedding songs ( epithalamia) and as such obviously celebrate the union of a man and woman; poem 63 then presents a variation on the theme, as a man (Attis) successfully unites with a goddess (Cybele) in a perverted form of marriage which ultimately strips him of his reason; poem 64 then features a more positive union of god (Thetis) and mortal (Peleus), complete with a formal epithalamium sung by the goddesses of Fate ( cf. poems 61 and 62). Thus, this group of poems comes full circle, with its final member completing the movement begun in its initial piece. Poem 64, however, is also transitional to the following group (poems 65-68), for its tragic tale of Ariadne's ill-fated love for Theseus foreshadows the ensuing theme of "union thwarted" or "separation", that is, a theme directly opposed to that of poems 61-64. Poem 65/66, for example, in each of its components participates in this theme: poem 65 dwells upon the separation (by death) of Catullus from his brother, while poem 66 in turn tells the more lighthearted tale of Queen Berenice's separation first from her 11

central role in his poetry. The object of his passion bore the pseudonym of "Lesbia"; her real name (according to Apuleius in Apology, 10) was Clodia, and she was one of the three daughters of Appius Claudius Pulcer (consul in 79 B.C.), and thus sister to the infamous Roman rabble-rouser, P. Clodius Pulcer. As all three sisters, however, were called "Clodia", there has been some debate as to which woman was the beloved of Catullus. What facts are now known seem to favor the Clodia who was the wife of Q. Caecilius Metellus Celer (the governor of Cisalpine Gaul in 62-61 B.C.) and the object of Cicero's scorn, for her scandalous behavior, in the Pro Caelio. It was also in Rome that Catullus mixed and matched wits with other like-minded poetic rebels, men such as Calvus and Cinna, and with them honed his art to a fine edge (as witnessed by poem 50). At some period, however, probably from 57-56 B.C., Catullus left Rome for a year's stay in the province of Bithynia. There he was apparently attached to the general staff of the provincial governor, C. Memmius. Apart from this journey (which may have included a side trip to Troy to visit the tomb of his brother; c/. poem 101), fixed dates in Catullus' life are notoriously difficult to determine. It is not clear, for example, when his love affair with Lesbia-Clodia actually began, when his book of poems was published, or when, indeed, he died. All that can be said with regard to this last problem is that no extant poem can be securely dated later than 54 B.C.

The Poems

The text of Catullus as we now have it falls easily 2

into three distinct parts: 1) the polymetrics {1-60), i.e., short poems in various lyric meters; 2) the long poems (61-68); and 3) the epigrams (69-116) in the elegiac meter. Taken together, these poems bear witness to the versatility of Catullus as a poet, and, taken in turn, each group of poems illuminates a particular aspect of his achievement. The Polymetrics (1-60):

It is in the polymetric poems that Catullus displays his mastery of a genre with a very distinguished ancestry. Lyric poetry had begun in antiquity as verse that was meant to be sung to the accompaniment of the lyre. Its ultimate origin remains obscure, but lyric appears as a formal literary genre in Greece in the seventh century B.C., and it flourished thereafter for some two centuries. Greek lyric poetry succeeded the epic genre (best represented today by the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer) and differed greatly from it in being of a more introspective nature: this was verse of a personal sort, expressing the individual thoughts and emotions of the poet. Also unlike epic, lyric poems were generally short, some only a few lines in length, and the meters in which they were composed did not include the epic's stately dactylic hexameter. Within the overall genre of lyric verse, the Greeks developed several distinct types of poetry. There was, for example, iambic verse (commonly associated today with the name of Archilochus) which featured satire, ridicule and invective, often with a touch of the obscene. There was also lyric monody: songs in various meters, usually arranged in stanzas, designed for a single singer and generally sung at private gatherings. This type of lyric finds its best Greek representatives today in the extant fragments of 3

Sappho and Alcaeus. For a group of singers there was choral lyric: longer pieces, often quite complex in their meters, performed at public ceremonies or festivities, and thematically rich, often incorporating a significant amount of myth. Indeed, so complex was choral lyric that it itself could be subdivided into such types as epithalamia (wedding songs), epinicia (victory odes), or partheneia (maiden songs). The extant poems of Pindar are perhaps the finest examples of Greek choral lyric in all its cornplexity and variety. Not surprisingly, given the overwhelming influence that Greek culture exercised on the Romans, Greek lyric was eventually brought to Rome, where it began to thrive in the first century B.C. The poet most responsible for the development of Latin lyric verse was Catullus, even though in the Augustan Age the poet Horace attempted to claim this honor for himself ( Odes ill.30). Catullus' achievement, however, lay not in simply adapting Greek lyric for a Roman audience, but in blending the old form with a newer literary style which we today refer to as "Alexandrian", since it arose in Alexandria in the third century B.C., when that city was winning renown for its great museum and extensive library. Scholarship was valued here, and so it is not surprising that the poetry written in Alexandria tended to be scholarly in tone, intended not for a wide public audience, but for an intellectual elite. Indeed, so scholarly was this verse that much of it seems to have been pedantically obscure. The greatest exponent of the Alexandrian style was the poet-scholar Callimachus (ea. 310-240 B.C.), to whom Catullus pays tribute in several poems (c/. 7.6; 65.16; and 116.2; moreover, poem 66 is in fact a translation of a 4

Callimachean poem). Callimachus was not only a prolific poet (writing, for example, hymns, epigrams, elegiacs, and miniature epics), he was also an arbiter of literary style, encouraging the composition of short, elegant, and learned poetry. To Callimachus' concern for form and learning ( doctrina), Catullus would add his own passionate personality and his own fer tile imagination; the result was a lyric verse unlike any that had yet been written (for a more detailed analysis, cf. K. Quinn's The Catullan Revolution [1959j and D. 0. Ross' Style and Tradition in Catullus [1969]).

The Lyric Libellus One of the most controversial aspects of Catullan studies, especially in regard to poems 1-60, pertains to the arrangement of his poems. That Catullus published a volume of poetry seems clearly attested by poem 1: the dedication by the poet of a lepidum novum libellum/ arida modo pumice expolitum to Cornelius Nepos. But, what did this libellus contain? Was it in fact identical with the entire Catullan corpus as we have it today? Or, was it identical to only one segment, i.e., the polymetrics? Or, is our text a posthumous compilation which bears little or no resemblance to Catullus' own publication? In modern Catullan studies, few questions have been debated with as much vigor as these, and answers have ranged all the way from Ellis' disbelief that the present order of poems reflects the original plan of the poet ( c/. R. Ellis, A Commentary on Catullus [1889] xlv-1; and 1-5) to Wilamowitz' famous assertion that Catullus himself was responsible for the entire text as we know it ( cf. U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, Sappho und Simonides [1913] 292). 5

In dealing with this problem, some help is afforded by three poems of Martial: 1.7; 4.14; and 11.6. In the last piece, a poem set in the time of the Saturnalia festival, Martial states (lines 12-16): Possum nil ego sobrius; bibenti succurrent mihi quindecim poetae. da nunc basia, sed Catulliana: quae si tot fuerint quot ille dixit, donabo tibi passerem Catulli. "I can do nothing at all when I'm sober; but when I'm drinking, fifteen poets will come to my aid. Now give me kisses, but make them Catullan ones; if these be as many as he said, I will give you the passer of Catullus." The references here (in italics above) to basia and passerem turn the reader's mind to Catullus' poems 2, 3, 5, and 7; passer in fact is the initial word of the second poem which, if one excludes the prefatory dedication to Nepos, is really the poem that begins the Catullan corpus. It thus seems possible that Martial in this poem is actually referring to a collection of poems known in antiquity as the Passer of Catullus and which contained at least some of the initial poems of our modern text. That this is indeed the case is well supported by another poem of Martial, 4.14: again the setting is the Saturnalia, and Martial invites another poet, Silius Italicus, to relax by reading some of Martial's verse, stating (lines 11-14):

6

nee torva lege fronte, sed remissa lascivis madidos iocis libelloa; sic forsan tener ausus est Catullus magno mittere paaaerem Maroni. Hand not with a grim, but with a relaxed brow, read libelli dripping with wanton jokes; so perhaps tender Catullus dared to send his paaser to great Maro [i.e., Vergil]." In addition to the appearance of paaserem in this poem, note the use of libellos, a word used by Catullus in his first poem to describe his collection. Finally, in 1.7 Martial writes: Stellae delicium mei columba, Verona licet audiente dicam, vicit, Maxime, passerem Catulli; tanto Stella meus tuo Catullo quanto paasere maior est columba. "The dove of my Stella [i.e., L. Arruntius Stella, the patron of Martial] - a favorite pet - let me say it even if Verona is listening-has surpassed, o Maximus, the paaaer of Catullus; my Stella is so much greater than your Catullus, just as a dove is greater than a paaaer." In sum, the most logical interpretation 7

of all three of these

poems is that a collection of Catullus' poems, popularly known as the Passer, was familiar to Martial and his contemporaries. Our next task, then, is to relate that volume to the present text of Catullus. First of all, it would seem reasonable to assume that any hypothetical later editor of Catullus intent on publishing a "complete edition" of the poems would not tamper with an already well known libellus in circulation; rather, as M. B. Skinner has written, "a libellus already in circulation at the time of the poet's death would serve as the point of departure for a posthumous edition: unpublished poems, scraps, and fragments would naturally be tacked on to the end of an extant volume. We should therefore look to the beginning of the collection for that material which was arranged and published by Catullus himself" ( Catullus' Passer [1981] 11). Our problem, then, is to determine just exactly where the original Passer ends in our modern text, and where any "posthumous collection" begins. There is at present a wide range of opinions on this matter. A few scholars, most prominently T. P. Wiseman, argue that the whole corpus as we have it (poems 1-116) was precisely the volume {the Passer) arranged and published by Catullus himself ( cf T. P. Wiseman, Catullan Questions [1969]). Others have been less venturesome: Kenneth Quinn, for example, has stated that "on internal grounds only, the most likely (but quite unprovable) hypothesis is that Poems 1-60 were published by Catullus, whereas Poems 69-116 (a scrappier and shorter collection) are the work of somebody who gathered together complete poems and fragments" ( Catullus: The Poems [1970] xxi). Where this hypothesis would leave the so-called Long Poems (poems 61-68) is rather unclear. 8

Recent scholarship, however, seems rather more inclined to Quinn's view than to Wiseman's: W. Clausen, for example, has argued that poem 1 would be most appropriate as a dedication to poems 2-60, although he also sees in poem SO a #perfect ending# for the original libellus; for Clausen, a second libellus, compiled by a later editor, begins at poem 61 and includes poems 62, 63, and 64; while a third libellus (also the editor's) includes poems 65-116, all in the elegiac meter ( cf. W. Clausen, HCatulli Veronensis Liber", in Classical Philology 71 [1976] 37-43). Somewhat similarly, M.B. Skinner has put forth the hypothesis that the original libellus, the Passer, is to be found in poems 1-51 of our text (Skinner, op. cit., 86-92), an hypothesis which this editor finds most plausible given the internal unity and coherence of poems 1-51 ( c/. commentary on individual poems). Poems 52-60, on this interpretation, would be scraps of verse found by an editor and tacked onto the end of the Passer. As for the corpus as a whole, a bit of speculation may be allowed at this point. Years of work on the poems of Catullus have convinced this editor that meaningful juxtapositions of poems are to be found not only in the polymetrics, but also in the long poems and epigrams. Poems 65-116 seem to me an especially "neat package" (c/. my articles "The Gellius Cycle of Catullus" in Classical Journal 68 [1972-3] 175-177; HComments on Catullus 116H in Classical Quarterly 27 [1977] 352-353; HOrder and Meaning in Catullus 97-99H in Classical World 72 [1979] 403-408; and "Quintius and Aufillena in CatullusH in Classical World 74 [1981] 220-223), and if they were in fact compiled by a later editor, he was certainly concerned about the order of the individual poems in his edition. I would indeed go so far as to present the following hypothesis: perhaps Catullus 9

himself, after the publication of his Passer, set about preparing his next (and complementary) volumes of verse-one containing poems 61-64; the other poems 65-116. The poet, however, never lived to see these volumes actually published, but a later editor incorporated them into a complete" edition. To echo Quinn, this hypothesis is at present unprovable, but it does not seem entirely without foundation. Certainly more work is needed on poems 61-116, and especially on the elegiac poems, to help solve this still outstanding Catullan question. H

The Long Poems (61-68):

Poems 61-68 were once considered labored, artificial ("Alexandrian" in the worst sense), and unsuccessful poetic experiments. While the polymetrics and epigrams were said to reflect the "real Catullus", the long poems were dismissed as uninspired oddities. Closer examination of these poems in recent years, however, has shown such a simplistic view to be untenable: far from being artificial exercises, poems 61-68 are as authentically "Catullan" as any in the corpus, incorporating themes and concepts also present in the shorter poems. "Experimental" they are indeed, as the poet sought to express his thoughts and feelings in a more expansive form, but unsuccessful" they are not; the poetic quality of these poems, as seen in the poet's skilled manipulation of language, imagery, and sounds, is the equal of that displayed in the shorter pieces. The difference is that of form and quantity, not quality. H

The present order of the long poems in the text does not seem to be without design. Poem 61, for example, shares in the lyric meters of the preceding polymetrics, and poem 65, the first elegiac piece we meet in the corpus, 10

contains a programmatic statement that establishes the elegiac meter of all the ensuing poems ( cf. commentary on poem 65). This selection of meter for the long poems by itself separates the group into two halves of four poems each: first, poems 61, 62, 63, and 64; then, poems 65/66 (taken as one; cf. commentary on poem 65), 67, 68A, and 68B (for the division of poem 68 into two distinct pieces, cf. commentary on each). While the latter group all share the elegiac meter, the former group displays an alternation of lyric and hexameter meters. Moreover, poems 61-64 share a common theme which binds them together-that of "'union achieved"'. Poems 61 and 62, for example, are both wedding songs ( epithalamia) and as such obviously celebrate the union of a man and woman; poem 63 then presents a variation on the theme, as a man (Attis) successfully unites with a goddess (Cybele) in a perverted form of marriage which ultimately strips him of his reason; poem 64 then features a more positive union of god (Thetis) and mortal (Peleus), complete with a formal epithalamium sung by the goddesses of Fate ( cf. poems 61 and 62). Thus, this group of poems comes full circle, with its final member completing the movement begun in its initial piece. Poem 64, however, is also transitional to the following group (poems 65-68), for its tragic tale of Ariadne's ill-fated love for Theseus foreshadows the ensuing theme of "'union thwarted" or "separation", that is, a theme directly opposed to that of poems 61-64. Poem 65/66, for example, in each of its components participates in this theme: poem 65 dwells upon the separation (by death) of Catullus from his brother, while poem 66 in turn tells the more lighthearted tale of Queen Berenice's separation first from her 11

husband, and then from her dedicated lock of hair ( cf commentary on poem 66). Poem 67 varies the theme (as poem 63 had offered variation in the first group of long poems) by focusing on a somewhat different type of separation or union thwarted-the marital disloyalty of a wife to her spouse. As the talking door of the house makes clear in the dialogue of the poem (cf. the use of the dialogue form in the first group, at poem 62), the mistress of the house had been totally disloyal in her many adulteries; such a "disunion" contrasts greatly with the unions central to the first four long poems. Poem 68A then returns to the theme of the poet's separation from his brother ( cf poem 65), while poem 688 echoes the separation-as-disloyalty theme of poem 67: here the poet and his mistress, despite their physical union, are spiritually far apart because of her adulteries. Indeed, poem 688 serves as a fitting conclusion to the entire cycle of long poems by combining the themes of union and separation, with the latter theme including not only the poet's separation from his unfaithful mistress, but also his irreversible separation from his dead brother (cf poems 65 and 68A). The present arrangement of the long poems thus displays a thematic rhythm throughout, while, at the same time, it offers a transition between the polymetrics and the elegiac epigrams. The patterns and parallels are not, however, mechanical or rigid; just as patterns and parallels in the polymetrics and epigrams show imagination and flexibility, so too those found in poems 61-688.

