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AUTHOR: MUNRO, HUGH ANDREW JOHNSTONE A R A JLjjnj « CRITICISMS AND ELUCIDATIONS OF PLACE: CAMBRIDGE U /jL A Ajj • 1878 CO ! , U M 1 3 1 A UNIVERSITY 1 I B i^ A R I ES rRHSERVATlON DEPARIMENT 1 n H 1 i()c;RAl^t^IC mi crqi- or m t a rg et Master Negative # Original Material as Filmed Existing Bibliographic Record (870^ i EMS Uunro, llugh Andrew Johnotone, 1819-1086. CriticicnD and olucidationn of Catullus, by II. A. J. Ilunro. Cainbridce . Deirliton, 1878; He- viii, 247 j) . 23 cm. Copy in Baj!^r42_ea^^^i^^_Deip^^^ Ig78. ^^ Restrictions on Use: TECHNICA! MTCROFORM DATA RFDUCllOM RATIU ..M. ! MACE PLACEMENT: I A ^ IB IIB , DATI': l'II,MED:__^c:^57 INM i ALS^cdafLULll 1 11 MI!) BY: RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS. INC WQODBRIDGE. 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CLAT, M.A. AX THE UNIVBHSITY PKiiSS. 1 I . M V, / 1 J i< <» ' 1 INTRODUCTION CatuUiis, after two centuries of comparative neo-- lect, lias of late receiv^ed from scholars kis due share of attention. Even within the kst year md lialf, or Awo vears, have appeared the impoi-tant critical edition of Aeinilius Baehrens and the long and elaborate exe- getical commentary of Robinson EUis. Not to go more tlian fifteen years back, we have had within that time, in addition to the works just mentioned, first the learned and painstaking 'Quaestiones' of Schwabe, which tiirow such a flood of liirht on the histor/ of Catullus and of his friends and enemies; next Schwabe s critical edition of the text, followed successively by KIlis' and Lucian Mueller s ; and, beside all these works, tvs'o excellent translations into English verse. Althuugh tlie fiehl may be thought to be alreruly sullluiently preoccupied, I flatter myself that this little book will not prove altogether useless either for the criticism or for the elucidation of our puet. For the ma]uiscri|.)t material I am wholly indebted to the suc- cessive labours of Schwabe, EUis and Baehrens. It believes me therefore to be modest wlien dealino- with that fjr \\hich I am altogether dependent upon tlie di- ligence of others, Wth respect however to the general }>rincipies, from which Catullian criticism lias to start, there is .Ho room for doubt or hesitation. All critics are now agreed— even Ellis I believe, tho' some of his li / I o '^ <) \J y^ I / IV CATVLLVS x reasonings are not easy to reconcile with such an as- sumption — that, except in the case ot* one poen), the G2n(l, the whole of our manuscript material is derived from one single codex, which reappeared at Verona in the beginning of the 14th century and was afterwards lost to the world once more. The two main and inde- pendent representatives of this lost original are the Paris codex Germanensis, copied from that original in 1375, and the Oxford codex, which appears to have been written al)oat the same time. Following Ellis and Piaehrens, who have alone collated O, I call the one G.. the other 0; and after the example of all the editors I designate by V the reading of the lost origi- nal, when that reading can be satisfactoi-ily made out. Restino" on the seemingly complete collation of these two Mss. given by Baehrens, I follow him in looking to them almost alone in order to determine v/hat V was. Diihdence being as I have said incumbent on me, where I am reaping tlic fruits of others* industry, I shall not attempt to decide whether G ur is on the whole the better manuscript. There are very many passages iu which 0, and O alone, givt^s the undoubted words of the poet : often on the other hand it is veiy corrupt, where G is right or less wroif--. Nor shall I pronounce upon thr- question whether, beside these two, all otlier existing manuscripts are derived directly or indirectly from G, T^aehrens strenuously maintaining that thev are, Ellis as strenuously denying it. l>\it of this I iv^A no doubt whatever, that if G and O come directly from the original codex — and this Ellis does not seem to caii in question — then he very greatly overrates the value of the Datanus, which was not w-ritten till 14G3. I have much ditliculty in catching the drift of the argument about this codex in his first /! *• ( - 1 It, 4 \ \ ) n ': I INTRODUCTION V volume, an argument which is partially reproduced in his commentary. But G and proclaim with a loud voice that the strange and uncouth phenomena of the Datanus are figments and interpolations. It is vain to appeal to the authority of Lachmann who was ignorant of G and O alike. Nor is it easy quite to grasp the principle from w hich Ellis starts, when in his commen- tary on nieae in 1G7 34 he whites : ' The valuable Brit. Mus. Ms. a has nice for 77ieae ; possibly Catullus wrote: Brixia Veronae mater amata uicem'. When G and O, and apparently every other Ms., have mee, how can we conceive that this was not the reading of V? how^ can a, written as Ellis tells us elsewhere in 1460, have got this uice directly or indirectly from V ? how^ can it be anything but a stupid interpolation, designed or unde- signed ? Again in 64 249 has ' Que tn prospectans'; G 1ms *tamen' in full, and had originally * prospectans' ; but the pr is erased and o changed to a ; later Mss. fol- low this correction and read * tarn en aspect ans'. All the old editions wdiicli I have examined before Lach- mann's have ^Quae turn prospectans', aiid so have the recent editions of Schw^abe and Baehrens. Ellis iu the Academy (Aug. 19, 1876) wTites: 'Are w^e then to con- clude W'ith M. Baehrens that the right reading is ' Quae turn prospectans'? Is there any critic who could hesi- tate to prefer *Quae tamen aspectans'?' When we now h-dvii iVom O that V had ' Que tn prospectans', I should have been disposed rather to say ' Is there any critic who could hesitate to prefer ' Quae tum prospectans'?' This is merely putting til for tn^ a u for an /i, no two w^ords being oftener confused than turn and tame?! in consequence of their abbreviations being so very similar. Certainly what strikes me as one of the weaknesses of Ellis' commentary, as of his first volume, is the difli- J r \ ^ \ VI CATVLLVS culty lie seems to find In taking up tlie right position and point of view in controverting opinions wliich differ from liis own : he will attack for in^tarice the conclu- sions of others by arguing against them from his (jwn preniisses, instead of shewing either that the premisses are wrong on which those coiichisions are grouiided, ov that the conclusions do not follow fn^in those premisses. The 54th poem, of seven lines, he severs into three difFerent fragments, and assumes a lacuna of 5 lines between the first and second of these, and a lacuna of one line between the second and third. I have now reprinted a short article, A\riLten a few years ago for the Journal of Philology, in which 1 try to she\\ that this poem as it stands in the Mss. forms a perft^ct and satisfactory whole. Ellis in hijs connnentary, while he speaks of me m terms for which I feel most grateful, tho' ashamed, controverts my vievrs and adheres to his own. I on the other hand have appended ix) my article some remarks, tending as I think to strengthen my own arj^jment and to invalidate his. Which of the two has most reason or probability on his side, it is of course for otiiers to detennine. But what I would speak of now is the method of Ids reasonhig. lie draws up four formal arguments, headed i, 2, 3; 4, to prove me to be wrong and the poem to be fragmentaiy, all of winch J have touched on elsewhere. But I will here take the 4th for a specimen: *(4) Nothing is gained by inter- preting the poem as a complete whole. Everything shows that the Ms. of Catullus from whi^h all extant Mss. spring was imperfect. Why should we deny litre', and so on. Can he not see that this is no ai-^nunent at all, but a mere assertion that he is right and I am wnjtig ? If the poem is a complete whole, then surely somethhig is gained by interpreting it as a complete "i \ " INTEODUCTION VU whole. If it is a heap of fragments, then of course no- thing is gained by so doing, but on the contrary the labour Ls thrown away. Let others judge between us ; but such a mere assertion has no more force of demon- stration than if one of two litigants were to asseverate in court that he is right and his advei-sary wrong. Then as to what he says here of the imperfection of our Mss., the whole of my book wiU prove that I quite go along with liim ; tho' the onus probandt presses heavily on liira, who mahitains that they have thus tossed to- gether into one apparent whole a congeries of incoherent iragments. l>ut Ellis can take on occasion quite a different view of our Mss. Afier 64 23, a passage which 1 have di;3cussfd in its place, the Veronese scholia of Virgil give us the commencement of a verse which has disappeared from the Mss. of Catullus, a verse wliich no modern editor, except Ellis, for a moment hesitates to assign to Catullus. But, says Ellis, *the weight of the Veronese Scholia, hnperfect and full of lacunae as they are, is not to be set against our Mss.