Catullus uses some rather un-romantic words (foedus, fides) in this intense love poem to his mistress Lesbia, argues Joanna Wood. He speaks as if in rejecting him Lesbia is breaking an important Roman social code. This poem has an intense tone, she says.
Nūlla potest mulier tantum sē dīcere amātam
vērē, quantum ā mē Lesbia amāta mea est.
Nūlla fidēs ūllō fuit umquam foedere tanta,
quanta in amōre tuō ex parte reperta meā est.
Image: Gold finger-rings showing the ceremony of joining hands at a marriage. Source: The British Museum
Catullus’ poem of joyful homecoming to his beloved Sirmio is discussed, translated, and read in Latin by Alexandra Stagliano. Catullus, she argues, takes something personal and easy to relate to, and makes it seem grand and epic with mythological imagery, wordplay, and elegant repetition.
In poem 83 Lesbia heaps abuse on her lover Catullus in the presence of her husband. Kerianne Pfleger argues the tone of Catullus 83 is arrogant and almost victorious, as Catullus he has already won Lesbia and is married to her himself. The extreme view of love here as a sickness is consistent with other poems in Catullus’ preserved work.
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,
Catullus’ poem calling out Egnatius for his inept smiling and his alleged habit of washing his bright white teeth with urine has an air of pseudo-politeness, argues Tim Nieuwenhuis. The repetitions in the poem (renidet … renidet … renidet; aut … aut … aut) paint a picture of Egnatius’ inept behavior.
Egnatius, quod candidōs habet dentēs,
renīdet usquequāque. Sī ad reī ventum est
subsellium, cum ōrātor excitat flētum,
renīdet ille; sī ad piī rogum filī
lūgētur, orba cum flet ūnicum māter, 5
renīdet ille. quidquid est, ubicumque est,
quodcumque agit, renīdet: hunc habet morbum,
neque ēlegantem, ut arbitror, neque urbānum.
Quārē monendum est tē mihi, bone Egnati.
Si urbānus essēs aut Sabīnus aut Tiburs 10
aut parcus Umber aut obēsus Etruscus
aut Lanuvinus ater atque dentatus
aut Transpādanus, ut meōs quoque attingam,
aut quīlubet, quī puriter lavit dentēs,
tamen renīdere usquequāque tē nollem: 15
nam risū ineptō res ineptior nulla est.
Nunc Celtiber es: Celtiberiā in terrā,
quod quisque minxit, hōc sibi solet mānē
dentem atque russam dēfricāre gingīvam,
ut, quō iste vester expolītior dēns est, 20
hōc tē amplius bibisse praedicet lōti.
Image: Thomas Rowlandson’s 1811 print of French dentist Dubois de Chemant showing off the mouth of a woman fitted with a double row of his mineral paste teeth and gums. Source: Cabinet Magazine.
In poem 43 Catullus mounts an effective attack against his nemesis Mamurra by attacking Mamurra’s girlfriend Ameana. The wit in the invective comes from the blatant use of ad hominem arguments, and of litotes, or understatement, argues Kathryn Joseph. Her translation brilliantly conveys the scabrous tone of the original.
Salve, nec minimo puella naso
nec bello pede nec nigris ocellis
nec longis digitis nec ore sicco
nec sane nimis elegante lingua,
decoctoris amica Formiani.
Ten provincia narrat esse bellam?
Tecum Lesbia nostra comparatur?
O saeclum insapiens et infacetum!
Image: Portrait of a woman from Fayyunm, Egypt (Greco-Roman). Source: Susan Liston.
The disease of love that Catullus speaks of in poem 76 is reminiscent of the sickness of the soul that Plato warns us about, says Andrew McGowan. He admires the sincerity and authenticity of Catullus’ despair in this poem, which points the way to the possibility of personal growth through the pain of disappointed love.
Siqua recordanti benefacta priora voluptas
est homini, cum se cogitat esse pium,
nec sanctam violasse fidem, nec foedere nullo
divum ad fallendos numine abusum homines,
multa parata manent in longa aetate, Catulle,
ex hoc 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 iam te cur amplius excrucies?
Quin tu animo offirmas atque istinc teque reducis,
et dis invitis desinis esse miser?
Difficile est longum subito deponere amorem;
difficile est, verum hoc qua lubet efficias.
Una salus haec est, hoc est tibi pervincendum;
hoc 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 hanc 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 hoc pro pietate mea.
Image: Saturn as Melancholy, print by Zacharias Dolendo, after a design of Jacques de Gheyn, ca. 1595/6. Source: Giornale Nuovo
Michele Martire examines the background behind Catullus’ poem addressed to his young male beloved Juventius. Explaining the conventions of ancient pederasty, and discussing the other poems addressed to Juventius in the Catullan corpus, she notes how Catullus viciously degrades himself. He lowers himself when he should be the dominant partner, in a desperate bid to recapture the affection of Juventius.
Katya Hrichak argues that Catullus’ obsessive returning to the topic of his own loyalty to Lesbia, and how she has disappointed him by failing to reciprocate, shows that to him passion is the most important thing in an affair, even above trust.
70
Nullī sē dīcit mulier mea nubere malle
quam mihi, non sī sē Iuppiter ipse petat.
Dicit: sed mulier cupidō quod dīcit amantī,
in ventō et rapida scrībere oportet aquā.
87
Nūlla potest mulier tantum sē dīcere amātam
vērē, quantum ā mē Lesbia amāta mea est.
Nūlla fidēs ūllō fuit umquam foedere tanta,
quanta in amōre tuō ex parte reperta meā est.
Image: Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, “Cherries” (1873). Source: Wikiart.
Catullus’ elegy on the death of Quintilia, meant to console his friend and fellow poet Calvus for his loss, is an eloquent testament both to Calvus’ love for Quinitilia, and to the bond between Catullus and Calvus, argues Michelle Hoffer. She points out that while the poem is full of intense emotion, the elegant word order shows that Catullus crafted his thoughts very carefully.
Sī quicquam mūtīs grātum acceptumve sepulcrīs
accidere ā nostrō, Calve, dolōre potest,
quō dēsīderiō veterēs renovāmus amōrēs
atque ōlim missās flēmus amīcitiās,
certē nōn tantō mors immātūra dolōrī est
Quīntiliae, quantum gaudet amōre tuō.
Image: Anne-Louis Girodet (de Roussy-Trioson), “Funeral of Atala” 1808. Source.
Miller Higgins discusses Catullus’ famous translation of Sappho 31, and focuses on the last stanza, added by Catullus and not in the original. Does it imply remorse for pursuing a foolish woman? Frustration at his own laziness? Or low confidence in himself?
Poems of Catullus, discussed, translated and read aloud by students in Prof. Christopher Francese's Introduction to Latin Poetry class at Dickinson College.