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The Epigrams (69-116):

An epigram may be defined simply as a short poem in the elegiac meter, often having a caustic point or "sting" at the end. Of the Catullan poems in the elegiac meter, only poems 69-116 are properly considered epigrams, while the much longer poems 65-68 are usually termed "elegiacs".

The elegiac form as seen in epigram had had a lengthy history in Greek literature, in which it had been employed for a variety of themes, both sacred and secular: prominent subjects, for example, included martial and political deeds, moralizing advice, laments for the deceased, and praises of love and hedonism. Early Greek poets especially famous for their epigrams were Callin us, Tyrtaeus, Mimnermus, Theognis, and Solon (whose extant epigrams shed much light on early Athens). In the Alexandrian age, Callimachus himself was a prolific writer of both long elegiacs and epigrams, but only a small portion of his work is still extant. It is not surprising, however, that the Alexandrian poets appreciated the epigram, given their general interest in compactness of form. What is surprising is that Catullan epigram, on close examination, reflects less influence from Alexandria than do the polymetrics and long poems. In his epigrams, Catullus employs a vocabulary quite different from that used in the rest of the corpus; his language, indeed, is often vulgar, even to the point of gross obscenity. Moreover, there is little of the imagery found in the polymetrics and long poems; in their blunt directness, the epigrams seem to reflect a native Latin poetic tradition which had taken root in Italy long before Catullus, a tradition which placed heavy emphasis on invective, and which has been studied by D. 0. Ross, Jr., in his Style and 13

Tradition in Catullus (1969). Ross has convincingly demonstrated that it was this native tradition that formed the foundation of the Catullan epigrams. Yet, despite their differences from the polymetrics and long poems, the Catullan epigrams are still "poetry" thanks to the poet's overriding artistry. In these poems Catullus effectively reveals the wide range of the emotions flowing through his verse; here one finds piquant wit, tender affections, wry observations, as well as savage invective-all coexisting within the compact epigrammatic form. If some epigrams seem offensive, so they were meant to be; they are our windows to another aspect of Catullus, and they complete our picture of the poet.

The Manuscripts (MSS.) That we today have the poems of Catullus at all is mainly due to the existence in the thirteenth century of the so-called Veronensis manuscript, commonly referred to as V. This manuscript has now been lost, but while it was still available at least two copies of it were made: one is now known as O (because it is at Oxford), and the other, no longer extant, has traditionally been called X. Before X disappeared, two copies of it were apparently made: G (in Paris) and R {in the Vatican); both of these were most likely composed in the fourteenth century. Thus, manuscripts 0, G and R form the basis of our modern text, and, while there are indeed some later manuscripts extant, they all appear to be less reliable copies of these three. The problem for an editor of Catullus is, of course, to determine as well as possible what the readings of V were. This involves close study of the variant readings in the

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extant manuscripts and, sometimes, a bit of Sherlockian intuition. In places where the text is clearly corrupt, generations of scholars have made interpolations and emendations. And yet, an element of uncertainty must remain, for even if we can ultimately recover the readings of V, we are still faced with the problem of how accurate a text that manuscript was in the first place. This question can only be answered by the future discovery of a manuscript of Catullus made prior to the thirteenth century. The Meters of Catullus

One of Catullus' major contributions to the development of Latin verse was his skillful adaptation of complex Greek metrical patterns. These Greek patterns were based on the quantity of a syllable, that is, on whether a syllable was long or short. It has become conventional to indicate a long syllable by the sign _ and a short syllable by the sign u ; the sign U is used to indicate that a syllable may be either long or short. Another conventional sign is ~ which indicates the metrical stress (ictus) which normally falls on one syllable in every foot. Thus, for example, in iambic verse the individual foot is symbolized by u .! . In the polymetric poems of Catullus, the dominant meter is the hendecasyllabic (also known as "phalaecian "). As its name implies, the hendecasyllabic meter consists of verses of eleven syllables each, divided into five feet in the following pattern: 1

l~uul~ul~ul~u.

While an opening foot of two long syllables (a spondee) is most common, on occasion Catullus varies his initial foot 15

by employing a trochee ( !.. u ) or iamb ( u !.. ); the second foot, however, is always a dactyl ( !.. U u ). Another common Catullan meter is the choliambic (also known as "limping iambics" or as "scazons"). This meter features a verse with six feet of a basically iambic nature, in the following pattern:

U!..lu!_IU!..lu!..

lu!..l!..U.

While the fifth foot is regularly iambic, the first and third feet may at times be spondaic in nature; the sixth foot can be either a trochee or a spondee, and the fact that it bears the metrical stress on its initial syllable, immediately following the stressed syllable of the fifth foot, gives this verse its halting or "limping" movement. Two Catullan polymetrics (11 and 51) feature the Sapphic stanza, in which the first three lines follow this pattern:

!..u I !..U I !..u u I !..u I!_ __ This line is essentially trochaic, except for the fact that the third foot is always dactylic. The final line in the stanza is shorter, and runs:

!uu

I !..U.

Other meters in the polymetrics are: 1) iambic trimeter:

six iambic feet in the following pattern:

U!lu!..IU!..lu!..lu!lu!. 16

2) iambic tetrameter catalectic: an essentially iambic eightfoot verse with a truncated final foot:

3) greater asclepiadic:

a basically trochaic verse with eight feet, dactylic substitution, and truncated feet:

4) glyconic and pherecratic combinations: a glyconic ( .!..U I !. u u I !. u I !. ) plus a pherecratic ( !. U I .!..u u I !. I !. ) comprises the so-called priapean meter:

!.U l!.uul.!..ul!.1.!..Ul!..uul!.I!..: this appears only in poem 17. A similar cornbination can be found in poem 34, where each stanza is composed of three glyconic lines and a fourth, concluding pherecratic: (lines 1-3) (line 4) In the long poems, poem 61 continues the combination of glyconics and pherecratics with stanzas of four glyconics and a final pherecratic. Two of the long poems, 62 and 64, are written in the dactylic hexameter meter, in which six feet are normally structured as follows:

!. u u I!.. u u I!. u u I!.. u u I!. u u I!. u.

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although in places Catullus employs a spondee in the fifth foot (such a verse is commonly termed HspondaicH). Poem 63 features the rare and complicated galliambic meter, with a general scheme as follows:

u u !.. I u !.. I u !.. I !.. I u u L I u u u I u u. although a long syllable may at times be substituted two short ones.

for

From poem 65 on, the corpus is composed of elegiac couplets, in which the first verse is a dactylic hexameter, and the second verse a dactylic pentameter, arranged as follows:

!...u u I!... u u I !...11!...u u I!.. u u I d. It should be noted that the pentameter line is treated as being composed of two halves of two and one-half feet each. References

In the commentary, reference is at times made to the following scholars: ELLIS ............... Robinson Ellis, A Commentary (Oxford, 1889).

on Catullus

FORDYCE ....... C. J. Fordyce, Catullus (Oxford, 1961). KROLL ............. Wilhelm Kroll, Catull (Leipzig and Berlin, 1959). 18

MERRILL ......... E. T. Merrill, 1893).

Catullus (Cambridge,

MA.,

1''EUDLING ...... C.L. Neudling, A Prosopography to Catullus (Oxford, 1955). QUINN ............. Kenneth Quinn, Catullus: The Poems (London, 1970). ROSS ................ D. 0. Ross, Jr., Catullw (Cambridge, MA., 1969).

Style

and

Tradition

in

SKINNER ......... M.B. Skinner, Catullus' Passer (New York, 1981). THOMSON ....... D. F. S. Thomson, Catullus: A Critical Edition (Chapel Hill, 1978). WISEMAN ........T. P. Wiseman, Catullan Questions (Leicester, 1969).

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1

Cui dono lepidum novum libellum arida modo pumice expolitum? Corneli, tibi; namque tu solebas meas esse aliquid putare nugas iam tum, cum ausus es unus Italorum omne aevum tribus explicare cartis doctis, luppiter, et laboriosis. quare babe tibi quidquid hoe libelli qualecumque, quod, < o > patrona virgo, plus uno maneat perenne saeclo.

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2A Passer, deliciae meae puellae quicum ludere, quern in sinu tenere, cui primum digitum dare appetenti et acris solet incitare morsus, cum desiderio meo nitenti carum nescio quid lubet iocari, ut solaciolum sui doloris, credo, ut tum gravis acquiescat ardor; tecum ludere sicut ipsa possem et tristis animi levare curas. 2B tarn gr a tum est mihi quam ferunt puellae pernici aureolum fuisse malum, quod zonam soluit diu ligatam.

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3

Lugete, o Veneres Cupidinesque et quantum est hominum venustiorum: passer mortuus est meae puellae, passer, deliciae meae puellae, quern plus illa oeulis suis amabat; nam mellitus erat suamque norat ipsam tarn bene quam puella matrem, nee sese a gremio illius movebat, sed eireumsiliens modo hue modo illue ad solam dominam usque pipiabat; qui nune it per iter tenebrieosum illue, unde negant redire quemquam. at vobis male sit, malae tenebrae Orei, quae omnia bella devoratis: tarn bellum mihi passerem abstulistis. o faetum male, quod, miselle passer, tua nune opera meae puellae flendo turgiduli rubent oeelli.

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4

Phaselus ille, quern videtis, hospites, ait fuisse navium eelerrimus, neque ullius natantis impetum trabis nequisse praeterire, sive palmulis opus foret volare sive linteo. et hoe negat minaeis Hadriatiei negare litus insulasve Cycladas Rhodumque nobilem horridamque Thraciam Propontida trueemve Pontieum sinum, ubi iste post phaselus antea fuit eomata silva; nam Cytorio in iugo

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loquente saepe sibilum edidit coma. Amastri Pontica et Cytore buxifer, tibi baec fuisse et esse cognitissima ait pbaselus, ultima ex origine tuo stetisse dicit in cacumine, tuo imbuisse palmulas in aequore, et inde tot per impotentia freta erum tulisse, laeva sive dextera vocaret aura, sive utrumque Iuppiter simul secundus incidisset in pedem; neque ulla vota litoralibus deis sibi esse facta, cum veniret a mari novissime bunc ad usque limpidum lacum. sed baec prius fuere; nunc recondita senet quiete seque dedicat tibi, gemelle Castor et gemelle Castoris.

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5 Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus, . rumoresque senum sever1orum omnes unius aestimemus assis. soles occidere et redire possunt; nobis, cum semel occidit brevis lux, nox est perpetua una dormienda. da mi basia mille, deinde centum, dein mille altera, dein secunda centum, deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum; dein, cum milia multa fecerimus, conturbabimus, illa ne sciamus, aut ne quis malus invidere possit cum tantum sciat esse basiorum.

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Flavi, delicias tuas Catullo, ni sint illepidae atque inelegantes, velles dicere nee tacere posses. verum nescio quid febriculosi scorti diligis: hoe pudet fateri. nam te non viduas iacere noctes nequiquam taciturn cubile clamat, sertis ac Syrio fragrans olivo, pulvinusque peraeque et hie et ille attritus, tremulique quassa lecti argutatio inambulatioque. nam nil stupra valet, nihil, tacere. cur? non tarn latera ecfututa pandas, ni tu quid facias ineptiarum. quare, quidquid habes boni malique, die nobis. volo te ac tuos amores ad caelum lepido vocare versu.

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Quaeris quot mihi basiationes tuae, Lesbia, sint satis superque. quam magnus numerus Libyssae harenae lasarpicif eris iacet Cyrenis oraclum lovis inter aestuosi et Batti veteris sacrum sepulcrum, aut quam sidera multa, cum tacet nox, furtivos hominum vident amores; tarn te basia multa basiare vesano satis et super Catullo est, quae nee pernumerare curiosi possint nee mala fascinare lingua.

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Miser Catulle, desinas ineptire, et quod vides perisse perditum ducas. rulsere quondam can di di tibi soles, cum ventitabas quo puella ducebat amata nobis quantum amabitur nulla. ibi illa multa cum iocosa fiebant, quae tu volebas nee puella nolebat, fulsere vere candidi tibi soles. nunc iam illa non vult; tu quoque inpote nee quae fugit sectare, nee miser vive, sed obstinata mente perfer, obdura. vale, puella. iam Catullus obdurat, nee te requiret nee rogabit invitam. at tu dolebis, cum rogaberis nulla. scelesta, vae te! quae tibi manet vita? quis nunc te adibit? cui videberis bella? quern nunc amabis? cuius esse dic~ris? quern basiabis? cui labella mordebis? at tu, Catulle, destinatus obdura.