* Arjd yet he does not even attempt to shew that ]\Jai aaid after him Keil have not rightly deciphered every letter of the words 'saluete deum gens, o bona matrum Progenies saluete iter... ' And if they are right, how should there be any doubt of the genuineness of these words, when we cannot even conceive any motive for interpolation, cUid can so readily conceive the dropping out v.f a line ill the Ms. from which all the othei^ are derived ? Wht^re I have attempted to correct the text of Ca- tullus, I have tiled to bear in mind the very pertinent remark of Schwabe that no successful or convincing emendations have been made in that text, which de- part widely from the Ms. reading. Again and again I have had to call attention to the singular pertinacity \ • • • CATVLLVS !l \ with which G or O, or both of them, interchange certain letters ; most of all perhaps e and o ; then r, t (c), rt and tr\ sc and s; n and r; n arid v: /nnd >; and final m and s. 1 have reprinted two or three longer and as many shorter articles wLii li liuve appeared at intervals iii the Journal of Philology (luring the last ten yeaiu Tt was not possible to remodel them withMit cuufuriuiir tiiiits and circumstances. I have appended to each v\' tlMiii remarks and criticisms, designed m some cases to confirm, in others to modify what 1 had said. I iiave been a good deal suijiiSLd to see \\ov. often Schwabe, Ellis and Baehrens alike have iidained the l)arbaion.s spellings of our Mss. which are of much too late a date to have any authority in <|ije.^tion8 of ortho- graphy. A good lesson on this head is read to us, if In the 62nd poem we compare with the laher Mss. the Paris codex of the 9th century which contains that poem : it offers the correct spellings— iuciuida, iucun- dior, conubium, conubia--; while the otlier M^^s. have the corrupt spellings— iocuuda, iocundior, connubiuni, connubia. Nay, in 100 4 ^sodahcium' r>f V, the only genu Hie form of the word, is changed to 'sodalitium' by Schwabe, by Baehrens, and by Ellis in his text, tho' the ia.->t has corrected the mistake in his commentary. This will help to increase the uncertainty which already exists, especially In our country, wliere tlio miials of scholars appear to be so very unsettled with regard to Latin orthogra]>l)y ; tlio' the spelling of classical Latin, if we only allow for that amount of variety which certain periods of tnmsition a.dmitted, is now fixed and known. TEiNiTY College Cambuil'GE ; December 1877. A ' t r / \ - i^ [\ >■' I Quoi dono lepiduiB nouum llbellom arido modo pumice expolitumi Corneh, tibi : namcjue tu solebas meas esse aliquid putare nugas, 5 iam turn cum ausus es unus Italorum omne aeuum tribus expUcare cartLs doctls, luppiter, et laboriosis. quare habe tibi quicquid hoc libelli, qualecumque quidem patronei ut ergo . 10 plus uno maneat perenne saeclo. 9 qmdem Itali. quod V. patroni ut ergo Bergk. patroriA uirgo V. leciuiique; quod, patrona uirgo uidgo^ Qua- \ T think it worth while to offer the following re- marks on this short and simple poem, even at the risk of wliut I say appearing to have in it little that is new and important. All recent Editors adopt in the last Une but one what seems the simple and obvious correction of the Mss. : Qualecumque, quod o patrona uirgo. I would here observe in the first place that ' quicquid hoc qualecumque ' can hardly come together without a connecting particle: thus several of the »• M. C. 2 CATVLLI t older Editors add el after lihelli So Tacitus ann. xiv 55 has 'quidquld illud et qualecumqiie tribuisset'. But this correction the rhythm of Catullus will not admit of. If the common reading therefore be right, surely we must join ' Qualecumque quod ' (i. e. quod qualecumque), just as Martial has 'Hoc qualecum- que' in vii 26 3, a poem which contains another imitation of Catullus. But the 'patrona uirgo' offers more difficulty. Who is she ? Minerva, some say. Impossible. The Muse, say others and Avith more reason. That in a certain sense the Muse may be called the patron of a poet, I would not deny, though the two authorities cited by Ellis, in which the poet is said conversely to be the client of the Muse or Muses, are neither of them of much weight. But why the strangely vague *patrona nirgo' with nothing to point its meaning? Why could he not have written *patrona Musa""'? And if the Muse be the poet's patron, sui-ely she is so in the sense of being his helper, his inspirer and mouthpiece. She dictates the verses and mast see to it, that they be worthy of long life. Thus the spuiious Sulpicia, quoted by Ellis, bids the Muse come down and help her client. A sorry volume, a * quicquid hoc libelU', a ^ quod qualecumque ' would be her disgra<3e, as much as the poet's. It i^ a different patron that would have to nurse into fame such a production. It is in such a sense as this that the poets always call on the Muses to dictate the words which they cannot find for themselves: aeiSe, Oca: avZpa fiot evi^ene, Modaa : Musa, uelim causas memores : Pandite / nvmc Helicona, deae, cantusque mouete. And so Catullus himself : Non possum reticere, deae, qua me CARM I O / V ^' <■- 'v> { Allius in re luuerit Sed dicani uobis, uos porro dicite multis Milibus, and so on. Catullus tells the Muses what he owes to Allius ; they put what he tells them into verse that wiU last for ages. The corrections I have adopted in v. 9 are not so violent as they may at first sight seem to be : qvod, quid, and the like apr .ar in the Mss. of Catullus in abbreviated forms often so difficult to distinguish, that I am not sure that the old 15th century correction quidem is so much more improbable than the quod o of Palladius. Then as to Bergk's patronei ut ergo, which ever since I knew it has always struck me as most plausible, it is clear that in the lost archetype a must have greatly resembled ei: thus in 7 9 V had hasiei for ba.na, and in 65 14 O gives asumpta for ahsumptei. Surely we thus get a much apter conclusion. A poem so short as this at all events should be consistent with itself: seruetur ad imum Qualis ab incepto pro- cesserit, et sibi constet. My littlf^- book I give to you, Cornelius, who once before deigned to commend my trifles. Take it then, poor as it is, that for its patron's sake it may last some ages. The tone of self-deprecia- tion is thus entirely in place, while it would hardly be in good taste if addressed to the Muse who would have at least to share the blame with the poet. Again, when Nepos has been the sole theme of the first eight verses and has been addressed throughout in the second person, to turn so abruptly in the last two lines to the Muse, if Muse it be, or to Minerva as others would have it, strikes me as a violation of all art and good taste. And, if I am not mistaken, I can bring fori^ard some external testimony to support w^hat I have said. It is natural that the introductory poem of so popular \ 1-2 i- CATVXU fl-4 a poet as Catullus should be much quoted and imitated. For my present purpose however I confine myself chiefly to Martial, one of the most ardent admii-ers of our poet. 1 1 T should appear needlessly diffuse, let my readers understand that there Ls a meaning in my te- diousness. Imitations of or nlliisions to, one or other of the first four verses occur in the following passages of Martial : we find 'lepidos libellos' in xi 20 9, and in vFir 3 in, where the right reading surely is 'Romano lepidos sale tinge libellos': i 113 6 Per quern perire non licet meis nugis; ii 1 6 Nee tantum nugis seruiet ille meis; iv 10 1 Dura nouus est, nisa nee adhuc mihi fronte libellus,..T pucr, et caro perfer leue munus amioo Qui meruit nugas primus habere meas; 82 i ilos quoque commenda Venuleio, Rufe, libellos... Non te- trica nugas exigat aure meas; v 80 3 Dum nostras legls exigisque nugas ; vi 1 i dextus mittitur hie tibi libellus ; vii 26 7 Quanto mearum scis amore nugaruni Flagret: in v 3 there is an imitation of v. 9 in Catul- lus: Yiii 72 1 Nondummurice cultus asperoque Morsu pumicis aridi politus...libelle; xii, in prose preface, *de nugis nostris indices*; xm 2 I Non potes in nugas dicere plura meas. As vss. 5, 6 and 7 u( Catullus' poem refer merely to a particular work of Nepos, we cannot look for any allusions to them. To come to the last three vss., v. 8 as Ellis has shewn, is clearly imitated by Censorinus I Quodcumque hoc libri est meis opibus comparatum na- talicli titulo tibi mlsi. Baehrens' reading appears to be confuted hj this, as well as by tlie fact that 'quale- cumque' seems never to be joined with a genitive, as 'quidquid* and 'quodcumque' are. If it be said that Censorinus wrote in the third century and that Catul- lus was interpolated, before this time, I would appeal r4 I i . CARM 1 ^ to Martial lii 1 1 Hoc tibi quidquid id est ionginquis mittit ab oris Gallia, which, coming as it does at the opening of a book, strikes me as o clear reference to this verse of Catullus. For the last two vss. T would first of all comjjare Martial v 60 5 Qualiscumque legaris ut per orbem, the rhythm of which reminds me of v. 9 of Catullus as 1 have given it. Then look at Martial's prose dedication of VIII to Domitian : Omnes quidem libelli mei, domine, quibus tu famam, id est uitam dedisti, tibi supplicant, et puto propter hoc legentur. For, as our poem was so much in Martial's thoughts, the last words recall ix) my mind the ' patroni ut ergo cet.' Compare also the end ot Statins' dedication of Siluae n : Haec qualiacumque sunt, Melior carissime, si tibi non displicuerint, a te publicum accipiant : sm minus, ad iiie reuertantiir. For here too I catch an allusion to