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noli >, 10

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Verani, omnibus e meis am1c1s antistans mihi milibus trecentis, venistine domum ad tuos penates fratresque unanimos anumque matrem? venisti. o mihi nuntii beati! visam te incolumem audiamque Hiberum narrantem loca, facta, nationes, ut mos est tuus, applicansque collum iucundum os oculosque saviabor. o quantum est hominum beatiorum,

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quid me laetius est beatiusve? 10 Varus me meus ad suos amores vis um duxerat e foro otiosum, seortillum, ut mihi tum repente visum est, non sane illepidum neque invenustum. hue ut venimus, incidere nobis sermones varii: in quibus, quid esset iam Bithynia; quo modo se haberet; et quonam mihi prof uisset aere. respondi, id quod erat, nihil neque ipsis nee praetoribus esse nee cohorti, cur quisquam caput unctius ref erret, praesertim quibus esset irrumator praetor, nee faceret pili cohortem. Hat certe tamenH inquiunt "quod illic natum dieitur esse, comparasti ad leeticam homines." ego, ut puellae unum me facerem beatiorem, "non" inquam "mihi tarn fuit maligne, ut, provincia quod mala ineidisset, non possem octo homines parare rectos." at mi nullus erat nee hie neque illie, fraetum qui veteris pedem grabati in collo sibi eollocare posset. hie ilia, ut decuit einaediorem, ..quaeso .. inquit mihi "mi Ca tulle, paulum istos eommoda; nam volo ad Serapim deferri. .. "mane" inquii puellae "istud quod modo dixeram me habere, fugit me ratio: meus sodalis Cinna est Gaius - is sibi paravit. 26

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verum, utrum illius an mei, quid ad me? utor tarn bene quam mihi pararim. sed tu insulsa male et molesta vivis, per quam non licet esse neglegentem." 11

Furi et Aureli, comites Catulli, sive in extremos penetrabit Indos, litus ut longe resonante Eoa tunditur unda, sive in Hyrcanos Arabasve molles, seu Sagas sagittif erosve Parthos, sive quae septemgeminus colorat aequora Nilus, sive trans altas gradietur Alpes, Caesaris visens monimenta magni, Gallicum Rhenum horribilesque ultimosque Britannos, omnia haec, quaecumque feret voluntas caelitum, temptare simul parati, pauca nuntiate meae puellae non bona dicta. cum suis vivat valeatque moechis, quos simul complexa tenet trecentos, nullum amans vere, sed identidem omnium ilia rumpens; nee meum respectet, ut ante, amorem, qui illius culpa cecidit velut prati

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ultimi flos, praetereunte postquam tactus aratro est. 12

Marrucine Asini, manu sinistra non belle uteris: in ioco atque vino tollis lintea neglegentiorum. hoe salsum esse putas? fugit te, inepte; quamvis sordida res et invenusta est. non credis mihi? crede Pollioni fratri, qui tua furta vel talento mutari velit: est enim leporum differtus puer ac facetiarum. quare aut hendecasyllabos trecentos exspecta, aut mihi linteum remitte, quod me non movet aestimatione, verum est mnemosynum mei sodalis. nam sudaria Saetaba ex Hiberis miserunt mihi muneri Fabullus et Veranius; haec amem necesse est ut Veraniolum meum et Fabullum.

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13 Cenabis bene, mi Fabulle, apud me paucis, si tibi di favent, diebus, si tecum attuleris bonam atque magnam cenam, non sine candida puella et vino et sale et omnibus cachinnis. haec si, inquam, attuleris, venuste noster, cenabis bene - nam tui Catulli plenus sacculus est aranearum. sed contra accipies meros amores

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seu quid suavius elegantiusve est: nam unguentum dabo quod meae puellae donarunt Veneres Cupidinesque, quod tu cum olfacies, deos rogabis totum ut te faciant, Fabulle, nasum.

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Ni te plus oculis meis amarem, iucundissime Calve, munere isto odissem te odio Vatiniano: nam quid feci ego quidve sum locutus, cur me tot male perderes poetis? isti di mala multa dent clienti, qui tantum tibi misit impiorum. quod si, ut suspicor, hoe novum ac repertum munus dat tibi Sulla litterator, non est mi male, sed bene ac beate, quod non dispereunt tui labores. di magni, horribilem et sacrum libellum! quem tu scilicet ad tuum Catullum misti continuo, ut die periret Saturnalibus optimo dierum! non non hoe tibi, salse, sic abibit. nam, si luxerit, ad librariorum curram scrinia; Caesios, Aquinos, Suffenum, omnia colligam venena, ac te his suppliciis remunerabor. vos hinc interea valete abite illuc, unde malum pedem attulistis, saecli incommoda, pessimi poetae.

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148

Si qui forte mearum ineptiarum lectores eritis manusque vestras non horrebitis admovere nobis, .................•..........•.•

15 Commendo tibi me ac meos amores, Aureli. veniam peto pudentem, ut, si quicquam animo tuo cupisti, quod castum expeteres et integellum, conserves puerum mihi pudice, non dico a populo - nihil veremur istos, qui in platea modo hue modo illuc in re praetereunt sua occupati verum a te metuo tuoque pene inf esto pueris bonis malisque. quern tu qua lubet, ut lubet, moveto quantum vis, ubi erit foris paratum; hunc unum excipio, ut puto, pudenter. quod si te mala mens f urorque vecors in tantam impulerit, sceleste, culpam, ut nostrum insidiis caput lacessas, a tum te miserum malique fati! quern attractis pedibus patente porta percurrent raphanique mugilesque. 16

Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo, Aureli pathice et cinaede Furi, qui me ex versiculis meis putastis,

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quod sunt molliculi, parum pudicum. nam castum esse decet pium poetam ipsum, versiculos nihil necesse est; qui tum denique habent salem ac leporem, si sunt molliculi ac parum pudici, et quod pruriat incitare possunt, non dico pueris, sed his pilosis qui duros nequeunt movere lumbos. vos, quod milia multa basiorum legistis, male me marem putatis? pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo.

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0 Colonia, quae cupis ponte ludere longo, et salire paratum babes, sed vereris inepta crura ponticuli axulis stantis in redivivis, ne supinus eat cavaque in palude recumbat: sic tibi bonus ex tua pons libidine fiat, in quo vel Salisubsali sacra suscipiantur, munus hoe mihi maximi da, Colonia, risus. quendam municipem meum de tuo volo ponte ire praecipitem in lutum per caputque pedesque, verum totius ut lacus putidaeque paludis lividissima maximeque est profunda vorago. insulsissimus est homo, nee sapit pueri instar bimuli tremula patris dormientis in ulna. cui cum sit viridissimo nupta flore puella et puella tenellulo delicatior haedo, adservanda nigerrimis diligentius uvis, ludere hanc sinit ut lubet, nee pili facit uni, nee se sublevat ex sua parte; sed velut alnus in fossa Liguri iacet suppernata securi, tantundem omnia sentiens quam si nulla sit usquam, 31

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talis iste meus stupor nil videt, nihil audit; ipse qui sit, utrum sit an non sit, id quoque nescit. nunc eum volo de tuo ponte mittere pronum, si pote stolidum repente excitare veternum, et supinum animum in gravi derelinquere caeno, ferream ut soleam tenaci in voragine mula.

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Aureli, pater esuritionum, non harum modo, sed quot aut fuerunt aut sunt aut aliis erunt in annis, pedicare cupis meos amores. nee clam: nam simul es, iocaris una, haerens ad latus omnia experiris. frustra: nam insidias mihi instruentem tangam te prior irrumatione. atque id si faceres satur, tacerem; nunc ipsum id doleo, quod esurire a te mi puer et sitire discet. quare desine, dum licet pudico, ne finem facias, sed irrumatus.

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22 Suffenus iste, Vare, quern probe nosti, homo est venustus et dicax et urbanus, idemque longe plurimos facit versus. puto esse ego illi milia aut decem aut plura perscripta, nee sic ut fit in palimpsesto relata: cartae regiae, novi libri, novi umbilici, lora rubra, membranae, derecta plumbo et pumice omnia aequata. haec cum legas tu, bellus ille et urbanus

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Suffenus unus caprimulgus aut fossor rursus videtur: tantum abhorret ac mutat. hoe quid putemus esse? qui modo scurra aut si quid hac re scitius videbatur, idem inficeto est inficetior rure, sirnul poemata attigit, neque idem umquam aeque est beatus ac poema cum scribit: tarn gaudet in se tamque se ipse miratur. nimirum idem omnes fallimur, neque est qu1squam quern non in aliqua re videre Suffenum possis. suus cuique attributus est error; sed non videmus manticae quod in tergo est.

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23 Furi, cu1 neque servus est neque area . . . nee c1mex neque araneus neque 1gn1s, verum est et pater et noverca, quorum dentes vel silicem cornesse possunt, est pulcre tibi cum tuo parente et cum coniuge lignea parentis. nee mirum: bene nam valetis omnes, pulcre concoquitis, nihil timetis, non incendia, non graves ruinas, non facta impia, non dolos veneni, non casus alios periculorum. atqui corpora sicciora cornu aut siquid rnagis aridum est habetis sole et frigore et esuritione. quare non tibi sit bene ac beate? a te sudor abest, abest saliva, mueusque et mala pituita nasi. hane ad munditiem adde mundiorem, quod culus tibi purior salillo est,

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nee toto decies cacas in anno; atque id durius est faba et lapillis, quod tu si manibus teras fricesque, non umquam digitum inquinare posses. haec tu commoda tam beata, Furi, noli spernere nee putare parvi, et sestertia quae soles precari centum desine, nam sat es beatus.

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24 0 qui flosculus es Iuventiorum, non horum modo, sed quot aut fuerunt aut posthac aliis erunt in annis, mallem divitias Midae dedisses isti, cui neque servus est neque area, quam sic te sineres ab illo amari. "qui? non est homo bellus?" inquies. est: sed hello huic neque servus est neque area. hoe tu quam lubet abice elevaque: nee servum tamen ille habet neque arcam.

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25 Cinaede Thalle, mollior cuniculi capillo vel anseris medullula vel imula oricilla vel pene languido senis situque araneoso, idemque, Thalle, turbida rapacior procella cum laeva + mulier aries + offendit oscitantes, remitte pallium mihi meum, quod involasti, sudariumque Saetabum catagraphosque Thynos, inepte, quae palam soles habere tamquam avita. quae nunc tuis ab unguibus reglutina et remitte, ne laneum latusculum manusque mollicellas

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inusta turpiter tibi flagella conscribillent, et insolenter aestues, velut minuta magno deprensa navis in mari, vesaniente vento.

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Furi, villula vestra non ad Austri flatus opposita est neque ad Favoni nee saevi Boreae aut Apheliotae, verum ad milia quindecim et ducentos. o ventum horribilem atque pestilentem!

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Minister vetuli puer Falerni, inger mi calices amariores, ut lex Postumiae iubet magistrae ebrioso acino ebriosioris. at vos quo lubet hinc abite, lymphae, vini pernicies, et ad severos migrate. hie merus est Thyonianus.

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28 Pisonis comites, cohors inanis, aptis sarcinulis et expeditis, Verani optime tuque mi Fabulle, quid rerum geritis? satisne cum isto vappa frigoraque et f amem tulistis? ecquidnam in tabulis patet lucelli expensum, ut mihi, qui meum secutus 35

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praetorem refero datum lucello: 'o Memmi, bene me ac diu supinum tota ista trabe lentus irrumasti.' sed, quantum video, pari fuistis casu: nam nihilo minore verpa farti est is. pete no biles amicos! at vobis mala multa di deaeque dent, opprobia Romuli Remique.

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Quis hoe potest videre, quis potest pati, nisi impudicus et vorax et aleo, Mamurram habere quod Comata Gallia habebat ante et ultima Britannia? cinaede Ro mule, haec videbis et feres? et ille nunc superbus et superfluens perambulabit omnium cubilia, ut albulus columbus aut Adoneus? cinaede Romule, haec videbis et feres? es impudicus et vorax et aleo. eone nomine, imperator unice, fuisti in ultima occidentis insula, ut ista vestra diffututa mentula ducenties comesset aut trecenties? quid est alid sinistra liberalitas? parum expatravit an parum helluatus est? paterna primum lancinata sunt bona, secunda praeda Pontica, inde tertia Hibera, quam scit amnis aurifer Tagus: nunc Gallicae timetur et Britannicae. quid hunc malum fovetis? aut quid hie po test nisi uncta devorare patrimonia? eone nomine, urbis o potissimi 36

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soeer generque, perdidistis omnia? 30

Alfene immemor atque unanimis false sodalibus, iam te nil miseret, dure, tui duleis amieuli? iam me prodere, iam non dubitas fallere, perfide? nee faeta impia fallaeum hominum eaelieolis plaeent. quae tu neglegis ae me miserum deseris in malis. eheu quid faeiant, die, homines cuive habeant fidem? eerte tute iubebas animam tradere, inique, indueens in amorem, quasi tuta omnia mi forent. idem nune retrahis te ac tua dicta omnia factaque ventos irrita ferre ac nebulas aerias sinis. si tu oblitus es, at di meminerunt, meminit Fides, quae te ut paeniteat postmodo facti faciet tui.

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31 Paene insularum, Sirmio, insularumque ocelle, quascumque in liquentibus stagnis marique vasto fert uterque Neptunus, quam te libenter quamque laetus inviso, vix mi ipse credens Thyniam atque Bithynos liquisse campos et videre te in tuto. o quid solutis est beatius curis, cum mens onus reponit, ac peregrino labore fessi venimus larem ad nostrum, desideratoque acquiescim us lecto? hoe est quod unum est pro laboribus tantis. salve, o venusta Sirmio, atque ero gaude gaudente, vosque o Lydiae lacus undae ridete quidquid est domi cachinnorum.

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32 Amabo, mea dulcis lpsitilla, meae deliciae, mei lepores, iube ad te veniam meridiatum. et si iusseris, illud adiuvato, ne quis liminis obseret tabellam, neu tibi lubeat foras abire, sed domi maneas paresque nobis novem continuas fututiones. verum si quid ages, statim iubeto: nam pransus iaceo et satur supinus pertundo tunicamque palliumque.

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33 0 furum optime balneariorum Vibenni pater et cinaede fili (nam dextra pater inquinatiore, culo filius est voraciore), cur non exilium malasque in oras itis? quandoquidem patris rapinae notae sunt populo, et natis pilosas, fili, non potes asse venditare.

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34 Dianae sumus in fide puellae et pueri integri: Dianam pueri integri puellaeque canam us. o Latonia, maximi magna progenies lovis,

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quam mater prope Deliam deposivit olivam, montium domina ut fores silvarumque virentium saltuumque reconditorum amniumque sonantum:

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tu Lucina dolentibus luno dicta puerperis, tu potens Trivia et notho es dicta lumine Luna; tu cursu, dea, menstruo metiens iter annuum rustica agricolae bonis tecta frugibus exples.

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sis quocumque tibi placet sancta nomine, Romulique, antique ut solita es, bona sospites ope gentem.

35 Poetae tenero, meo sodali, velim Caecilio, papyre, dicas Veronam veniat, Novi relinquens Comi moenia Lariumque litus: nam quasdam volo cogitationes amici accipiat sui meique. quare, si sapiet, viam vorabit, quamvis candida milies puella euntem revocet, manusque collo

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arnbas iniciens roget rnorari. quae nunc, si rnihi vera nuntiantur, illurn deperit irnpotente arnore: narn quo ternpore legit incohatarn Dindyrni dorninarn, ex eo rnisellae ignes interiorern edunt rnedullarn. ignosco tibi, Sapphica puella rnusa doctior: est enirn venuste Magna Caecilio incohata Mater.

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36 Annales Volusi, cacata carta, votum solvite pro mea puella. narn sanctae Veneri Cupidinique vovit, si sibi restitutus essem desissemque truces vibrare iam hos, electissirna pessirni poetae scripta tardipedi deo daturam infelicibus ustulanda lignis, et hoe pessima se puella vidit iocose lepide vovere divis. nunc, o caeruleo creata ponto, quae sanctum Idaliurn Uriosque apertos quaeque Ancona Cnidumque harundinosam colis quaeque Amathunta quaeque Golgos quaeque Dyrrhachium Hadriae tabernam, acceptum face redditumque votum, si non illepidum neque invenustum est. at vos interea venite in ignern, pleni ruris et inficetiarum annales Volusi, cacata carta.

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37 Salax taberna vosque contubernales, a pilleatis nona fratribus pita, solis putatis esse mentulas vobis, solis licere, quidquid est puellarum, confutuere et putare ceteros hircos? an, continenter quod sedetis insulsi centum an ducenti, non putatis ausurum me una ducentos irrumare sessores? atqui putate: namque totius vobis frontem tabernae sopionibus scribam. puella nam mi, quae meo sinu fugit, amata tantum quantum amabitur nulla, pro qua mihi sunt magna bella pugnata, consedit istic. bane boni beatique omnes amatis, et quidem, quod indignum est, omnes pusilli et semitarii moechi; tu praeter omnes une de capillatis, cuniculosae Celtiberiae fili, Egnati, opaca quern bonum facit barba et dens Hibera defricatus urina.

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38 Malest, Cornifici, tuo Catullo, malest, me hercule, et laboriose, et magis magis in dies et horas. queQI tu, quod minimum facillimumque est, qua solatus es allocutione? irascor tibi. sic meos amores? paulum quid lubet allocutionis, maestius lacrimis Simonideis.

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39 Egnatius, quod candidos habet dentes, renidet usque quaque, si ad rei ventum est subsellium, cum orator excitat fletum, renidet ille; si ad pii rogum fili lugetur, orba cum flet unicum mater, renidet ille; quidquid est, ubicumque est, quodcumque agit, renidet: hunc habet morbum, neque elegantem, ut arbitror, neque urbanum. quare monendum est < te > mihi, bone Egnati. si urbanus esses aut Sabinus aut Tiburs aut pinguis Umber aut obesus Etruscus aut Lanuvinus ater atque deotatus aut Transpadanus, ut meos quoque attiogam, aut quilubet, qui puriter lavit dentes, tamen renidere usque quaque te nollem: nam risu inepto res ineptior nulla est. nunc Celtiber ; Celtiberia in terra, quod quisque min.xit, hoe sibi solet mane dentem atque russam defricare giogivam; ut, quo iste vester expolitior dens est, hoe te amplius bibisse praedicet loti.

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40 Quaenam te mala mens, miselle Ravide, agit praecipitem in meos iambos? quis deus tibi non bene advocatus vecordem par at excitare rixam? an ut pervenias in ora vulgi? quid vis? qualubet esse notus optas? eris, quandoquidem meos amores cum longa voluisti amare poena.

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41 Ameana puella def ututa tota milia me decem poposcit, ista turpiculo puella naso, decoctoris amica Formiani. propinqui, quibus est puella curae, amicos medicosque convocate: non est sana puella, nee rogare qualis sit solet aes imaginosum.

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42 Adeste, hendecasyllabi, quot estis omnes undique, quotquot estis omnes. iocum me putat esse moecha turpis, et negat mihi vestra reddituram pugillaria, si pati potestis. persequamur earn et reflagitemus. quae sit, quaeritis? illa, quam videtis turpe incedere, mimice ac moleste ridentem catuli ore Gallicani. circumsistite earn et reflagitate: "moecha putida, redde codicillos, redde, putida moecha, codicillos!" non assis facis? o lutum, lupanar, aut si perditius potest quid esse. sed non est tamen hoe satis putandum. quod si non aliud potest, ruborem ferreo canis exprimamus ore. conclamate iterum altiore voce ..moecha putida, red de codicillos, redde, putida moecha, codicillos! .. sed nil proficimus, nihil movetur.

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mutanda est ratio modusque vobis, siquid profieere amplius potestis: "pudiea et proba, redde eodieillos."

43 Salve, nee m1n1mo puella naso nee hello pede nee nigris oeellis nee longis digitis nee ore sieeo nee sane nimis elegante lingua. deeoetoris amiea Formiani, ten provincia narrat esse bell am? teeum Lesbia nostra eomparatur? o saeelum insapiens et infieetum!

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44 0 funde noster seu Sabine seu Tiburs (nam te esse Tiburtem autumant, quibus non est eordi Catullum laedere; at quibus eordi est, quovis Sabinum pignore esse eontendunt), sed seu Sabine sive verius Tiburs, fui libenter in tua suburbana villa, malamque peetore expuli tussim, non inmerenti quam mihi meus venter, dum sumptuosas appeto, dedit, eenas. nam, Sestianus dum volo esse eonviva, orationem in Antium petitorem plenam veneni et pestilentiae legi. hie me gravedo frigida et frequens tussis quassavit usque, dum in tuum sinum fugi, et me reeuravi otioque et urtiea. quare refeetus maximas tibi grates ago, meum quod non es ulta peeeaturn.

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nee deprecor iam, si nefaria scripta Sesti recepso, quin gravedinem et tussim non mi, sed ipsi Sestio ferat frigus, qui tune vocat me, cum malum librum legi.

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45 Acmen Septimius suos amores tenens in gremio Hmea" inquit "Acme, ni te perdite amo atque amare porro omnes sum assidue paratus annos, quantum qui pote plurimum perire, solus in Libya Indiaque tosta caesio veniam obvius leoni." hoe ut dixit, Amor sinistra ut ante dextra sternuit approbationem. at Acme leviter caput reflectens et dulcis pueri ebrios ocellos illo purpureo ore saviata, "'sic," inquit "mea vita Septimille, huic uni domino usque serviamus, ut multo mihi maior acriorque ignis mollibus ardet in medullis. hoe ut dixit, Amor sinistra ut ante dextra sternuit approbationem. nunc ah auspicio bono prof ecti mutuis animis amant amantur. unam Septimius misellus Acmen mavult quam Syrias Britanniasque; uno in Septimio fidelis Acme facit delicias libidinesque. quis ullos homines beatiores vidit, quis Venerem auspicatiorem?

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H

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46 lam ver egelidos refert tepores, iam caeli furor aequinoctialis iucundis Zephyri silescit aureis. linquantur Phrygii, Catulle, campi Nicaeaeque ager uber aestuosae: ad claras Asiae volemus urbes. iam mens praetrepidans avet vagari, iam laeti studio pedes vigescunt. o dulces comitum valete coetus, longe quos simul a domo profectos diversae varie viae reportant.

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47 Porci et Socration, duae sinistrae Pisonis, scabies famesque mundi, vos Veraniolo meo et Fabullo verpus praeposuit Priapus ille? vos convivia lauta sumptuose de die facitis, mei sodales quaerunt in trivio vocationes?

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48 Mellitos oculos tuos, Iuventi, si quis me sinat usque basiare, usque ad milia basiem trecenta nee mi umquam videar satur futurus, non si densior aridis aristis sit nostrae seges osculationis.

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49 Disertissime Romuli nepotum, quot sunt quotque fuere, Maree Tulli, quotque post aliis erunt in annis, gratias tibi maximas Catullus agit pessimus omnium poeta, tanto pessimus omnium poeta quanto tu optimus omnium patronus.

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Hesterno, Licini, die otiosi multum lusimus in meis tabellis, ut convenerat esse delicatos: scribens versiculos uterque nostrum ludebat numero modo hoe modo illoc, reddens mutua per iocum atque vinum. atque illinc abii tuo lepore in census, Licini, facetiisque, ut nee me miserum cibus iuvaret nee somnus tegeret quiete ocellos, sed toto indomitus furore lecto versarer, cupiens videre lucem, ut tecum loquerer simulque ut essem. at defessa labore membra postquam semimortua lectulo iacebant, hoe, iucunde, tibi poema feci, ex quo perspiceres meum dolorem. nunc audax cave sis, precesque nostras, oramus, cave despuas, ocelle, ne poenas Nemesis reposcat a te. est vemens dea: laedere hanc caveto.

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51 Ille mi par esse deo videtur, ille, si fas est, superare divos, qui sedens adversus identidem te spectat et audit dulce ridentem, misero quod omnis eripit sensus mihi: nam simul te, Lesbia, aspexi, nihil est super mi

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lingua sed torpet, tenuis sub artus flamma demanat, sonitu suopte tintinant aures, gemina teguntur lumina nocte. otium, Catulle, tibi molestum est; otio exsultas nimiumque gestis; otium et reges prius et beatas perdidit urbes. 52

Quid est, Catulle? quid moraris emori? sella in curuli struma Nonius sedet; per consulatum peierat Vatinius; quid est, Catulle? quid moraris emori? 53 Risi nescio quern modo e corona, qui, cum mirifice Vatiniana meus crimina Calvus explicasset,

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admirans ait haec manusque tollens: Hdi magni, salaputium disertum!"

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54 Othonis caput oppido est pusillum, +et eri+ rustica semilauta crura, subtile et leve peditum Libonis; si non omnia, displicere vellem tibi et Sufficio seni recocto. irascere iterum meis iambis inmerentibus, unice imperator.

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55 Oramus, si forte non molestum est, demonstres ubi sint tuae tenebrae. te in Campo quaesivimus minore, te in Circo, te in omnibus libellis, te in templo summi Iovis sacrato. in Magni sim ul am bulatione femellas omnes, amice, prendi, quas vultu vidi tamen sereno. +avelte+ (sic ipse flagitabam) '"Camerium mihi, pessimae puellae!" quaedam inquit, nudum reduc ... ,.en hie in roseis latet papillis." sed te iam ferre Herculei labos est; tanto te in fastu negas, amice? die nobis ubi sis futurus, ede audacter, committe, crede luci. nunc te lacteolae tenent puellae? si linguam clauso tenes in ore, fructus proicies amoris omnes;

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verbosa gaudet Venus loquella. vel, si vis, lieet obseres palatum, dum vestri sim partieeps amoris.

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56 0 rem ridieulam, Cato, et ioeosam, dignamque auribus et tuo eaehinno! ride quidquid amas, Cato, Catullum: res est ridieula et nimis ioeosa. deprendi modo pupulum puellae trusantem; hune ego, si plaeet Dionae, pro telo rigida mea eeeidi.

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Pulere eonvenit improbis einaedis, Mamurrae pathieoque Caesarique. nee mirum: maeulae pares utrisque, urbana altera et ilia Formiana, impressae resident nee eluentur: morbosi pariter, gemelli utrique, uno in leetieulo erudituli ambo, non hie quam ille magis vorax adulter, rivales soeii et puellularum. pulere eonvenit improbis einaedis.

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58A Caeli, Lesbia nostra, Lesbia ilia, ilia Lesbia, quam Catullus unam plus quam se atque suos amavit omnes, nune in quadriviis et angiportis glubit magnanimi Remi nepotes. 50

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Non custos si fingar ille Cretum, non si Pegaseo ferar volatu, non Ladas ego pinnipesve Perseus, non Rhesi niveae citaeque bigae; adde hue plumipedas volatilesque, ventorumque simul require cursum, quos cunctos, Cameri, mihi dicares; defessus tamen omnibus medullis et multis languoribus peresus essem te mihi, amice, quaeritando.

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Bononiensis Rufa Rufulum fellat, u.xor Meneni, saepe quam in sepulcretis vidistis ipso rapere de rogo cenam, cum devolutum ex igne prosequens panem ab semiraso tunderetur ustore.

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Num te leaena montibus Libystinis aut Scylla latrans infima inguinum parte tarn mente dura procreavit ac taetra ut supplicis vocem in novissimo casu contemptam haberes, a nimis fero corde? 61 Collis o Heliconii cultor, Uraniae genus, qui rapis teneram ad virum

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virginem, o Hymenaee Hymen, o Hymen Hymenaee;

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cinge tempora floribus suave olentis amaraci, flammeum cape, laetus hue hue veni, niveo gerens luteum pede soccum;

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excitusque hilari die, nuptialia concinens voce carmina tinnula, pelle humum pedibus, manu pineam quate taedam.

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namque lunia Manlio, qualis Idalium colens venit ad Phrygium Venus iudicem, bona cum bona nubet alite virgo,

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floridis velut enitens myrtus Asia ramulis quos Hamadryades deae ludicrum sibi roscido nutriunt umore.

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quare age, hue aditum ferens, perge linquere Thespiae rupis Aonios specus, nympha quos super irrigat frigerans Aganippe.

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ac domum dominam voca

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coniugis cupidam novi, mentem amore revineiens, ut tenax hedera hue et hue arborem implieat errans.