the end of our poem as I have given it. Domitian and Melior take the place of Nepos. Last of all look at Martial in 2, a short poem manifestly modelled on Catullus' poem. It thus commences : ' Cuius uis fieri, libelle, munus?' after Catullus' 'Cui dono lepidum nouum libellum?' Mar- tial contmues 'Festina tibi uindicem parare': then in V. 6 ' Faustini fugis in sinum? sapisti'. The poem tlms concludes * Illo uindice nee Prcbum timeto', taking up V. 2 and 6 exactly as Catullus, if we are right, would take lij^ V. 3 * Cornell tibi' with * patroni ut ergo cet.', uindex too having much the same meaning as patronus. All these points when taken together appear to me not to be without significance. \ 6 CATVUA 2 (Beprinted from the Journal of Piiilology vol. 4 p. 241 2421 Passer, deliciae meae puellae, quicum ludere, quern in sinu tenere, quoi primum digitum dare adpetenti et acris solet incitare morsus, 5 cum desiderio meo nitenti carum nescio quid libet iocari, et solaciolum sui doloris credo ut cum grauis aequiescet ardor ; tecum ludere sicut ipsa possem 10 et tristi^ animi leuare curas ! Tliis_ delightful little poem would seem to have been wntten while the love of Catullus and Lesbia was yet according to the notions of the time comparatively -nocent AH xs clear except in vss. 7 and 8 which ai^ mamfestlj corrupt. The latter has been altered in vaxxou.s .aj.; Credo ut turn (ut iam, uti) grauis acqui- escat ardor. A change would seem to be required in V. 7 as weU and very old critics have stiggested in or «for et;ad too might be proposed. La. Wnn indeed followed by Haupt, Schwabe and others, ke^ps et and refers us to 38 7 Paulum quid lubet allocution! jTut m thas hu 13 qmte mistaken: it may be seen from the vrry large number of instances coUected by Neue Tit pp. 485 486). that the best writers contiL^jT^t Mere, hcere and oportere as personal verbs, but in a very pecuhar way. with the neuters of pronouns uch a. ^d, ea, ^sta, ,uid, ^uod, ^ae, ^^uid^iuld, and of Tef \ ; I I- '/ CARM. 2 7 tain kinds of adjectives, omnia, quantum, multmn, mvlta; and so Catullus in 61 42 has quae licent, m well as pallium quid lubet, quoted above. But, as Neue observes, in the whole of classical Latinitv these verbs never ha\^ a substantive for their subject ; and solaciolum libet is quite solecistic. Ellis keeps et and reads in 8 Credo, et cum grauis acquiescit. But though Editors alter three or at least two words, none of their readings appears to me to give a suitable sense : they seem all to take dolor and grauis ardor to be synonymous or nearly so, while I believe them to be used in decided opposition to each other : dolor denotes the grief and aching void which the heart feels in the absence of a loved object, which it desires to have with it: comp. Propert i 20 32 A! dolor ibat Hylas ibat Hamadryasin: which is imitated by Ov^d in Heroid. 13 104 Tu mihi luce dolor, tu mihi nocte uenis, by which Laodamia expresses her ever- present yearning for Protesilaus. Then see Catullus himself, 50 16, Hoc, iucunde, tibi poema feci. Ex quo perspiceres meum dole rem; by which he denotes his longing desire for the company of his friend Calvus, whose wit and conversation he so regretted that he could not sleep or rest. Whereas grauis ardor express- es that furious storm of passion which could not last long at one time without destroying its possessor, but which while it did last would put any other gratifica- tion, except that of the passion itself, out of the ques- tion. 'Jliis ardor a Medea could feel in the presence of lason: Et iam fortis erat, pulsusque recesserat ardor; Cum uidet Aesoniden, extinctaque flamma reuixit : Erubuere genae totoque recanduit ore (Ovid Metain. VII 7(d): Catullus too felt it himself often enough: Cum tantum arderem quantum Trinacria rupes Lymphaque I • CATVLU in Oetaeis Malia Thermopylis (6S 53). As well attempt to c|iieiit*h M coullagration with a squirt, aa allay the grauis anhr, tlie Aetna-like fire, of a Medea, a Lesbia, a CatuHik^ !)v tht antics of a bird. The qmuis ardor must c!i strew itself for the time by its own intensity before tlie duhr remrumvii: hiltifid crnM find relief in playing with a sparrow. ! it 1 convinced therefore that these two verses are to be transposed, transposi- tii)!i l-^e'int: one of the simplest remedies in the case of a text resting finally on a single manuscript; and that we are to read cKxl/ nt, cum grauis acquiescet ardor, sit solaciohim sui doloris : • 'when the bright lady of my longing love is minded to try some charming play, for a sweet solace of her heart- ache, I trow, whenever tlie fierce storm of passion shall be laid'. 'Cum acquiescet' is in Catullus' manner: 5 13 Cum sciet, anoth«r c?«Jt preceding in v. 10, as here in v. 5 • 13 13; 64 344, 346, 350, 351 ; esp. 236 ut...Agiioscam,' cum te reducem aetas prospera sistet. I have little to add to this notice which was printed six years ago. I stiU look upon it as a more satis- factory arrangement of the beautiful poem than any which Catullus' Editors have offered, tho' EUis through- ouo ills commentary makes not ihe slightest reference to It, and Baehrens thus prints 7 and 8 : In solaciolura sui dolons (Credo, turn grauis acquiescet ardor) Not- withstanding all I have said, Ellis in commenting on 7 still holds that Lachmann may be right in making V . *,1 \ f V f / to CAKM. 2, 4 'solaciolum' a 2nd nominative to 'libet', and refers . 38 7, as if I had not shewn that that passage has no- thing to do with the point in question, 'pauluni quid' coming under the rule which permits 'lubet ' lo be personal. Nor does Ellis' long comment on the three lines, attached in the Mss. to our poem, help me in the least to see how they can in any way belong to it. They seem clearly a fragment of some other poem. In my note on 7 Cum acquiescet, I should have stated that in 5 13 V has 'Cum sciat'; but 'Cum sciet', as Buecheler suggests, should I think be read. [Ikprinted from the Journal of Philology, vol. 4 p. 231—240] This poem is a fascinating example of the gentler manner of Catullus. Though it will not bear com- parison with some of his more impassioned pieces, it has an exquisite beauty and finish in its own style, which wiU not be readily matched in Latin or any other language. Fortunately too the blunders of the manuscripts are so plain and have been corrected with such success by the older critics that there are only two words in the whole poem about which there is any difference of opinion : uocaret in 1. 20, for which Lach- mann, foUowed by Haupt, reads uagaret, and nouissime m 1. 24 for which many Editors, old and recent, read nouissimo. In both cases I keep the manuscript read- ing, in the former with a good deal of hesitation, m the latter with an absolute conviction that the change adopted by so many seriously interferes with the right understanding of the poem. Clear and limpid how- ever as the language may appear at first sight, when it cry I ) 9^ i 10 CATVLLI w more carefully examined, its right interpretation is found to be by no means so simple, and seems to Lave been often missed ; for Catullus here, as in his other pure iambic poem, owing perhaps to the restrictions of the metre, is very abrupt and allusive and requires much expansion in order to be fully apprehended! lielieving that a minute dissection of the poem and a careful comparison of it and the tenth elegy of the first book of the Tristia, which Ovid has written with Catullus in his mind, probably in his hands, wiU clear up much that is obscure, I offer the following remarks first printing the Latin, as precision is needed and careful punctuation is of importance. Phaselus ille quem uidetis, hospites, ait fuisse nauium celerrimus, n«que ullius natantis impetum trabis uequiase praeter ire, siue palmulis 5 opus foret uolare siue linteo. et hoc negat minacis Hadriatici negare litus, insulasue Cycladas Rhodumque nobilem horridamque Thraciam Propontida, trucemue Ponticum sinum, ' 10 ubi iste post phaselus antea fuit comata silua : nam Cytorio in iugo loquente saepe sibilum edidit coma Amaatri Pontica et Cytore buxifer, tibi haec fuisse et esse cognitissima 15 ait phaselus ; ultima ex origine tuo stetisse dicit in cacumine, tuo imbuisse palmulas in aequore ; et inde tot per impotentia (reUt erum tulisse, laeua siue dextera 20 uocaret aura, siue utrumque luppiter '4 ^K % i\ ^ i ■« ...\ •r-' / CARM. 4 Jl simul secundus incidisset in pedem ; neque ulla uota litoralibus deis sibi esse fjicta, cum ueniret a marei nouissime hunc ad usque limpidum lacum. 