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vosque item simul, integrae virgines, quibus advenit par dies, agite in modum dicite, o Hymenaee Hymen, o Hymen Hymenaee.

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ut lubentius, audiens se citarier ad suum munus, hue aditum ferat dux bonae Veneris, boni eoniugator amoris.

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quis deus magis anxiis est petendus amantibus? quern colent homines magis caelitum, o Hymenaee Hymen, o Hymen Hymenaee?

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te suis tremulus parens invocat, tibi virgines zonula soluunt sinus, te timens cupida novus captat aure maritus.

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tu fero iuveni in man us floridam ipse puellulam dedis a gremio suae matris, o Hymenaee Hymen, o Hymen Hymenaee.

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nil potest sine te Ven us, fama quod bona comprobet, commodi capere, at potest te volente. quis huic deo compararier ausit?

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nulla quit sine te domus liberos dare, nee parens stirpe nitier; at potest te volente. quis huic deo compararier ausit?

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quae tuis careat sacris, non queat dare praesides terra finibus; at queat te volente. quis huic deo compararier ausit?

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claustra pandite ianuae; virgo, ades. video ut faces splendidas quatiunt comas? ························ ···················

tardet ingenuus pudor. quern tamen magis audiens, flet quod ire necesse est.

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flere desine. non tibi, Aurunculeia, periculum est ne qua femina pulcrior clarum ab Oceano diem

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viderit venientem. talis in vario solet divitis domini hortulo stare flos hyacinthinus. sed moraris, abit dies. < prodeas, nova nupta.

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prodeas, nova nupta, si iam videtur, et audias nostra verba. viden? faces aureas quatiunt comas; prodeas, nova nupta.

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non tuus levis in mala deditus vir adultera, probra turpia persequens, a tuis teneris volet secubare papillis,

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lenta sed velut adsitas vitis implicat arbores, implicabitur in tuum complexum. sed abit dies; prodeas, nova nupta.

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o cubile, quod omnibus

candido pede lecti, quae tuo veniunt ero, quanta gaudia, quae vaga

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nocte, quae medio die gaudeat! sed abit dies; prodeas, nova nupta. tollite, < o > pueri, faces: flammeum video venire. ite concinite in modum "io Hymen Hymenaee io, io Hymen Hymenaee."

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ne diu taceat procax Fescennina iocatio, nee nuces pueris neget desertum domini audiens concubinus amorem.

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da nuces pueris, iners concubine; satis diu lusisti nucibus; lubet iam servire Talasio. concubine, nuces da.

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sordebant tibi vilicae, concubine, hodie atque heri; nunc tuum cinerarius tondet os. miser a miser concubine, nuces da.

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diceris male te a tuis unguentate glabris, marite, abstinere, sed abstine. io Hymen Hymenaee io, io Hymen Hymenaee.

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scimus haec tibi quae licent sola cognita, sed marito ista non eadem licent. io Hymen Hymenaee io, io Hymen Hymenaee.

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nupta, tu quoque quae tuus vir petet cave ne neges, ni petitum aliunde eat. io Hymen Hymenaee io, io Hymen Hymenaee.

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en tibi domus ut potens et beata viri tui, quae tibi sine serviat (io Hymen Hymenaee io, io Hymen Hymenaee)

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usque dum tremulum movens cana tempus anilitas omnia omnibus annuit. io Hymen Hymenaee io, io Hymen Hymenaee. transfer omine cum bono limen aureolos pedes, rasilemque subi forem. io Hymen Hymenaee io, io Hymen Hymenaee.

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aspice intus ut accubans vir tuus Tyrio in toro totus immineat tibi. io Hymen Hymenaee 10,

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illi non minus ac tibi pectore uritur intimo flamma, sed penite magis. 10 Hymen Hymenaee io, io Hymen Hymenaee.

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mitte brachiolum teres, praetextate, puellulae: iam cubile adeat viri. io Hymen Hymenaee io, io Hymen Hymenaee.

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bonae senibus viris cognitae bene feminae collocate puellulam. io Hymen Hymenaee io, io Hymen Hymenaee.

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iam licet venias, marite: uxor in thalamo tibi est, ore floridulo nitens alba parthenice velut luteumve papaver.

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at, marite, ita me iuvent caelites, nihilo minus pulcer es, neque te Venus neglegit. sed abit dies; perge, ne remorare.

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non diu remoratus es: iam venis. bona te Venus

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iuverit, quoniam palam quod cupis cupis, et bonum non abscondis amorem. ille pulveris Africi siderumque micantium subducat numerum prius, qui vestri numerare vult multa milia Judi.

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ludite ut lubet, et brevi liberos date. non decet tarn vetus sine liberis nomen esse, sed indidem semper ingenerari.

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Torquatus volo parvulus matris e gremio suae porrigens teneras manus dulce rideat ad patrem semihiante labello.

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sit suo similis patri Manlio et facile omnibus noscitetur ah insciis, et pudicitiam suae matris indicet ore.

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talis illius a bona matre laus genus approbet, qualis unica ah optima matre Telemacho manet fama Penelopaeo.

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claudite ostia, virgines: lusimus satis. at, boni coniuges, bene vivite et munere assiduo valentem exercete iuventam.

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Vesper adest; iuvenes, consurgite; Vesper Olympo exspectata diu vix tandem lumina tollit. surgere iam tempus, iam pinguis linquere mensas; iam veniet virgo, iam dicetur hymenaeus. Hymen o Hymenaee, Hymen ades o Hymenaee!

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Cernitis, innuptae, iuvenes? consurgite contra; nimirum Oetaeos ostendit Noctif er ignes. sic certest; viden ut perniciter exsiluere? non temere exsiluere; canent quod vincere par est. Hymen o Hymenaee, Hymen ades o Hymenaee!

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Non facilis nob is, aequales, palm a para ta est; aspicite, innuptae secum ut meditata requirunt. non frustra meditantur: habent memorabile quod sit· ' nee mirum, penitus quae tota mente laborant. nos alio mentes, alio divisimus aures; iure igitur vincemur: amat victoria curam. quare nunc animos saltem convertite vestros; dicere iam incipient, iam respondere decebit. Hymen o Hymenaee, Hymen ades o Hymenaee! Hespere, quis caelo fertur crudelior ignis? qui natam possis complexu avellere matris, complexu matris retinentem avellere natam, et iuveni ardenti castam donare puellam.

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quid faciunt hostes capta crudelius urbe? Hymen o Hymenaee, Hymen ades o Hymenaee! Hespere, quis caelo lucet iucundior ignis? qui desponsa tua firmes conubia flamma, quae pepigere viri, pepigerunt ante parentes, nee iunxere prius quam se tuus extulit ardor. quid datur a divis felici optatius hora? Hymen o Hymenaee, Hymen ades o Hymenaee!

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Hesperus e nobis, aequales, abstulit unam.

namque tuo adventu vigilat custodia semper. nocte latent Cures, quos idem saepe revertens, Hespere, mutato comprendis nomine Eous. at lubet innuptis ficto te carpere questu. quid tum, si carpunt, tacita quern mente requirunt? Hymen o Hymenaee, Hymen ades o Hymenaee! Ut flos in saeptis secretus nascitur hortis, ignotus pecori, nullo convulsus aratro, quern mulcent aurae, firmat sol, educat imber; multi ilium pueri, multae optavere puellae; idem cum tenui carptus defloruit ungui, nulli ilium pueri, nullae optavere puellae: sic virgo, dum intacta manet, dum cara suis est; cum castum amisit polluto corpore florem, nee pueris iucunda manet, nee cara puellis. Hymen o Hymenaee, Hymen ades o Hymenaee! Ut vidua in nudo vitis quae nascitur arvo, numquam se extollit, numquam mitem educat uvam,

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sed tenerum prono deflectens pondere corpus iam iam contingit summum radice flagellum; bane nulli agricolae, nulli coluere iuvenci; at si forte eadem est ulmo coniuncta marito, multi illam agricolae, multi coluere iuvenci: sic virgo dum intacta manet, dum inculta senescit; cum par conubium maturo tempore adepta est, cara viro magis et minus est invisa parenti. < Hymen o Hymenaee, Hymen ades o Hymenaee! > Et tu ne pugna cum tali coniuge, virgo. non aequum est pugnare, pater cui tradidit ipse, ipse pater cum matre, quibus parere necesse est. virginitas non tota tua est, ex parte parentum est, tertia pars patris est, pars est data tertia matri, tertia sola tua est: noli pugnare duobus, qui genero sua iura simul rum dote dederunt. Hymen o Hymenaee, Hymen ades o Hymenaee!

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63 Super alta vectus Attis celeri rate maria, Phrygium ut nemus citato cupide pede tetigit adiitque opaca silvis redimita loca deae, stimulatus ibi furenti rabie, vagus animis, devovit iii acuto sibi pondera silice. itaque ut relicta sensit sibi membra sine viro, etiam recente terrae sola sanguine maculans, niveis citata cepit manibus leve typanum, typanum tuum, Cybebe, tua, mater, initia, quatiensque terga tauri teneris cava digitis canere haec suis adorta est tremebunda comitibus. "agite ite ad alta, Gallae, Cybeles nemora simul, simul ite, Dindymenae dominae vaga pecora, 62

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aliena quae petentes velut exules loca sectam meam exsecutae duce me mihi comites rapidum salum tulistis truculentaque pelagi, et corpus evirastis Veneris nimio odio; hilarate erae citatis erroribus animum. mora tarda mente cedat: simul ite, sequimini Phrygiam ad domum Cybebes, Phrygia ad nemora deae, ubi cymbalum sonat vox, ubi tympana reboant, tibicen ubi canit Phryx curvo grave calamo, ubi capita Maenades vi iaciunt hederigerae, ubi sacra sancta acutis ululatibus agitant, ubi suevit ilia divae volitare vaga cohors, quo nos decet citatis celerare tripudiis. simul haec comitibus Attis cecinit notha mulier, thiasus repente linguis trepidantibus ululat, leve tympanum remugit, cava cymbala recrepant, viridem citus adit Idam properante pede chorus. furibunda simul anhelans vaga vadit animam agens comitata tympano Attis per opaca nemora dux, veluti iuvenca vitans onus indomita iugi; rapidae ducem sequuntur Gallae properipedem. itaque, ut domum Cybebes tetigere lassulae, nimio e labore somnum capiunt sine Cerere. piger his labante languore oculos sopor operit; abit in quiete molli rabidus furor animi. sed ubi oris aurei sol radiantibus oculis lustravit aethera album, sola dura, mare ferum, pepulitque noctis umbras vegetis sonipedibus, ibi Somnus excitam Attin fugiens citus abiit; trepidante eum recepit dea Pasithea sinu. ita de quiete molli rapida sine rabie simul ipsa pectore Attis sua facta recoluit, liquidaque mente vidit sine quis ubique foret, animo aestuante rusum reditum ad vada tetulit.

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ibi maria vasta visens lacrimantibus oculis patriam allocuta maestast ita voce miseriter. "patria o mei creatrix, patria o mea genetrix, ego quam miser relinquens, dominos ut erifugae famuli solent, ad ldae tetuli nemora pedem, ut apud nivem et fer arum gelida stabula forem, et earum opaca adirem furibunda latibula, ubinam aut quibus locis te positam, patria, reor? cupit ipsa pupula ad te sibi derigere aciem, rabie fera carens dum breve tempus animus est. egone a mea remota haec ferar in nemora domo? patria, bonis, amicis, genitoribus abero? a hero foro, palaestra, stadio et gyminasiis? miser a miser, querendum est etiam atque etiam, anime. quod enim genus figurae est, ego non quod obierim? ego mulier, ego adolescens, ego ephebus, ego puer, ego gymnasi fui flos, ego eram dee us olei: mihi ianuae frequentes, mihi limina tepida, mihi floridis corollis redimita domus erat, linquendum ubi esset orto mihi sole cubiculum. ego nunc deum ministra et Cybeles famula ferar? ego Maenas, ego mei pars, ego vir sterilis ero? ego viridis algida Idae nive amicta loca colam? ego vitam agam sub altis Phrygiae columinibus, ubi cerva silvicultrix, ubi aper nemorivagus? iam iam dolet quod egi, iam iamque paenitet. roseis ut hinc labellis sonitus < citus > abiit, geminas deorum ad aures nova nuntia referens, ibi iuncta iuga resolvens Cybele leonibus saevumque pecoris hostem stimulans ita loquitur: "agedum," inquit "age ferox , fac ut hunc furor , fac uti furoris ictu reditum in nemora ferat, mea libere nimis qui fugere imperia cupit.

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age caede terga cauda, tua verbera patere, fac cuncta mugienti fremitu loca retonent, rutilam ferox torosa cervice quate iubam. ait haec minax Cybebe religatque iuga manu. ferus ipse sese adhortans rabid um incitat animo, vadit, fremit, refringit virgulta pede vago. at ubi umida albicantis loca litoris adiit, tenerumque vidit Attin prope marmora pelagi, facit impetum. ilia demens fugit in nemora fera; ibi semper omne vitae spatium famula fuit. H

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dea magna, dea Cybebe, dea domina Dindymi, procul a mea tuus sit furor omnis, era, domo: alios age incitatos, alios age rabidos.

64 Peliaco quondam prognatae vertice pinus dicuntur liquidas Neptuni nasse per undas Phasidos ad fluctus et fines Aeetaeos, cum lecti iuvenes, Argivae robora pubis, auratam optantes Colchis avertere pellem ausi sunt vada salsa cita decurrere puppi, caerula verrentes abiegnis aequora palmis. diva quibus retinens in summis urbibus arces ipsa levi fecit volitantem flamine currum, pinea coniungens inflexae texta carinae. ilia rudem cursu prima imbuit Amphitriten; quae simul ac rostro ventosum proscidit aequor tortaque remigio spumis incanuit unda, emersere feri candenti e gurgite vultus aequoreae monstrum Nereides admirantes. ilia, atque alia, viderunt luce marinas mortales oculis nudato corpore Nymphas

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nutricum tenus exstantes e gurgite cano. tum Thetidis Pele us in census fertur am ore, tum Thetis humanos non despexit hymenaeos, tum Thetidi pater ipse iugandum Pelea sensit. o nimis optato saeclorum tempore nati heroes, salvete, deum genus! o bona matrum progenies, salvete! iter < um salvete, bonarum! > vos ego saepe, meo vos carmine compellabo. teque adeo eximie taedis felicibus aucte, Thessaliae columen Peleu, cui luppiter ipse, ipse suos divum genitor concessit amores; tene Thetis tenuit pulcerrima Nereine? tene suam Tethys concessit ducere neptem, Oceanusque, mari totum qui amplectitur orbem? quae simul optatae finito tempore luces advenere, domum conventu tota frequentat Thessalia, oppletur laetanti regia coetu; dona ferunt prae se, declarant gaudia vultu. deseritur Cieros; linquunt Pthiotica Tempe Crannonisque domos ac moenia Larisaea; Pharsalum coeunt, Pharsalia tecta frequentant. rura colit nemo, mollescunt colla iuvencis, non humilis curvis purgatur vinea rastris, non glebam prono convellit vomere taurus, non falx attenuat frondatorum arboris umbram; squalida desertis robigo infertur aratris. ipsius at sedes, quacumque opulenta recessit regia, fulgenti splendent auro atque argento: candet ebur soliis; collucent pocula mensae; tota domus gaudet regali splendida gaza. pulvinar vero divae geniale locatur sedibus in mediis, lndo quod dente politum tincta tegit roseo conchyli purpura fuco. haec vestis priscis hominum variata figuris

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heroum mira virtutes indicat arte. namque fluentisono prospectans litore Diae Thesea cedentem celeri cum classe tuetur indomitos in corde gerens Ariadna furores, necdum etiam sese quae visit visere credit, utpote fallaci quae tum primum excita somno desertam in sola miseram se cernat harena. immemor at iuvenis fugiens pellit vada remis, irrita ventosae linquens promissa procellae; quem procul ex alga maestis Minois ocellis saxea ut effigies bacchantis, prospicit, eheu, prospicit et magnis curarum fluctuat undis, non flavo retinens subtilem vertice mitram, non contecta levi velatum pectus amictu, non tereti strophio lactentis vincta papillas, omnia quae toto delapsa e corpore passim ipsius ante pedes fluctus salis alludebant. sed neque tum mitrae neque tum fluitantis amictus illa vicem curans toto ex te pectore, Theseu, toto animo, tota pendebat perdita mente. a misera, assiduis quam luctibus externavit spinosas Erycina serens in pectore curas, illa tempestate, ferox quo ex tempore Theseus egressus curvis e litoribus Piraei attigit iniusti regis Gortynia templa. nam perhibent olim crudeli peste coactam Androgeoneae poenas exsolvere caedis electos iuvenes simul et decus innuptarum Cecropiam solitam esse dapem dare Minotauro. quis angusta malis cum moenia vexarentur, ipse suum Theseus pro caris corpus Athenis proicere optavit potius quam talia Cretam funera Cecropiae nee funera portarentur. atque ita nave levi nitens ac lenibus auris

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magnanimum ad Minoa venit sedesque superbas. hunc simul ac cupido conspexit lumine virgo regia, quam suavis exspirans castus odores lectulus in molli complexu matris alebat, quales Eurotae progignunt flumina myrtus aurave distinctos educit verna colores, non prius ex illo flagrantia declinavit lumina, quam cuncto concepit corpore flammam funditus atque imis exarsit tota medullis. heu misere exagitans immiti corde furores sancte puer, curis hominum qui gaudia misces, quaeque regis Golgos quaeque Idalium frondosum, qualibus incensam iactastis mente puellam fluctibus, in flavo saepe hospite suspirantem! quantos ilia tulit languenti corde timores! quam tum saepe magis fulgore expalluit auri, cum saevum cupiens contra contendere monstrum aut mortem appeteret Theseus aut praemia laudis! non ingrata tamen frustra munuscula divis promittens tacito succepit vota labello, nam velut in summo quatientem brachia Tauro quercum aut conigeram sudanti cortice pinum indomitus turbo contorquens flamine robur eruit (ilia procul radicitus exturbata prona cadit, late quaeviscumque obvia frangens), sic domito saevum prostravit corpore Theseus nequiquam vanis iactantem cornua ventis. inde pedem sospes multa cum laude reflexit errabunda regens tenui vestigia filo, ne labyrintheis e flexibus egredientem tecti frustraretur inobservabilis error. sed quid ego a primo digressus carmine plura commemorem, ut linquens genitoris filia vultum, ut consanguineae complexum, ut denique matris,

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quae misera in gnata deperdita laeta, omnibus his Thesei dulcem praeoptarit amorem; aut ut vecta rati spumosa ad litora Diae aut ut earn devinctam lumina somno liquerit immemori discedens pectore coniunx? saepe illam perhibent ardenti corde furentem clarisonas imo fudisse e pectore voces, ac tum praeruptos tristem conscendere montes, unde aciem in pelagi vastos protenderet aestus, tum tremuli salis adversas procurrere in undas mollia nudatae tollentem tegmina surae, atque haec extremis maestam di.xisse querellis, frigidulos udo singultus ore cientem: '"sicine me patriis avectam, perfide, ab aris, perfide, deserto liquisti in litore, Theseu? sicine discedens neglecto numine divum, immemor a! devota domum periuria portas? nullane res potuit crudelis flectere mentis consilium? tibi nulla fuit dementia praesto, immite ut nostri vellet miserescere pectus? at non haec quondam blanda promissa dedisti voce mihi, non haec miseram sperare iubebas, sed conubia laeta, sed optatos hymenaeos, quae cuncta aerii discerpunt irrita venti. nunc iam nulla viro iuranti femina credat, nulla viri speret sermones esse fideles, quis dum aliquid cupiens animus praegestit apisci, nil metuunt iurare, nihil promittere parcunt; sed simul ac cupidae mentis satiata libido est, dicta nihil meminere, nihil periuria curant. certe ego te in medio versantem turbine leti eripui, et potius germanum amittere crevi quam tibi fallaci supremo in tempore dessem. pro quo dilaceranda feris dabor alitibusque

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praeda, neque iniacta tumulahor mortua terra. quaenam te genuit sola sub rupe leaena, quod mare conceptum spumantihus exspuit undis, quae Syrtis, quae Scylla rapax, quae vasta Charybdis, talia qui reddis pro dulci praemia vita? si tibi non cordi fuerant conuhia nostra, saeva quod horrebas prisci praecepta parentis, attamen in vestras potuisti ducere sedes, quae tihi iucundo famularer serva labore, candida permulcens liquidis vestigia lymphis, purpureave tuum consternens veste cuhile. sed quid ego ignaris nequiquam conqueror auris, exsternata malo, quae nullis sensihus auctae nee missas audire queunt nee reddere voces? ille autem prope iam mediis versatur in undis, nee quisquam apparet vacua mortalis in alga. sic nimis insultans extremo tempore saeva fors etiam nostris invidit questihus auris. luppiter omnipotens, utinam ne tempore primo Gnosia Cecropiae tetigissent litora puppes, indomito nee dira ferens stipendia tauro perfidus in Creta religasset navita funem, nee malus hie celans dulci crudelia forma consilia in nostris requiesset sedibus hospes! nam quo me referam? quali spe perdita nitor? Idaeosne petam montes? at gurgite lato discernens ponti truculentum dividit aequor. an patris auxilium sperem? quemne ipsa reliqui respersum iuvenem fraterna caede secuta? coniugis an fido consoler memet amore? quine fugit lentos incurvans gurgite remos? praeterea nullo colitur sola insula tecto, nee patet egressus pelagi cingentibus undis. nulla fugae ratio, nulla spes: omnia muta, 70

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omnia sunt deserta, ostentant omnia letum. non tamen ante mihi languescent lumina morte, nee prius a fesso secedent corpore sensus, quam iustam a divis exposcam prodita multam caelestumque fidem postrema comprecer hora. quare facta virum multantes vindice poena Eumenides, quibus anguino redimita capillo frons exspirantis praeportat pectoris iras, hue hue adventate, meas audite querellas, quas ego, vae miser a, extremis prof erre medullis cogor inops, ardens, amenti caeca furore. quae quoniam verae nascuntur pectore ah imo, vos nolite pati nostrum vanescere luctum, sed quali solam Theseus me mente reliquit, tali mente, deae, funestet seque suosque." has postquam maesto profudit pectore voces, supplicium saevis exposcens anxia fact is, annuit invicto caelestum numine rector; quo motu tellus atque horrida contremuerunt aequora concussitque micantia sidera mundus. ipse autem caeca mentem caligine Theseus consitus oblito dimisit pectore cuncta quae mandata prius constanti mente tenebat, dulcia nee maesto sustollens signa parenti sospitem Erectheum se ostendit visere portum. namque ferunt olim, classi cum moenia divae linquentem gnatum ventis concrederet Aegeus, talia complexum iuveni mandata dedisse: '"gnate mihi longa iucundior unice vita, gnate, ego quern in dubios cogor dimittere casus, reddite in extrema nuper mihi fine senectae, quandoquidem fortuna mea ac tua fervida virtus eripit invito mihi te, cui languida nondum lumina sunt gnati cara saturata figura, 71

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non ego te gaudens laetanti pectore mittam, nee te ferre sinam fortunae sign a secundae, sed primum multas expromam mente querellas, canitiem terra atque infuso pulvere foedans; inde infecta vago suspendam lintea malo, nostros ut luctus nostraeque incendia mentis carbasus obscurata dicet ferrugine Ribera. quod tibi si sancti concesserit incola Itoni, quae nostrum genus ac sedes defendere Erecthei annuit, ut tauri respergas sanguine dextram, tum vero facito ut memori tibi condita corde haec vigeant mandata, nee ulla oblitteret aetas; ut simul ac nostros invisent lumina collis funestam antennae deponant undique vestem candidaque intorti sustollant vela rudentes, quam primum cernens ut laeta gaudia mente agnoscam, cum te reducem aetas prospera sistet." haec mandata prius constanti mente tenentem Thesea ceu pulsae ventorum flamine nubes aerium nivei montis liquere cacumen. at pater, ut sum ma prospect um ex arce petebat, anxia in assiduos absumens lumina fletus, cum primum inflati conspexit lintea veli, praecipitem sese scopulorum e vertice iecit, amissum credens immiti Thesea fato. sic, funesta dom us ingress us tee ta paterna morte, ferox Theseus, qualem Minoidi luctum obtulerat mente immemori, talem ipse recepit. quae tum prospectans cedentem maesta carinam multiplices animo volvebat saucia curas. at parte ex alia florens volitabat lacchus cum thiaso Satyrorum et Nysigenis Silenis, te quaerens, Ariadna, tuoque incensus amore.

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quae tum alacres passim lymphata mente furebant euhoe bacchantes, euhoe capita inflectentes. harum pars tecta quatiebant cuspide thyrsos, pars e divolso iactabant membra iuvenco, pars sese tortis serpentibus incingebant, pars obscura cavis celebrabant orgia cistis, orgia quae frustra cupiunt audire profani; plangebant aliae proceris tympana palmis, aut tereti tenuis tinnitus aere ciebant; multis raucisonos efflabant cornua bombos barbaraque horribili stridebat tibia cantu. talibus amplifice vestis decorata figuris pulvinar complexa suo velabat amictu. quae postquam cupide spectando Thessala pubes expleta est, sanctis coepit decedere divis. hie, qualis flatu placidum mare matutino horrificans Zephyrus proclivas incitat undas, Aurora exoriente vagi sub limina solis, quae tarde primum clementi flamine pulsae procedunt leviterque sonant plangore cachinni, post vento crescente magis magis increbescunt, purpureaque procul nantes ah luce refulgent: sic tum vestibuli linquentes regia tecta ad se quisque vago passim pede discedebant. quorum post abitum princeps e vertice Peli advenit Chiron portans silvestria dona: nam quoscumque ferunt campi, quos Thessala magnis montibus ora creat, quos propter fluminis undas aura parit flores tepidi fecunda Favoni, hos indistinctis plexos tulit ipse corollis; quo permulsa domus iucundo risit odore. confestim Penios adest, viridantia Tempe, Tempe, quae silvae cingunt super impendentes, Haemonisin linquens claris celebranda choreis,

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non vacuus: namque ille tulit radicitus altas fagos ac recto proceras stipite laurus, non sine nutanti platano lentaque sorore flammati Phaethontis et aeria cupressu. haec circum sedes late contexta locavit, vestibulum ut molli velatum fronde vireret. post hunc consequitur sollerti corde Prometheus, extenuata gerens veteris vestigia poenae, quam quondam silici restrictus membra catena persoluit pendens e verticibus praeruptis. inde pater divum sancta cum coniuge natisque advenit caelo, te solum, Phoebe, relinquens unigenamque simul cultricem montibus ldri: Pelea nam tecum pariter soror aspernata est, nee Thetidis taedas voluit celebrare iugalis. qui postquam niveis flexerunt sedibus artus, large multiplici constructae sunt dape mensae, cum interea infirmo quatientes corpora motu veridicos Parcae coeperunt edere cantus. his corpus tremulum complectens undique vestis candida purpurea talos incinxerat ora, at roseae niveo residebant vertice vittae, aeternumque manus carpebant rite laborem. laeva colum molli lana retinebat amictum, dextera tum leviter deducens fila supinis formabat digitis, tum prono in pollice torquens libratum tereti versabat turbine fusum, atque ita decerpens aequabat semper opus dens, laneaque aridulis haerebant morsa labellis, quae prius in levi fuerant exstantia filo; ante pedes autem candentis mollia lanae vellera virgati custodibant calathisci. haec tum clarisona vellentes vellera voce talia divino fuderunt carmine Cata,