25 sed haec prius fuere : nunc recondita senet quiete seque dedicat tibi, gemelle Castor et gemelle Castoris. In these verses Catullus represents himself as pointing out and praising to some guests, who were With him at his vnia in Sirmio, the phaselus, now laid up beside the Benacus or Lago di Garda, which had carried him from Bithynia to Italy. This at least is the sense in which Catullus' words have been almost universaUy understood. But one of his latest expositors Westphal in his translation and commentary, pp. 170 174, says that the poem contains much that is obscure (viel Dunkles), and proceeds to explain it y&rj differently. The ship had to cross the sea ; it was not therefore a mere ' barke ' ; it could hardly then have come up the Po and Mincio to the Lago di Garda; Catullus too seems first to have gone on beard at Rhodes, and to have performed the first part of the journey by land ; the ship therefore was not his own ; he only hired a passage on it from Rhodes ; the erum of V. 19 was the owner or master of the ship; the limpidus lacus was not the Benacus, but a saltwater bay of the Adriatic, perhaps on the Grecian shore ; the hospites^ were not Catullus' guests, but the hosts who entertained him on his landing on the coast. This explanation gives a very lame and impotent meanmg to the piece, the ' yiel Dunkles ' of which we will endeavour to clear up in a different way, partly by the assistance of Ovid. The phaselus was unquestionably I V 10 CATVLLI IS more carefully examined, its right interpretation is found to be bj no means so simple, and seems to have been often missed ; for Catullus here, as in his other pure iambic poem, owing perhaps to the restrictions of the ,n, trv, is very abrupt and allusive and requires r..iic4 expansion in order to be fully apprehended Believing that a minute dissection of the poem and a careful comparison of it and the tenth elegy of the first book of the Tristia, which Ovid has written with Catullns m his mind, probably in his hands, wiU clear up much that is obscure, I offer the following remarks first prmting the Latin, as precision is needed and careiul punctuation is of importance. Phaselus ille quern uldetis, hospites. ait fuisse nauium celerrimus, neque ullius natantis impetum trabis uequiase praeter ire, siue palmulis 5 opus foret uolare siue linteo. et hoc negat minacis Hadriatici negare litus, insulasue Cycladas Rhodumque nobilem horridamque Thraciam Propontida, trucemue Ponticum sinuin, ' 10 ubi iste post phaselus antea fuit comata silua : nam Cytorio in iugo loquente saepe sibilum edidit coma Amastri Pontica et Cytore buxifer tibi haec fuisse et esse cognitissiml 15 ait phaselus; ultima ex origine tuo stetisse dicit in cacumine, tuo imbuisse palmulas in aequore ; et rnde tot per impotentia freta erum tulisse, laeua siue dextera 20 uocaret aura, siue utrumque luppiter i ^ It* \' / CARM. 4 H simul secundus incidisset in pedem ; neque ulla uota litoralibus deis sibi esse facta, cum ueniret a marei nouissime hune ad usque limpidum lacum. 25 sed haec prius fuere : nunc recondita senet quiete seque dedicat tibi, gemelle Castor et gemelle Castoris. In these verses Catullus represents himself as pointing out and praising to some guests, who were with him at his vUla in Sirmio, the phaselus, now laid up beside the Benacus or Lago di Garda, which had earned him from Bithynia to Italy. This at least is the sense m which Catullus' words have been almost umversaUy unde rstood. But one of his latest expositors Westphal in his translation and commentary, pp. 1/0 —174, says that the poem contains much that is obscure (viel Dunkles), and proceeds to explain it very differently. The ship had to cross the sea ; it was not therefore a mere ' barke ' ; it could hardly then have come up the Po and Mincio to the Lago di Garda ; Catullus too seems first to have gone on beard at Rhodes, and to have performed the first part of the journey by land ; the ship therefore was not his own ; he only hired a passage on it from Rhodes ; the erum of V. 19 was the owner or master of the ship; the limpidus lacus was not the Benacus, but a saltwater bay of the Adriatic, perhaps on the Grecian shore ; the hospites were not CatuUus' guests, but the hosts who entertained him on his landing on the coast. This ■ explanation gives a very lame and impotent meaning to the piece, the ' yiel Dunkles ' of which we will endeavoi^r to clear up in a different way, partly by the assistance of Ovid. The phaselus was unquestionably I 12 CATVLLI built fji (:it alius or purchased by him in Bithynia, and niu^t liavt/ l>een a light galley constructed for great speed and provided witii both sails and oars. It Deed not have been of aii v great size : a f i iend of iiilne diiiiiig the war with Russia went to the Baltic, cruibtd tiiere for some time and returned to England in a yacut of seven tons ; and we know from a late ineiii Table trial that the ^Osprey' of 66 tons, built for mere troVFnig purposes, could circumnavigate more than half tbc g!<»lie, whether or not it bore in addition the weight and fortunes of Sir Roger. And what feats of diRcovery were perfonned of old by heroes like Baffin 111 their omft of 40 tons I We shall probably not be wroii'f ill assiirnlno: that our phaselus was of a burden Bomewhere boKro. This part of Paph- lagonia, of which Amastris was the capital, now be- longed to the province of Bithynia, and it was natural that Catullus should get his yacht there. But when he left Bithynia in the year B.C. 56, he was i;i Nicaea far down to the south-west and not far from the Propontis: comp. 46 4 Linquantur Phrygii, Catulle, campi Nicaeaeque ager uber aestuosae : Ad claras Asiae uolemus urbes. It is pretty certain then in itself that Catullus would not make the long and almost \{>\ ,} t ^) \ 4 s CABM, 4 15 \ } impracticable hill-joumey from Nicaea to Amastris or Cj torus; and this will appear more clearly from what will be said |iresently. He would order his }ui/li the Bosporus into the Propontis, and would embark with all liis belongings either at Cios, which Mela (i 100) calls 'Phrygiae opportunissimum em- porium', or at Myrlea (Apamea), to both of wiiich there waB a short and easy road from Nicaea. ^ Then i?* 7—9 'insulasue— Propontida', Catullus briefly indicates the second division of the yacht's voyage, he himself being now on board. It coasted along the Propontis, then through the Hellespont, and along the shore of Mysia, Lydia, et<;., or the islands Lesbos, Chios, etc. to Ehodes, which the poem inti- mates to have been the most eastern point to which he went. He would thus probably visit the most famous towns of the province of Asia: Ad claras Asiae uolemus urbes: so Ovid 'Te duce magnificas Asiae perspexiraus urbes*. The yacht of course with his property and servants would be coasting along all the time. It is likely enough that he himself would sometimes travel by land: it was probably on this occasion that he visited his brother's tomb in the Troad and doubtless cities like Ephesus and Haliearnassus were not passed over. But Rhodes would seem to be specially desio-- nated not only on account of its celebrity, but also because it was the farthest point in his voyage hoine- wards. Ue would then make straight for the 'insulas Cycladas', visiting perhaps Delos; for they lay directly between Rhodes and the Isthmus of Corinth, over which Catullus no doubt had his yacht transported. It would be carried across by the Diolcos in a few liours ; and it is almost certain that he would not make 16 CATVLLI CARM. 4 17 the long and dangerous voyage round Cape Malea. In tact liis words, as we have said, short and allusive here as elsewhere, seem to point uut his course. We now come to the last part of the sea-voyage, denoted by the 'minacis Hadriatici litus', which indicates briefly his coasting along the Grecian shore, crossing over the lludriatic, and then running along the Italian shore. Whrst we have said ui iiis joining his yacht in the Pro- pontis seems implied not only in the nature of the case, but also in the poet's own words (v. 18) *i!ide tot per impotentia freta Erum tulUae'; and that li. did not personal 1v know the first part of the yacht's voyage might appear from his appeal to Amastris and Cytorus : all I Lis, ilie growth of the wood, the first launching of the ship, you, Amastris and Cytorus, know, it says, and know full well, even if I do not That the enira tulisse h emphatic, T will try to shew from Ovid too; but first 1 will speak of the concluding lines of the poem (22 — 27), as Ovid will perhaps illustrate them also. 'A lid not a vow had been offered for her to the cruardian «rods of tlie shore, when last of all she came from the sea as far as this liifi| id lake. But this is past aiic! done : now fine ages m traiiquii retirement and dedieutes herself to you, twin-brother Castor au 1 Castor'iS brotiier iwiii'. The yacht at v, 22 had ruached the mouth of tlie Po, its sailing qualities being such that it had never been in danger enough for a single vow to be ofiercxl up, until it was quite clear of the sea. The oratio obltqua renders thifi sentence a little obscure, as it does nut shew whether 'esse facta' is the perfect or the pluperfect: the oratio recta would be plain enough : neque uUa uota dis litoralibus uulu facta erant tum, cum nouissime, mari relicto, ueni ad hunc usque lacum: aUima ex origine of 15, et iiide of 18, and cum I ( nouissime of 23 and 24, answer to each other just as in Plancus' letter to Cicero (ad fam. x 42 2), we have pn- mum — demde-'-nouissivie, as well as in Seneca de ira HI 5 2: Quintilian has prhnum — post haec —nouissi" ine; prius—Utm — nouissime; maxi me —turn— -nouissime: [Varro Bimarcus viii (25) Cum nouissime putaret, quan- tum surapti fecerit : the precise expression of Catullus]. Cicero, a purist in such matters, admonished doubtless by AeUus Stilo, as Gellius tells us (x 21), seems never to use the adverb nouissime, and once only in a some- wliat early oration the adjective nouissimus, though his correspondent Plancus twice U{?es the former and Cas- sius and Galba both employ the second word in letters to him; and Gellins savs that Cato, Sallust and others of that age 'uerbo isto promisee nsitati sint': tlie ad verb occurs three times in Sallust's Catiline and In gurtha. Those Editors therefore, old and recent, who change the manuscript reading to nonissimo, in my judgment spoil Catullus. He is injured too by those who put a comma after Thmciam in v. 8 ; for tliough I would not assert with Lachmann that Catullus or Lu- cretius could not have used Thraciam as a substitute for ITiracam or lliracen, the poem as I have explained it seems to require Thraciam bo be an epithet of Pro- pontida. The yacht too must have hugged the Asiatic coast and quite avoided Thrace, and finally 'honidani Thraciam Propontida' is symmetrical with ' trucem Pen- ticum sinnm'. As for uocaret in v. 20, when Lachmann (Lucret. p. 178) says he does not understand it, he knew of course such passages as Klotz and Fdlis cite from Virgil and Statins, or such a one as 1 have noted down from Ovid (Heroid. 