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carmine, perfidiae quod post nulla arguet aetas . ..o decus eximium magnis virtutibus augens, Emathiae tutamen, Opis carissime nato, accipe, quod laeta tibi pandunt luce sorores, veridicum oraclum; sed vos, quae fata sequuntur, currite ducentes subtegmina, currite, fusi. adveniet tibi iam portans optata maritis Hesperus, adveniet fausto cum sidere coniunx, quae tibi flexanimo mentem perfundat amore, languidulosque paret tecum coniungere somnos, levia substernens robusto brachia collo. currite ducentes subtegmina, currite, fusi. nulla domus tales umquam contexit amores, nullus amor tali coniunxit foedere amantes, qualis adest Thetidi, qualis concordia Peleo. currite ducentes subtegmina, currite, fusi. nascetur vobis expers terroris Achilles, hostibus baud tergo, sed forti pectore notus, qui persaepe vago victor certamine cursus flammea praevertet celeris vestigia cervae. currite ducentes subtegmina, currite, fusi. non illi quisquam hello se conferet heros, cum Phrygii Teucro manabunt sanguine , Troicaque obsidens longinquo moenia hello periuri Pelopis vastabit tertius heres. currite ducentes subtegmina, currite, fusi. illius egregias virtutes claraque facta saepe fatebuntur gnatorum in funere matres, cum incultum cano solvent a vertice crinem putridaque infirmis variabunt pectora palmis. currite ducentes subtegmina, currite, fusi. namque velut densas praecerpens messor aristas sole sub ardenti flaventia demetit arva, Troiugenum infesto prosternet corpora ferro. 75

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currite ducentes subtegmina, currite, fusi. testis erit magnis virtutibus unda Scamandri, quae passim rapido diffunditur Hellesponto, cuius iter caesis angustans corporum acervis alta tepefaciet permixta flumina caede. currite ducentes subtegmina, currite, fusi. denique testis erit morti quoque reddita praeda, cum teres excelso coacervatum aggere bustum excipiet niveos perculsae virginis artus. currite ducentes subtegmina, currite, fusi. nam simul ac fessis dederit fors copiam Achivis urbis Dardaniae Neptunia solvere vincla, alta Polyxenia madefient caede sepulcra; quae, velut ancipiti succumbens victima ferro, proiciet truncum summisso poplite corpus. currite ducentes subtegmina, currite, fusi. quare agite optatos animi coniungite amores. accipiat coniunx felici foedere divam, dedatur cupido iam dudum nupta marito. currite ducentes subtegmina, currite, fusi. non illam nutrix orienti luce revisens hesterno collum poterit circumdare filo, anxia nee mater discordis maesta puellae secubitu caros mittet sperare nepotes. currite ducentes subtegmina, currite, fusi." talia praef antes quondam felicia Pelei carmina divino cecinerunt pectore Parcae. praesentes namque ante domos invisere castas heroum, et sese mortali ostendere coetu, caelicolae nondum spreta pietate solebant. saepe pater divum templo in fulgente residens, annua cum festis venissent sacra diebus, conspexit terra centum procumbere tauros. saepe vagus Liber Parnasi vertice summo

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Thyiadas effusis evantis crinibus egit, cum Delphi tota certatim ex urbe ruentes acciperent laeti divum fumantibus aris. saepe in letif ero belli certamine Mavors aut rapidi Tritonis era aut Amarunsia virgo armatas hominum est praesens hortata catervas. sed postquam tellus scelere est imbuta nefando iustitiamque omnes cupida de mente fugarunt, perf udere man us fraterno sanguine fratres, destitit extinctos natus lugere parentes, optavit genitor primaevi funera nati, liber uti nuptae poteretur flore novellae, ignaro mater substernens se impia nato impia non verita est divos scelerare penates. omnia fanda nefanda malo permixta furore iustificam nobis mentem avertere deorum. quare nee talis dignantur visere coetus, nee se contingi patiuntur lumine claro.

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Etsi me assiduo confectum cur a dolore sevocat a doctis, Hortale, virginibus, nee potis est dulcis Musarum expromere fetus mens animi, tantis fluctuat ipsa malis namque mei nuper Lethaeo gurgite fratris pallidulum manans alluit unda pedem, Troia Rhoeteo quern subter litore tellus ereptum nostris obterit ex oculis; numquam ego te, vita frater amabilior, aspiciam posthac? at certe semper amabo, semper maesta tua carmina morte canam, qualia sub densis ramorum concinit umbris

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Daulias, absumpti fata gemens Ityli sed tamen in tantis maeroribus, Hortale, mitto haec expressa tibi carmina Battiadae, ne tua dicta vagis nequiquam credita ventis effluxisse meo forte putes animo, ut missum sponsi furtivo munere malum procurrit casto virginis e gremio, quod miserae oblitae molli sub veste locatum, dum adventu matris prosilit, excutitur, atque illud prono praeceps agitur decursu, huic manat tristi conscius ore rubor.

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66 Omnia qui magni dispexit lumina mundi, qui stellarum ortus comperit atque obitus, flammeus ut rapidi solis nitor obscuretur, ut cedant certis sidera temporibus, ut Triviam furtim sub Latmia saxa relegans dulcis amor gyro devocet aerio: idem me ille Conon caelesti lumine vidit e Bereniceo vertice caesariem fulgentem clare, quam multis ilia dearum levia protendens brachia pollicita est, qua rex tempestate novo auctus hymenaeo vastatum finis iverat Assyrios, dulcia nocturnae portans vestigia rixae, quam de virgineis gesserat exuviis. estne novis nuptis odio Venus? anne parentum frustrantur falsis gaudia lacrimulis, ubertim thalami quas intra limina fundunt? non, ita me divi, vera gemunt, iuerint. id mea me multis docuit regina querellis invisente novo proelia torva viro.

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at tu non orbum luxti deserta cubile, sed fratris cari fiebile discidium, cum penitus maestas exedit cura medullas. ut tibi tune toto pectore sollicitae sensibus ereptis mens excidit! at ego certe cognoram a parva virgine magnanimam. anne bonum oblita es facinus, quo regium adepta es coniugium, quod non fortior ausit alis? sed tum maesta virum mittens quae verba locuta es! luppiter, ut tristi lumina saepe manu! quis te mutavit tantus deus? an quod amantes non longe a caro corpore abesse volunt? atque ibi me cunctis pro dulci coniuge divis non sine taurino sanguine pollicita es, si reditum tetulisset. is baud in tempore longo captam Asiam Aegypti finibus addiderat. quis ego pro factis caelesti red dita coetu pristina vota novo munere dissoluo. invita, o regina, tuo de vertice cessi, invita: adiuro teque tuumque caput, digna ferat quod si quis inaniter adiurarit: sed qui se ferro postulet esse parem? ille quoque eversus moos est, quern maximum in oris progenies Thiae clara supervehitur, cum Medi peperere novum mare, cumque iuventus per medium classi barbara navit Athon. quid facient crines, cum ferro talia cedant? luppiter, ut Chalybon omne genus pereat, et qui principio sub terra quaerere venas institit ac ferri stringere duritiem! abiunctae paulo ante comae mea fata sorores lugebant, cum se Memnonis Aethiopis unigena impellens nutantibus aera pennis obtulit Arsinoes Locridos ales equus,

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Daulias, absumpti fata gemens ltyli sed tamen in tantis maeroribus, Hortale, mitto haec expressa tibi carmina Battiadae, ne tua dicta vagis nequiquam credita ventis effluxisse meo forte putes animo, ut missum sponsi furtivo munere malum procurrit casto virginis e gremio, quod miserae oblitae molli sub veste locatum, dum adventu matris prosilit, excutitur, atque illud prono praeceps agitur decursu, huic manat tristi conscius ore rubor.

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66 Omnia qui magni dispexit lumina mundi, qui stellarum ortus comperit atque obitus, flammeus ut rapidi solis nitor obscuretur, ut cedant certis sidera temporibus, ut Triviam furtim sub Latmia saxa relegans dulcis amor gyro devocet aerio: idem me ille Conon caelesti lumine vidit e Bereniceo vertice caesariem fulgentem clare, quam multis ilia dearum levia protendens brachia pollicita est, qua rex tempestate novo auctus hymenaeo vastatum finis iverat Assyrios, dulcia nocturnae portans vestigia rixae, quam de virgineis gesserat exuviis. estne novis nuptis odio Venus? anne parentum frustrantur falsis gaudia lacrimulis, ubertim thalami quas intra limina fundunt? non, ita me divi, vera gemunt, iuerint. id mea me multis docuit regina querellis invisente novo proelia torva viro.

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at tu non orbum luxti deserta cubile, sed fratris cari flebile discidium, cum penitus maestas exedit cura medullas. ut tibi tune toto pectore sollicitae sensibus ereptis rnens excidit! at < te > ego certe cognorarn a parva virgine rnagnanirnarn. anne bonurn oblita es facinus, quo regiurn adepta es coniugiurn, quod non fortior ausit alis? sed turn rnaesta virurn mittens quae verba locuta es! luppiter, ut tristi lurnina saepe rnanu! quis te rnutavit tantus deus? an quod arnantes non longe a caro corpore abesse volunt? atque ibi me cunctis pro dulci coniuge divis non sine taurino sanguine pollicita es, si reditum tetulisset. is haud in tempore longo captarn Asiam Aegypti finibus addiderat. quis ego pro fact is caelesti red dita coetu pristina vota novo rnunere dissoluo. invita, o regina, tuo de vertice cessi, invita: adiuro teque tuurnque caput, digna ferat quod si quis inaniter adiurarit: sed qui se ferro postulet esse parern? ille quoque eversus rnons est, quern maxim urn in oris progenies Thiae clara supervehitur, cum Medi peperere novurn mare, curnque iuventus per medium classi barbara navit Athon. quid facient crines, cum ferro talia cedant? luppiter, ut Chalybon omne genus pereat, et qui principio sub terra quaerere venas institit ac ferri stringere duritiem! abiunctae paulo ante comae rnea fata sorores lugebant, cum se Mernnonis Aethiopis unigena impellens nutantibus aera pennis obtulit Arsinoes Locridos ales equus, 79

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isque per aetherias me tollens avolat umbras et Veneris casto collocat in gremio. ipsa suum Zephyritis eo famulum legarat, Graia Canopeis incola litorihus. inde Venus vario ne solum in lumine caeli ex Ariadnaeis aurea temporihus fixa corona foret, sed nos quoque fulgeremus devotae flavi verticis exuviae, uvidulam a fluctu cedentem ad templa deum me sidus in antiquis diva novum posuit. Virginis et saevi contingens namque Leonis lumina, Callisto iuncta Lycaoniae, vertor in occasum, tardum dux ante Booten, qui vix sero alto mergitur Oceano. sed quamquam me nocte premunt vestigia divum, lux autem canae Tethyi restituit, (pace tua fari hie liceat, Rhamnusia virgo, namque ego non ullo vera timore tegam, nee si me infest is discerpent sidera dictis, condita quin vere pectoris evoluam) non his tarn laetor rebus, quam me afore semper, afore me a dominae vertice discrucior, quicum ego, dum virgo quondam fuit, omnibus expers unguentis, una vilia multa hibi. nunc vos, optato quas iunxit lumine taeda, non prius unanimis corpora coniugihus tradite nudantes reiecta veste papillas quam iucunda rr,ihi munera lihet onyx, vester onyx, casto colitis quae iura cuhili. sed quae se impuro dedit adulterio, illius a! mala dona levis hihat irrita pulvis: namque ego ah indignis praemia nulla peto. sed magis, o nuptae, semper concordia vestras, semper amor sedes incolat assiduus. 80

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tu vero, regina, tuens cum sidera divam placabis festis luminibus Venerem, unguinis expertem non siris esse tuam me, sed potius largis affice muneribus. sidera corruerint utinam! coma regia fiam, proximus Hydrochoi fulgeret Oarion!

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67 0 dulci iucunda viro, iucunda parenti, salve, teque bona luppiter auctet ope, ianua, quam Balbo dicunt servisse benigne olim, cum sedes ipse senex tenuit, quamque ferunt rursus gnato servisse maligne, postquam es porrecto facta marita sene. die agedum nobis, quare mutata feraris in dominum veterem deseruisse fidem. "Non (ita Caecilio placeam, cui tradita nunc sum) culpa mea est, quamquam dicitur esse mea, nee peccatum a me quisquam pote dicere quicquam; verum isto populo ianua quid faciat, qui, quacumque aliquid reperitur non bene factum, ad me omnes clamant: ianua, culpa tua est." Non istuc satis est uno te dicere verbo, sed facere ut quivis sentiat et videat. "Qui possum? nemo quaerit nee scire laborat." Nos volumus: nobis dicere ne dubita . ..Primum igitur, virgo quod fertur tradita nobis, falsum est. non illam vir prior attigerit, languidior tenera cui pendens sicula beta numquam se mediam sustulit ad tunicam; sed pater illius gnati violasse cubile dicitur et miseram conscelerasse domum, sive quod impia mens caeco flagrabat amore, 81

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seu quod iners sterili semine natus erat, ut quaerendum unde foret nervosius illud quod posset zonam solvere virgineam. Egregium narras, mira pietate, parentem, qui ipse sui gnati minxerit in gremium. Atqui non sol um hoe dicit se cognitum habere Brbcia Cycneae supposita speculae, flavus quam molli praecurrit flumine Mella, Brixia Veronae mater amata meae, sed de Postumio et Corneli narrat amore, cum quibus ilia malum fecit adulterium. dixerit hie aliquis: quid? tu istaec, ianua, nosti, cui numquam domini limine abesse licet, nee populum auscultare, sed hie suffixa tigillo tantum operire soles aut aperire domum? saepe illam audivi furtiva voce loquentem solam cum ancillis haec sua flagitia, nomine dicentem quos diximus, utpote quae mi speraret nee linguam esse nee auriculam. praeterea addebat quendam, quern dicere nolo nomine, ne tollat rubra supercilia. longus homo est, magnas cui lites intulit olim falsum mendaci ventre puerperium." H

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Quod mihi fortuna casuque oppress us acerbo conscriptum hoe lacrimis mittis epistolium, naufragum ut eiectum spumantibus aequoris undis sublevem et a mortis limine restituam, quern neque sancta Venus molli requiescere somno desertum in lecto caelibe perpetitur, nee veterum dulci scriptorum carmine Musae oblectant, cum mens anxia pervigilat: 82

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id gratum est mihi, me quoniam tibi dicis amicurn, muneraque et Musarum hinc petis et Veneris. sed tibi ne mea sint ignota incommoda, Manli, neu me odisse putes hospitis oCficium, accipe quis merser Cortunae fluctibus ipse, ne amplius a misero dona beata petas. tempore quo primum vestis mihi tradita pura est, iucundum cum aetas florida ver ageret, multa satis lusi: non est dea nescia nostri, quae dulcem curis miscet amaritiem. sed totum hoe studium luctu Craterna mihi mors abstulit. o misero Crater adempte rnihi, tu mea tu moriens Cregisti commoda, Crater, tecum una tota est nostra sepulta dom us; omnia tecum una perierunt gaudia nostra quae tuus in vita dulcis alebat amor. cuius ego interitu tota de mente Cugavi haec studia atque omnes delicias animi. quare, quod scribis 'Veronae turpe, Catulle, esse, quod hie quisquis de meliore nota Crigida deserto tepeCactat membra cubili', id, Manli, non est turpe, magis miserum est. ignosces igitur si, quae mihi luctus ademit, haec tibi non tribuo munera, cum nequeo. nam, quod scriptorum non magna est copia apud me, hoe fit, quod Romae vivimus: ilia domus, illa mihi sedes, illic mea carpitur aetas; hue una ex multis capsula me sequitur. quod cum ita sit, nolim statuas nos mente maligna id facere aut anirno non satis ingenuo, quod tibi non utriusque petenti copia posta est: ultro ego deferrem, copia siqua Coret.

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Non possum reticere, deae, qua me Allius in re iuverit aut quantis iuverit officiis, ne fugiens saeclis obliviscentibus aetas illius hoe caeca nocte tegat studium; sed dicam vobis, vos porro dicite multis milibus et facite haec carta loquatur anus. notescatque magis mortuus atque magis, nee tenuem texens sublimis aranea telam in deserto Alli no mine opus faciat. nam mihi quam dederit duplex Amathusia curam scitis et in quo me torruerit genere, cum tantum arderem quantum Trinacria rupes lymphaque in Oetaeis Malia Thermopylis, maesta neque assiduo tabescere lumina fletu cessarent tristique imbre madere genae; qualis in aerii perlucens vertice montis rivus muscoso prosilit e lapide, qui cum de prona praeceps est valle volutus, per medium densi transit iter populi, dulce viatori lasso in sudore levamen, cum gravis exustos aestus hiulcat agros; hie, velut in nigro iactatis turbine nautis lenius aspirans aura secunda venit iam prece Pollucis, iam Castoris implorata, tale fuit nobis Allius auxilium. is clausum lato patefecit limite campum, isque domum nobis isque dedit dominae ad quam communes exerceremus amores. quo mea se molli candida diva pede intulit et trito fulgentem in limine plantam innixa arguta constituit solea,

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coniugis ut quondam flagrans advenit amore Protesilaeam Laodamia domum inceptam frustra, nondum cum sanguine sacro hostia caelestis pacificasset eros. nil mihi tarn valde placeat, Rhamnusia virgo, quod temere invitis suscipiatur eris. quam ieiuna pium desideret ara cruorem docta est amisso Laodamia viro, coniugis ante coacta novi dimittere collum, quam veniens una atque altera rursus hiems noctibus in longis avidum saturasset amorem, posset ut abrupto vivere coniugio, quod scibant Parcae non longo tempore abesse, si miles muros isset ad Iliacos. nam tum Helenae raptu primores Argivorum coeperat ad sese Troia ciere viros, Troia (nefas!) commune sepulcrum Asiae Europaeque, Troia virum et virtutum omnium acerba cinis, quaene etiam nostro letum miserabile fratri attulit. ei misero Crater adempte mihi, ei misero fratri iucundum lumen ademptum, tecum una tota est nostra sepulta domus; omnia tecum una perierunt gaudia nostra, quae tuus in vita dulcis ale bat amor. quern nunc tarn longe non inter nota sepulcra nee prope cognatos compositum cineres, sed Troia obscena, Troia infelice sepultum detinet extremo terra aliena solo. ad quam tum properans fertur undique pubes Graeca penetralis deseruisse rocos, ne Paris abducta gavisus libera moecha otia pacato degeret in thalamo. quo tibi tum casu, pulcerrima Laodamia, ereptum est vita dulcius atque anima 85

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coniugium: tanto te absorbens vertice amoris aestus in abruptum detulerat barathrum, quale ferunt Grai Pheneum prope Cyllenaeum siccare emulsa pingue palude solum, quod quondam caesis montis fodisse medullis audit falsiparens Amphitryoniades, tempore quo certa Stymphalia monstra sagitta perculit imperio deterioris eri, pluribus ut caeli tereretur ianua divis, Hebe nee longa virginitate foret. sed tuus altus amor barathro fuit altior illo, qui tamen indomitam ferre iugum docuit. nam nee tarn carum confecto aetate parenti una caput seri nata nepotis alit, qui, cum divitiis vix tandem inventus avitis nomen testatas intulit in tabulas, impia derisi gentilis gaudia tollens suscitat a cano volturium capiti; nee tantum niveo gavisa est ulla columbo compar, quae multo dicitur improbius oscula mordenti semper decerpere rostro, quam quae praecipue multivola est mulier. sed tu horum magnos vicisti sola furores, ut semel es flavo conciliata viro. aut nihil aut paulo cui tum concedere digna lux mea se nostrum contulit in gremium, quam circumcursans hinc illinc saepe Cupido fulgebat crocina candid us in tunic a. quae tamen etsi uno non est contenta Catullo, rara verecundae furta feremus erae, ne nimium simus stultorum more molesti; saepe etiam luno, maxima caelicolum, coniugis in culpa flagrantem contudit iram, noscens omnivoli plurima furta lovis.

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atqui nee divis homines componier aequum est

ingratum tremuli tolle parentis onus. nee tamen ilia mihi dextra deducta paterna fragrantem Assyrio venit odore domum, sed furtiva dedit mira munuscula nocte ipsius ex ipso dempta viri gremio. quare illud satis est, si nobis is datur unis quern lapide ilia dies candidiore notat.

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hoe tibi, quod potui, confectum carmine munus pro multis, Alli, redditur officiis, ne vestrum scabra tangat robigine nomen haec atque ilia dies atque alia atque alia. hue addent divi quam plurima, quae Themis olim antiquis solita est munera ferre piis. sitis felices et tu simul et tua vita, et domus in qua lusimus et domina, et qui principio nobis terram dedit auspex, a quo sunt primo omnia nata bona, et longe ante omnes mihi quae me carior ipso est, lux mea, qua viva vivere dulce mihi est.

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69 Noli admirari, quare tibi femina nulla, Rufe, velit tenerum supposuisse femur, non si illam rarae labefactes munere vestis aut perluciduli deliciis lapidis. laedit te quaedam mala fabula, qua tibi fertur valle sub alarum trux habitare caper. hunc metuunt omnes, neque mirum: nam mala valde est bestia, nee quicum bella puella cubet.

87

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quare aut crudelem nasorum interfice pestem, aut admirari desine cur fugiunt.

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70

Nulli se dicit mulier mea nubere malle quam mihi, non si se Iuppiter ipse petatdicit. sed mulier cupido quod dicit amanti, in vento et rapida scribere oportet aqua. 71 Si cu1 1ure bono sacer alarum obstitit hircus, aut si quern merito tarda podagra secat, aemulus iste tuus, qui vestrum exercet amorem, mirifice est apte nactus utrumque malum. nam quotiens futuit, totiens ulciscitur ambos: illam affligit odore, ipse perit podagra.

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72 Dicebas quondam solum te nosse Catullum, Lesbia, nee prae me velle tenere Iovem. dilexi tum te non tantum ut vulgus amicam, sed pater ut gnatos diligit et generos. nunc te cognovi; quare, etsi impensius uror, multo mi tamen es vilior et levior. qui potis est, inquis? quod amantem iniuria talis cogit amare magis, sed bene velle minus.

73 Desine de quoquam quicquam bene velle mereri aut aliquem fieri posse putare pium.

88

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omnia sunt ingrata, nihil fecisse benigne ; immo etiam taedet, < taedet > obestque magis; ut mihi, quem nemo gravius nee acerbius urget 5 quam modo qui me unum atque unicum amicum habuit.

74 Gellius audierat patruum obiurgare solere, si quis delicias diceret aut faceret. hoe ne ipsi accideret, patrui perdepsuit ipsam u:xorem et patruum reddidit Harpocratem. quod voluit feeit: nam, quamvis irrumet ipsum nunc patruum, verbum non faciet patruus.

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75

Hue est mens deducta tua mea, Lesbia, culpa atque ita se officio perdidit ipsa suo, ut iam nee bene velle queat tibi, si optima fias, nee desistere amare, omnia si facias. 76

Si qua recordanti benefacta priora voluptas est homini, cum se cogitat esse pium, nee sanctam violasse fidem, nee foedere nullo divum ad fallendos numine abusum homines, multa parata manent in longa aetate, Catulle, 5 ex hoe ingrato gaudia amore tibi. nam quaecumque homines bene cuiquam aut dicere possunt aut facere, haec a te dictaque factaque sunt. omnia quae ingratae perierunt credita menti. quare cur tete iam amplius excrucies? 10 quin tu animo offirmas atque istinc te ipse reducis

89

et dis invitis desinis esse miser? difficile est longum subito deponere amorem, difficile est, verum hoe qua lubet efficias; una salus baec est, hoe est tibi pervincendum, hoe facias, sive id non pote sive pote. o di, si vestrum est misereri, aut si quibus umquam extremam iam ipsa in morte tulistis opem, me miserum aspicite et, si vitam puriter egi, eripite bane pestem perniciemque mihi, quae mihi subrepens imos ut torpor in artus expulit ex omni pectore laetitias. non iam illud quaero, contra me ut diligat illa, aut, quod non potis est, esse pudica velit: ipse valere opto et taetrum hunc deponere morbum. o di, reddite mi hoe pro pietate mea.

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25

77

Rufe mibi frustra ac nequiquam credite amice (frustra? immo magno cum pretio atque malo), sicine subrepsti mi atque intestina perurens ei misero eripuisti omnia nostra bona? eripuisti, ebeu nostrae crudele venenum vitae, ebeu nostrae pestis amicitiae.

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78A

Gallus babet fratres, quorum est lepidissima con1unx alterius, lepidus filius alterius. Gallus homo est bellus: nam dulces iungit amores, cum puero ut hello bella puella cubet. Gallus homo est stultus, nee se videt esse maritum, qui patruus patrui monstret adulterium.

90

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788

sed nunc id doleo, quod purae pura puellae savia comminxit spurca saliva tua. verum id non impune feres: nam te omnia saecla noscent et, qui sis, fama loquetur anus. 79

Lesbius est pulcer; quid ni? quern Lesbia malit quam te cum tota gente, Catulle, tua. sed tamen hie pulcer vendat cum gente Catullum si tria notorum savia reppererit.

80 Quid dicam, Gelli, quare rosea ista labella hiberna fiant candidiora nive, mane domo cum exis et cum te octava quiete e molli longo suscitat hora die? nescio quid certe est: an vere fama susurrat grandia te medii tenta vorare viri? sic certe est: clamant Victoris rupta miselli ilia, et emulso labra notata sero.

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81 Nemone in tanto potuit populo esse, Iuventi, bellus homo, quem tu diligere inciperes, praeterquam iste tuus moribunda ab sede Pisauri hospes inaurata pallidior statua, qui tibi nunc cordi est, quem tu praeponere nobis audes, et nescis quod facinus facias?

91

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82 Quinti, si tibi vis oculos debere Catullum aut aliud si quid carius est oculis, eripere ei noli, multo quod carius illi est oculis, seu quid carius est oculis. 83 Lesbia mi praesente viro mala plurima dicit; haec illi fatuo maxima laetitia est. mule, nihil sentis? si nostri oblita taceret, sana esset; nunc quod gannit et obloquitur, non solum meminit, sed, quae multo acrior est res, irata est. hoe est, uritur et loquitur.

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84 Chommoda dicebat, si quando commoda vellet dicere, et insidias Arrius hinsidias, et tum mirifice sperabat se esse locutum, cum quantum poterat dixerat hinsidias. credo, sic mater, sic liber avunculus eius, sic maternus avus dixerat atque avia. hoe misso in Syriam requierant omnibus aures: audibant eadem haec leniter et leviter, nee sibi postilla metuebant talia verba, cum subito affertur nuntius horribilis, Ionios fluctus, postquam illuc Arrius isset, iam non lonios esse sed Hionios. 85

Odi et amo.

quare id faciam, fortasse requiris. 92

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10

nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

86 Quintia formosa est multis. mihi candida, longa, recta est: haec ego sic singula confiteor, totum illud Hformosa nego: nam nulla venustas, nulla in tarn magno est corpore mica salis. Lesbia formosa est, quae cum pulcerrima tota est, tum omnibus una omnis surripuit veneres. H

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87 Nulla potest mulier tantum se dicere amatam vere, quantum a me Lesbia amata mea est. nulla fides ullo fuit umquam in foedere tanta, quanta in amore tuo ex parte reperta mea est.

88 Quid facit is, Gelli, qui cum mat re atque sorore prurit et abiectis pervigilat tunicis? quid facit is, patruum qui non sinit esse maritum? ecquid scis quantum suscipiat sceleris? suscipit, o Gelli, quantum non ultima Tethys nee genitor Nympharum abluit Oceanus: nam nihil est quicquam sceleris, quo prodeat ultra, non si demisso se ipse voret capite.

89 Gellius est tenuis: quid ni? cui tarn bona mater tamque valens vivat tamque venusta soror tamque bonus patruus tamque omnia plena puellis

93

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,·ognnt,iq, ,111nreis deqi nat esse macer? ,1111ut nlhil attingat, nisi quod fas tangere non est, qu11nt,11mvi11t qunre sit macer invenies.

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go Nnqc•1th1rm1tgw,f'X Gelli matrisque nefando ronluglo et dh1cat Persicum aruspicium: n11mtnagus ex matre et gnato gignatur oportet, "I \'t'ra ""t Pf'rsarum impia religio, ♦ .i;nat\Ill+· ut arrl'pto veneretur carmine divos omN1h11n In 01\mma pingue liquefaciens.

~,\n i,II'\\, l ~t,Hi. ~p,•rahiun te mihi fidum in n,i~rr,, h,,,, n,,~tro, hoe perdito amore fore, q,h,,I tt' ,-,,~th':-:-rm brnt' t'onst;\ntemve putarem A\lt l'-'\:'--'-C A turpi ntt'nh'n\ inhib,,re probro: ~,,t nt'\~Ht' Q\h'\(i n1:\t r,'n\ IH'•' ti;•'rman:\nl e&;e videbam h:\1\,' tihi.