13 9) et qui tua uela uocaret, Quem cuperent nautae, non ego, uentus erat: a favour- able breeze yj)rings up and invites the shij) or the sails M. c. I V 18 CATVLLI to come out of port and take advantage of It. In the passage; froin < Kid's Kemedium quoted by Ellis, you are told t«) let the inn Fm]] ^w the current, *qua fluctus uocant'. It is int eas> then to see the appropriateness of the w >! { lit ir^ where, as Lachmann observes, a shift- iiig wiiid i.^ spukeii of. T sometimes picturu lu myself the poet thinking of the yacht as becalrit ainly the natural, view, which mcnkm inde locaF. It may be the ordinary; but why it ghouid be the natural view, 1 cannot comprehend. My exposition leaves the Ms. reading int^act; Ellis', which is the ordinary one, re- quires a change in it. And lude as often refers to time as ixf place; net only does Catullus use it in the one sense as often as in the other; but all the best writei-s, such 'as Cicero imd Caesar, equally recognise both senses : Caes. \l C. nr 9 7 has a sentence much resem- bling Catul 29 16 and 17, inde having the same force in both pju^bi^ges; and C^atullus' metre lx)th here and iii 29 demands JJt irule, not lit deinde. In tlie catales and do not with Baehrens read et 5, as s for At; 18 a verj Common blunder in nur Mss. : 4f> ^ silesit O, GO 2 silla V, 61 139 sirmis I), iw; 73 diserpent V, 8d 4 sis Ci: on tlie other hand sc for .9 is iust as com- mon. T Hliil! have to return to this mid similar cor- iiiptioiis. In li too 1 prefer hie et tile to hic et illic: o and e mn>\ have been almost indistinguishable in our MsR. : this I shall recur to again and again. 1 < ^ : I have yet to say a word about quassa, which I do not change, tho' its precise force is far from clear aiid i «annot at all discern the tiritt (n FlKc i J llR PX cplanar- tioM .iud illustration. Quintilian xii 10 29, speaking of the harsh siimd of F, says thai ihis harsime?^ nf sound in Spiassa quodaiiiiiioih/, shattered, broken, when a vowel immediately loiiuws, it being iiuwh more har^h, wht'ii If oii tlie other hand precedes and so ' frangit ' .tuy uf the consonants, as in the wuni irangit . i<^uin- tiliai! thus shews that quassa can be applied to a sound, and has much the same meaning slb fracta. Perhaps therefore in Catullus it denotes the broken, unequal creaking of the bed, which had become tremulm or rickety 1 v the use to which it had boen put. I lia\ e not much to remark upon the poems which coriic bet wet ri G and 1 u. in 8 9, the end of which is loHt in the Mss., I much prefer Avantius' completion, i:yluf)(,ei! bv most J'jiitnrs, nunc iam ilia non uult, tu quoque, m^oieiis, noli to Sealiger 8, whir h the latest Editor Baehrens adopts, ' tu quoque inpoteT?^ ne sis\ because there seems to me to be a manifestly designed parallehsm in tliis verse, corresponding with the similar one just above: ibi illn mnlta tum iocosa fiebant, quae tu uolebas nee puella nolebat i ) r i 1 CARM, 6, 10 29 V. 14 cum rogaberis nulla: this use of mdhis with the sense of omnino non, prorsum non, I have illustrated in mv note on Lucretius i 377 (and ii 53) and com- pared with the similar adverbial use of totus and omnis, so very common in the best authors. As Cicero and Lucretius employ nnllus in tlu's way, there can be no reason for refusing the same liberty to Catullus. Ellis observes that Holtze quotes no instance of this use of nullus with passive verbs. I have quoted I L from Cicero ' consilium quod capi nullum potest ', as well as this passage of Catullus. There too I have cited Cicero's * repudiari se totum putabit \ which has much analogy with Catullus' expression. Livy employs idlus in the same way : vtti 35 4 quae m discrimine fucrunt, an ulla post banc diem essent. Of the chronological inferences which Ellis draws frora our 9th poem I will speak after i havr discnased the 10th and 12th. 9 2: To the ilJustratloiis from Cicero given by Ellis, which I had myself noted I vwn, add Brutus 191 Plato enim mihi instar est centum mi- lium. 4 anumque matrem : Mart, xi 23 14 sed quasi mater anus ; xtii 34 anus coniunx : Plautus has 'anus uxor', 'sacerdos anus', 'mater lena\ 9 os oculosque : Cic. phil. viii 20 ante os oculosque legatonim; Aen. viii 152 ille OS oculosque ioquentis cet. ; Ovid Ibis 155 ante OS oculosque uolabo : the sound has evidently brought the two words thus together. 10 Varus me mens ad suos amores uisum duxerat e foro otiosum, scortillum, ut mihi tunc repente uisum est, 30 CATVLLI non Fin no illepidurri neque inuenustum. 5 liuc lit uenimus, iucidere nobis serniones uarii, in quibus, quid esset iam Bithynia, quo modo se habere t, ecquona!!! niibi profuisset acre, respondi id quod erat, nihil neque ipsis 10 nee praetoribus esse nee cohorti. cur quisquam caput unctius referret ? pra^sertim quibua esset irrumator praetor nee faceret pill cohortem. 'lib eeite tamen' inqiiiunt, 'quod ilKc 1 5 nat\im dicitur esse, comparasti ad lecticam homines', ego, ut puellae unuin me facerem beatiorem, *non' iiiquam *mihi Uim fuit maligne, ut, prouincia quod iir.ihi incidisset, 20 non possem octo honiirif ■* parare rectos^ at Hi! luiUus ei'at neque Lie iienue illic, fractutii c| li iieteris pedem grabati ill GuUo Si lit collocare posset. hie ilia, ut decuit cinaediorem, 25 'quaeso' inquit * mihi, mi Catulle, paulum istoa: commodum enim nolo ad Sarapim deferri'. 'mane me* inquio puellae; 'iHtiirj quod modo dixeram me habere, in^lt mv ratio: mens sodalis 30 Cinna est Gains: ir ■sibi paniuit. uerum, utrum illius a?» ineL quid ad me? utor Uiiii bene quam unlii parati^t. sed t"i insulsa male et luolesta uiuis, per quam non licet esse neglegentem'. 10 Cfliiorti. Cur— referret? sic interpunxi. cohorti, Cur— referret, um7^o. •27 mane me u corrupt, mane Static, minirae Pontanm^ mi aiiiiae Bergk PerhapM mrminei. 32 par&tLs Sti^tln^. purmiin V, uulga. CAUM. 10 31 There are several points f tlihik it wonh while to dwell iH'Oii ill this striking poem, than which there does not exist in the whole compass of Latin literature a finer example of terse idiomatic expressioc, of which Catullus and Terence are such consummate masters» T will begin with vss. 5 — 14. The first lines are clear enough: it is only in 9 — 13 that any difficulties have been found. These difficulties, unless I am greatly mistaken, I have removed by a better punctuation, by dividing the passage into twn distinct sentences, with- out departing in one word from the genuine Ms. read- ing, k-or, if we compare Gand 0, there can be no doubt that in 9 neque ipsis and in 13 nee, and not rum, faceret, are right. 1 am amazed that none of the commentators has made this simple change. Some of them have re- sorted to violent alterations of text, others to explana- tions which they themselves feel to be uri satins factory. Thus the latest Editor Baehrens partly rewrites the passage; while Ellis appends to hh first comment: ' Yet there is something illogical etc' and goes to an- other 'conceivable' one. A full stop and a mark of in- terrogation will make the logic run quite smootlily. *When we came to Varus' house', says Catullus, •various subjects of conversation were startled. One of them was, how Bithynia was now off, what was its cun~ dition, whether T liad Lnanly refer to •^9 CATVLT.r CARM. 10 33 Mad\igs Opuscula and Grammar. At the risk Imw- ever of beiii^ leiiious I wi'l quote the following pas- sages froiii Caesar, as they so precisely illustrate tlie tuiii of uLir sentence: ii. G. i 40 2 Ariouistum se con- snlr^ cupidisslme populi Romarii araicitiam appetisse. cur huMc tarn temere quisquam ab ulHciu discessuruni iudicaret ? B. C. i 72 Caesar in ea-m spem uenerat, se sine pu^^na et sine uolnere suorum rem conficere posse, quod re fnimentaria aduersarios interclusisset. cur eivdiii secundo proelio aliquos ex suis amitteret ? cur iiulhiiaii [aiurctur uptime de se meritos milites ? cur denique fortunam perichtaretur ? praesertim cum nou esset niinu^ iniperatoris consilio superare quam gladio. 11 n TV in 2 responderunt populi Romaid imperium ]ilienum finire. si se inuito Germanos in Galliam trans- ire non aequum existimaret, cur sui quicquam esse imperii aut potestatis trans Rhenum postularet ? These sentences illustrate Catullus in every point : observe the cur in every case introducing the question, with no connecting particle, and followed by an imperfect sub- junctive ; ihe qnisquam and qmcquam, the 2:}raese7^tim, the responderunt, ' Why should any of us bring home our persons in gayer trim, especially when onr praetor was a dirty fel- low and cared not for his staff one straw V The plur. quihus referring to the indefinite quisquam is a very usual construction: corap. too 102 3 iUoriim, referrijig back to fdo ah amico, and 1112 Nu-ptamm referring back to contentam uiuere. On vss. 14 — 20 there is a good note in the Hueti- ana (p. 207-^210 ed. Amst. 1790): Huet anticipates wnat Hanpt tells us in the Hermes, and quotes Probus from tlie Juvenal scholia. He remarks too that in the Delphin Manilius of 1G79 he had said what is said five 4 years later in Vossius' Catullus; and observes that these verses, taken together, shew CcxtuUus to have meant that the 'lectica octophorus ' was invented and first used in Bithynia. 14 inquiunt: 'somebody said' Ellis: rather 'say they ' i. e. Varus and the woman, for we are not to sup- pose any one else present. The mistress speaks, and Varus by his looks takes part, as it were, in the speech. Thus when Francesca has alone spoken, Paolo standing by weeping, Dante says : Qucste parole da lor ci fur porte. 17 unum beatiorem : scarcely *a particularly lucky fellow ' with Ellis. The more common turn is, as Ca- tullus elsewhere ha^ it, Quis me uno uiuit felicior; Cic. epist. VII IG 3 neminem te uno Samarobriuae iuris pe- ritiorem esse. When the unu^ is in the same case as the comparative, the object of comparison must either be expressed, as in the passage of Horace which Ellis quotes, and in Ter. hecyra 861 Vt unus omnium homo te uiuat numquam quisquam blandior: comp. too Plant. Amph. 1046 Qui me ThebLs alter uiuit miserior ?: or be understood, as here: beatiorem quam ceteram cohortem, as at once follows from what precedes. He had just said tliere was nothing at all for praetor or staff. Now, wishing to brag, he says : * to make myself out to the lady to be the one man rich or fortunate above ail the rest', facere is used again by Catullus in the same sense : 97 9 et se facit esse uenustum. 24 — 27 : * Then she like an impudent little minx says, Pray, my dear Catullus, lend me them for a little; for I want presently to be carried to Sarapis's*. ut dec. cin. : Priap. 66 2 ut decet pudicam. I am surprised Ellis should feel any doubt of the meaning of ' cinae- diorem': Catullus surely points to the impudence of M. C. S CATVLLI the request. As coinmoda nam is impoBsihle ^n Catul- lus, Hand 8 commodam enim, iho quite imcertaiu, gives a suitable sense and lia.s been generally adopted by the later cilituib. The omission of an imperative da or the like is idiomatic enough : comp. 55 iU Cameriuin niihi, pessiraae pueUae ; Maii. iv 43 5 Imtam inihi Pontiae lagonani, Tratimi calicem niihi Metili. Perhaps com- mode enim is nearer the Ms. reading, a^ a and e are so often interchanged in our Mss. ; and it would give a suit- able sense : * I want to be earned comfortably ' : comp. Cic. ad Att. x\i G i Ego adhuc.magis commode quam strenue nauigauL But Doeiing I see suggests Istos da: modo nam-, now before I observed this, I had thoiifrht of htos da modo. nam. nolo , because I per- ceived that da modo might easily in the Mss. fall into the more natural prose arrar.gement modo da, and this get changed bo commoda ; and because T felt that r)iodo would add force both to j^cmhtm and da : comp. Plant, rud. 1127 Oedo modo mi, uidulum istum: Cic. de orat. iii 196 si in his paulum modo offensum est ; epist. I 5 b 2 si Pompeius paulum n\odo ostenderit sibi placere ; Nepos Ham. 1 4 si [Kiulum modo res essent refectae ; Sail iug. 60 3 ubi hostes paulum modo pugnam remi- serant ; 93 4 paulum modo prona ; Catil. 52 18 si pau- luliiii. modo uos languere uiderint ; Ter. iieaut. 31G Vbi si paululum modo «[uid te fugerit. EUis weU de- fends the accusative ^ai'apim, 27-30 : mane me m surely not admissible in Ca- LiiiiuiS, nor do the words appear to have any satisfactory meanmg : man(i inquio is good metre and good sense and is adopted by several of the best editors, and so is the minime of Pontanus, Lachmann, Haupt and others. Again Bergk's mi anime is enticing. But when that which follows is kept in view, meminei, which in Catul- CARM. 10 35 lu8* Mss. might easily pass into mane me, a and e being .so often confused, strikes me as not at all improbable. I prefer inquio of the old editors and Baehrens to in- quii of most recent editors; for it seems to have as much indii-ect evidence to its existence as inquii has, and is as near to inquid, as inquii Ls to iriqutt ; and elsewhere in the poem we have the presents, inquiunt, in quit, inqvam. The followuig sentence appears to me to bt^ rightly understood by none of the commentators. They all take quod for the relative, whereas it surely is the con- junction. This has led Lachmann, Haupt and others to assume a lacuna, and Ellis' explanation is to me very unsatisfactory. This pecuhar use of ihe conjunction quod, to denote tlie effect rather than the cause, I have illustmted at great length in my note on Lucretius IV 885 from Cicero, Ovid, Virgil and others. The phrase, I have there said, is elliptical and the full ex- pression is seen in Catiill. 6S 33 Nam quod scriptorum non magna est copia apud me, Hoc fit quod Komae uiuimus. So here the full expression would be Istud quod modo dixeram me habere, hoc factum est quod me ratio fugit*. To the very many passages I have given in my note on Lucretius I here add the following: Phaedr. ii 4 8 Nam fodere terram quod uides cotidie Aprum insidiosum, quercum uult euertere ; Mart, viii 213 placidi numquid te pigra Bootae Plaustra uehunt, lento quod nimis axe uenis?; ib. 82 2 Nos qnoque quod domino carmina parua damns, Posse deum rebus panter Musisque uacare Scimus, et haec etiam serta placere deo. With meminei then, the passage is plain enough : * Now I bethink myself: when I said just now that I had them, 1 forgot myself 1' r the moment: n^y dear ^—-2 36 CATVLLI CARM. 10 37 irieiid Gaiu^ Cinna, he it was who bdiitriit them': istud, the tluTig ill question, the chair and its eight men; just like 'quod natum' above. Tiiuugli liie general sense of the words ' mens — parauit' is clear enough, their exact construction is not so certain: are they to be punctu- ated .18 I ii'ive punct lated with most of the editors? or, what is perhaps better, are we with li^ielirens to put a coiiima after sodalis, and Gaius'i Nay, as Cmndi was not an uncommon name, it strikes me as not improbable that Catullus meant to say: 'mens sodalis Cinna — est Gaius— is s. p.: 'my friend Cinna- Caius T mean (not Gnaeus or Lucius)— he it was who bought them': com p. Mali IX m :^ dicis 'mode liberum esse iussi Nastam — seruolus est mihi paternus—Signa'. One might sug- gest the omission oi est] but it should be observed that throughout this poem we find s}>ondees alone in the first foot. With 27—29 T would compare the writer ad Herenn. n 40, which might perhaps favour my me- minei: in mentem mihi si uenisset, Quirites, non com- misissem ut in hunc locum res ueniret: nam hoc aut hoc fecissem; sed me turn ratio fuo-it. In V. 32 Ellis tries, in my oj)inion without success, to defend the pararim of Mss. Because the best writers often uae tamquam for tamqmm si, because some good writers, Livy for instance, not unfrequently use uelut for ndut si, it by no means follows that tarn bene, quam can pass for tarn bene, quam si: none of Ellis' examples, Latin, Greek or English, helps in the least to prove this. But if the omission of si were conceded, can the tense be defended ? this has always struck me as deci- sive. The poet is surely speaking of a matter past and gone: Cinna bought them, I did not; they are his, not mme. Surely then you want 'quam si milii parassem', not 'pararim': 'I have the same use of them as if T had 4^ bought them myself. If this be so, Baehrens' ceu for quam, for other reasons improbable, will not help mat- ters. Now Statins' paratis is not so violent a correction as some might at first sight think it to be ; for final m and s are perpetually interchanged in our Mss, evi- dently because some original of them all expressed both by abbreviations not easy to distinguish. Of this 1 will speak more at length when I come to the 12th poem. If paratim then, a non-existent word, were once writ- ten, it would pass immediately mto pararim \ for r aiul t were also not easily distinguished in our archetype. Of this too I shall have occasion to speak later on: I have copied down some thirty cases in which Y, or else G or 0, put r for t, or t for r. 33 : On this verse I should hardly have thought of dwelling, if it had not been for Baehrens' most infeh- citous alterations, 'Set tu, mulsa, mala et m. u.'. No verse in Catullus less needs correction than this: the use of male = ualde, to denote an aggravation of an evil, is well illustrated from Horace by Bentley on od. iii 14 11, where he reads, perhaps rightly, * male inomina- tis': he cites *male dispari' and other instances. The instance most resemblinor ours that I can find is Tibull. (Sulpicia) TV 1 2 ne male inepta cadam. The usage is very similar to the often recurring ' male aeger', ' male (peius, pessime) odi, metuo, timeo, formido, uiur, perdo', and the like. We might compare with mxde insulsus, ineptus, Homers Svcrdfifiopof;, Empedocles' SvadpoX^o^;, Sophocles' SvaddXio^» 8v(rd\y7)Tos, and the like. 1 be- lieve Martial had this line in his mind, when he wrote (xTi 55 1) Gratis qui dare uos iubet puellae, Insulsissi- mus improbissimusque est, where the two superlatives are synonymous with the two adjectives of Catullus strengthened by male. At the same time I take it that 38 OATVLU the poet intended !.u>^ reader to infer tliat tliene wnrdn were spoken, nc^t to tlie ^irls f^iee, !)iir like a .^u-ge a.side, as Catullus was turnmg awuy frum tiicriL The nideiiesB woidd otberwi^^e be in glarin^x eoidrast tn the polite tone of the rest «jf the innniL Such abides are comiiion alike in tlie ancient and iriodern drama': Tn~ niimimm 40 Vx^)T^ iienerare iit iiulm leiec habitatio Bona fumtti Mix iurt unataii oe eneiiat--Teque iit qiiam prirniiiii possim uideain emortiiain. '^\dien I iiave first di8cu8sed bome jf^ma^ in the 12th poem. I will say a few words about the date of C. ]\fe!ie mius' j)ropraetorship, words whioh i ^should .have deemed altogetlier superfluous, If Ellis had not broached and developed what appears to me to be a singular paradox on the subject;. 12 Marruclne Asini, manu sinistra non belle uteris in i*>eo atque uino : tollis lintea negiegentiorum. hoc salsum esse putas ? fugit te, inepte : 5 «luanmis sordida res et inuenusta est. non credis mihi? crede Pollioni fralri, qui tua furta uel talento mutari uelit: est enim leporum disertus puer ac facetiarum. 10 quare aut hendecasyllabos trecentos expecta aut mihi linteuiu remitte; quod me non mouet aestiraatione, uerum est mnemosynum mei sodalis. iiaiii sndaria Saetaba ex Hiberis ib miserunt milii muneri Fabullus CAEM. 10, 12 39 et Yeranius: haec amem necesse est ul Veraniolum meum et Fabullum, 9 Disertus seem corrupt. Dissertua 0. Differtna Fasseratiu^, Vostim, ^aekr€!bi. perhaps Ducentum. Tlu8 Asinius, brother of the' famous C. Asinius Pol- lie Cn. fil., is mentioned nowhere except in this poem of Catullus. He was probably a man of little worth, and may have soon disappeared from a world which he did not greatly adorn. Ellis calls him ' Asmiua Polio, an elder brother of the friend of Horace and VirgiP. Though there is no direct evidence to the paint, 1 am disposed to think he was the elder of the two ; but 1 feel sure his cognomen was not Poilio. I rest my argu- ment on the following grounds. The family belonged to Teate, the capital of the Marrucini. It was plfebeian and like so many other plebeia.n families, such as the Memmii and the Antonii, appears to have had no cognomen. Gnaeus Asinius, father of the two in question, had left his native place and come to settle in Rome. Wishing, we may pre- sume, to do at Rome as the Romans did, he caUed one son C. Asinius PolUo. Whence this surname was derived, is altogether unknown. Had this been his eldest son, he would doubtless in compliance witb the usual fashion have given him his own praenomen Gnaeus, and not Gains, i infer therefore that the other was the elder and T^ra. named Cn. Asinius. But not PoUio ; else Catullus would not in v. 6 have said ' crede PoUioni fratri\ in order to distinguish the two. It was very usual at this period for the same fandly to use different cognomlna: thus the father of CatuUus^ friend CLi- cinius Calvus was named C. Licinius Macere T believe therefore that we have here the youth's actual name, /! M 40 CATVLLl If and tbat the father called bim Cn. Asinius Marruclnus in order to perpetuate tlie memory of their native couiitiy, as this son may have been born before the father had migrated from Teate to Rome. The very comm Hi cognomina Marsus, babinus, Lalinus, Gallus, Ai'er, liispanus and so many others doubtless had a siinilar origin. The history of Pollio's family, which eu(is vvuh his grandsons, would illustrate and confirm what has been said. He called his eldest son C. Asinins Gallus Salonlnus, giviug him his own praenomen, but not his cognomen, and naming him Gallus, because he was born in Gallia Cisalpina ; Saloninus to commemorate his own chief exploit, the capture of Salonae. This ill- fated son had five sous of his own, and gave a dift'erent cognomen to each: see Drumann ii p. 1. The eldest was G Asinius Saloninus and had his father's prae- nomen; the next was Asinius Gallus; the third C Asinius Pollio ; the fourth M. Asinius Agrippa, so caUed after his grandfather M. Agrippa ; the fifth was Asinius Celer. All this will confirm I believe what I have in- ferred about Cn. Asinius Marrucinus : the name of Pollio it will be seen recurs once only. 7 is I think quite correct : tho' the expression is unusual, the sense seems clear : ' Who would gladly have your thefts redeemed even at the cost of a talent' would gladly give so much that your thefts had never been committed. The common meaning of ' res aere mutatur' is 'a thing is sold for so much money'. But in certain writers the sense is occasionally just the op- posite: 'The thing is bought for so much money*. Thus lior. sat. II 7 109 'puer uuam Furtiua mutat stri^ili' nieans ' the lad gives a scraper for a bunch of grapes ' • tho' elsewhere he has 'nee Otia diuitiis Arabum hbemma muto' with the opposite and more usual , ,.n- i 1 I ! OA RM. 12 41 structlon. Sallust. lug. 38 10 quae quamquaTa grauia et flagitii plena emiit, tamen, quia mortis metu muta- bantur, siciiti regi lubuerat pax conuenit : by accepting these conditions they were freed irom the fear of death : the more common construction would be *his rebus mortis metus mutabatur'. Id. orat. Philip. 7 quorum nemo diurna mercede uitam mutauerit : * none of whom would give up his daily pay to save his life': more usually *nemo diumam mercedem uita mutauerit'. Some editors, to get this construction, insert 7ion after nemo without necessity. The construction in Catullus re- sembles those just quoted. 9 ' Disertus ' must 1 think be corrupt: the genitives cannot without an epithet be genitives of quality ; nor do I see how they can be governed by 'disertus': Ellis cites no parallel case whatever. 'Differtus', tho' it might possibly enough govern a genitive, I do not Kke, as it seems elsewhere to have a bad sense, 'crammed full of. To one who examines the Mss. of Catullus my ' Ducentum ' will not appear so harsh a change. I have spoken above at 10 30 on the frequency with which our Mss. interchange final 7n and s on account of some compendium not easy to distinguish : indeed s for m is more common than m for s : 5 IS tantm for tanfum; 64 126 tiistes for tristem ; 384 Nereus for Heroum ; 49 7 pair onus 0, patronum G ; 55 1 molestys €s V for molestum est: therefore T incline to keep in 39 9 the old correction monendus es for monendum est, and not to read te est or est te with the later editors. From the unmeaning ducentus it would be an easy step to disetiiis : I might give fifty instances of c and s con- fused in V, or else in G or : dissidium for discidium; disserpunt for discerpunt ; illos for illoc, quisquam for quicquam : pectics for pest is ; scis for si^ ; simus for sci- h ) 42 CATVLLI rn'is eta etc. and so with a and /* : nide, 7usi lor ride, n A-{;i]' 7ff>rfNi' (uT n^nff^r: berue (1 hert') i'^-'V bene; luuerit G, inueiilt O ; ab rupto G, abin iiiiptr» t * : externata 0, extemiata (t : etc. . I am iiidiKed to think of 'ducentum' chiefly be- cause it yeeiiis likely that Horace, od. i\ i 15 Et cen- tunri puer artiuni, had our verse in his mind. He uses natiirallT in an ode tlie more stately ' centum * for an indt'thiitely iaiw- number, ^vhen-'jis Gitnllnfi would em- ploj the ducenti of common life, wlii U we tiiid no fewer thrni five tinie^^ in HMrace'R satires. 'Ducemum' may be either the gen. plural, which occurs also in Varro; or vhe rlie irideciinahle rii^ce7?.a^m, which is fuu rni in l.ii- ciliiis more than once and elsewhere. The trecentos of V. 10 is t my mind rather in its favour than against it. Ill Y\ I I there can be no question that the old correotiun i-x Iliberis' for ' exhibere ' is true; but I would remark, as an interesting confirmation of this, tliat Catullus' great admirer Martial twice, iv 55 8 and X ()5 3, tmds a hendecasy liable h\ the same way with the words 'ex Hiberis'. 5 quamuis sordida cet. : Ca- tiiilu- liiciisilf once again has quamuis m this sense: 103 2 esto quamuis saeuus et indomitus. From the joint testimony of Tacitus (dial. 34) and of Jerome, that is of Snetonius, we may assume that PoUio was born in 76 B. c. It is strange that scholars like l.achmann and Haupt should have taken no account of this well-attested date, when they fixed 7G for the year of (Jatullus' birth. Catullus could not have spoken (if i ^)llio in the way he does, if their ages were the same. Tiie ])'H t must have been a grown up man when he thus wrote of PoUio. Ellis draws attention to this point ^ If CAHM. 1 15 43 in p. XLVi of his commentary. I had argued this ques- tion in a letter now before me which 1 w^rote to Pro- fessor Cellar more than a year before the appearance of Ellis' volume, having indeed noted it down many years ago : I advert to this fact solely for the confirmation thus afforded by two independent testimonies in a case in which scholars like Lachmann and Haupt are con- cerned. Schwabe (p. 300) assigns this and the following poem to about 60 B.C. on grounds probable enough. Pollio would be then about 16, and w^e cannot I should say think of him as younger than 16 or 17^: the Paulus Maximus whom Horace terms 'centum puer artium' must have been quite 20, the age too of Marcellus whom Virgil calls both 'puer' and 'iuuenis'. Horace and \'irgil however, when they so wrute, were much older men than Catullus. But with the Romans 'puer* and 'iuuenis' were both of them very elastic terms, like the French 'gar^on*. From the manner in which Catullus in several poems speaks of Veranius and FabuUus, it is clear that they were intimate associates of one another and dear friends of hia They were young men, probably of equestrian rank, belonging either to equestrian or senatorian fami- lies. One would infer from 9 4 that the father of Veranius w^as already dead. What they were about during their joint sojourn in Spain Catullus does not tell us. They may have been on the staff of a provin- cial governor, or they may have been engaged in one or other of the many lucrative employments of which the Equites had the monopoly in the provinces, among * This by the way is aaotker indication that Asiuius Marracinus was the eider brother, as he would not, if he were the younger, have been allowed at so tender an age to frequent the parties of grown men. 44 CATVXLI CAKM. 12 the wealtluest of which in this age were the Spains. Tlitre ue a child of eleven or twelve years of age, to whom such an appeal as Catullus here makes could not possibly be addressed. But, more than this, the whole fabric which Schwabe has built up with so much pains and learning, is shaken to its foundations, in portions of it too which Ellis appears to accept. In his later volume, tho' he had doubted it in his earlier, he admits the theory, which i too iirmly believe in, that Lesbia is the notorious Clodia. One of the main piops of this theory is the assumption that the fierce invectives, launched at Flufus for pretending to be the poet's intimate friend and then robbijn^ him of what was dearer to him than life, must have reference to the intrigue of M. Caelius iiufus with Clodia 59 and 58 B.C. about which Cicero in his speech for Caelius gives us such copious information. In 59 therefore and perhaps later Catullus, tho* he had lost CAEM. 12 47 \ his esteem for Lesbia, was still inflamed with the full fervour of his consuming passion. Turn now to the G5th and to both parts of the 68th poem. In these we find Catullus bitterly lamenting the recent death of his brother; and from both divisions of 68 we learn that he had not yet lost his passion for Lesbia, tho' he was fully aware of her inconstancy to him. Some time, probably a year or two, after this, either on his way to Bithynia, as Ellis argues : or on his return from it, as Schwabe holds — and I am disposed to agree Avith the latter, because, as I observed above, I believe that Catullus went from Rome to Bithynia in the praetor's suite — the poet stopped at Rhoeteum to perform the la^t offices for his dead brother. Before his journey to Bithynia he had utterly renounced Lesbia as a common harlot and streetwalker : Nunc in quadriuiis et an- giportis cet. If therefore he went to his province at the beginning of 65, he must have assailed his dearest friend with insult and outrage for robbing liim of his life's happiness at least six years after the time when he had finally cast her ofl' as an abandoned strumpet. i will say no more on these questions, as I regret the length to which my remarks have already run : but I could not malce my meaning clear in fewer words. Of the six poems between the 12th and the 22nd I have not much to say. The industry of the latest editor Ellis has anticipated me in most of the illustrations which I had jotted down, especially from the old scenic writera, from Cicero and Martial. 13 14 To turn ut te faciant, Fabulle, nasum : with reference to Ellis* note T would observe that this ad- verbial use of totum, which belongs equally to te and 7iasifm, 'to make you wholly' 'nothing but' *nose', h ] X 48 CATVLLI 1 exceedingly common in Latin. Above at 8 14 rogabens nulla T hnve referred to my note on Lucr. i 377 where I l^ave given abundant examples. I miglit give here as many more; such as Cic. (Caelius) epi^t. viii 8 10 Curio se contra eum totum parat ; ix 16 8 neque est quod Hi piuinulside spei ponas aliquid, quam totam sustnli ; XT 29 2 totam te ad amicitiam meam contu- iiati ; A\i 12 G ut... totum te susciperet et tueretur; a4l il fr Tf 10 (12) 3 multa dixi in ignobilem regem quibus totus est explosus. quo genere commotus, ut dixi, Appius totum me amplexatur...sed ille scripsit ad Balbum fasciculuni ilium... tot urn sibi aqua madidum redditum esse ; Suet. Caes. 46 uiUam...quia non tota ad animum ei respondera^t, totam diruisse : very like Catullus is Martial xii 84 3 Talis eras, modo tonse l^eiops, positisque nitebas Crinibus, ut totum sponsa iiideret ebur. 14 1 o -20 Di magni, horribilem et sacrum libellum, quern tu scilicet ad tuum Catullum misti, continuo ut die periret }5 Saturnalibus optimo dierum ! non non hoc tibi, salse, sic nbibit : nam, si iuxerit, ad librariorum curram scrinia, Caesios, Aquinos, Suffenum omnia colligam uenena, 20 ac te his suppliciis remunerabor. 1 4 continuo can only have the sense it so often has in the old idiomatic writers : ' at once without an in- terval, straight on end': Cic. Verr. iv 48 ille continuo ut uidit non dubitauit illud...tollere. Calvus sent it CARM. 12, 14, 17, 21 49 / . s- m 1 on the morning of the Saturnalia, to poison at once the poet's happiness. With the apposition comp., besides the excellent illustration quoted by Ellis, Livy xxx 39 8 Cerealia ludos dictator et magister equitum ex senatus consulto fecerunt; and Virgil's 'aras Eoce duas tibi, Daphni, duas altaria Phoebo': with the position of the words Mart, x 30 1 temperatae dulce Formiae litus, and Virgil's Tina nouum fundam calathis Ariusia nectar'. 16 salse seems right; not false, as Baehrens reads : Hor. sat. i 9 65 male salsus Ridens dissimulare. In 19 both rhythm and sense in my judgment shew Suffenum to be the gen. plur. and not the sing, as Ellis now takes it to be with some other editors. 17 2 inepta : Cicero again and again in his Orator opposes aptus to solutus, diffluens, etc.: 228 quod multo maiorem habent apta uim quam soluta ; 233 uidesne u£...ad nihilum omnia recidant, cum sint ex aptis dis- soluta.-.EflScitur aptum illud, quod fuerit antea difflu- ens ac solutum. As then in the de orat. i 17 he defines ineptus as one who is not aptus, cannot inepta in Ca- tullus be non apta i. e. dissoluta, soluta ? 21 mens stupor: Petron. 62 homo meus coepit ad Stellas facere...iacebat miles meus in lecto tamquam bonis ; 63 baro autem noster : with this we may comp. 13 6 uenuste noster, tho' that is friendly banter. 21 1 Aureli, pater esuritiohum : A curious expres- sion ; but I would refer to Mart» xii 53 6 which is just as singular and obscure : Sed causa, ut memoras et ipse iactas, Dirae filius es rapacitatis. Ecquid tu fatuos ni- desque quaeris, Illudas quibus auferasque mentem ? Iluic semper uitio pater fuisti. 7 nam insidias mihi instruentem Tangam te prior : Tho' the two words for M.C. 4 / 50 CATVLLI a weiJ-known reason migLt easily be confused in Mss. and tlio' ' struere ii)Sidias ' is the more usual phrase, yet I would not with Eibbeck and Baeliren.^ rcid here strit- entern : all the editors leave untouched in Livv vr 23 6 quem insidiis instniendis locum? xxni 36 14 ct inter id mstruendae fraudi intentior. 9 atque id si faceres satur, tacerem : nuno ipsum id doieo quod esurixe me nie puer et sitire discet. Of the coiTupt Me me of v. 11 many corrections Lave been maxle. Both the MelUius of EiUs a,nd the Tenel- Ills of Baehrens seem to me improbable, first for diplo- matic reasoT'S, next because to ray ]iniiid they strike a false chord, not in unison with the rest of the poem. Keeping in view 9 id si faceres satur, tacerem : I think ' A to mei puer* would be a correction sunple in itself and excellently suited to the context : so 77 3 mei Y. 22 Suftenus Iste, Vare, quern probe nosti, homo est uenustus et dicax et urbanus idemque longo plurimos facit uersus. puto esse ego iUi mdia aut decern aut plura b perscripta. ncc .sic nt fit in paiimpsesto relata: carrae regiae, noui iibri, noui umbiiici, lora rubra, niembranae. dorecta plumbo et pumice orjinia aequata haec cum leg>is tu, bellus iJie et urbanus 10 Suffenus unus capiimuigu^ aut fossor rursus uidetur: tantum abhorret ao umtaL iioc quid j>utemn« esse? qui modo scurra I, CARM, 21, 22 tj I aut siquid hac re tersius uidebatur, idem infaceto est infacetior rare, 15 simul poemata attigit ; nequo idem umquam aeque est beatus ac poema cum scribit : tarn gaudet in se tamque se ipse miratur. nimirum idem omnes fallimur, neque est quisquam quem non in aliqua re uidere Suffenum 20 possis : suus cuique atti'ibutus est error, sed non uidemus, manticae quod in tergo est. 5 pali;np«estog Baehrens. palimpHestum Ileirisius. palimpseston Lackmann. 7 membrajiao. monabittna aU editors who join it wilh what foUoxos, 13 tersius scripsl. Iri&tius V. l?itius uutyo. Besides reprinting below what I had written in the Journal of Philology on v. 13, I have to discuss some other poij3ts, vvhich seem to me not unimportant, in this very bright and witty poem. 3 : Mart, x 7C} 6 cuius unum est , Sed magnum uitium, quod est poeta. 4 Baehrens reads * ad decern * ; but ^aut — aut '= aut — aut etiam : so o8 131 Aut nihil aut paulo=s=aut certe paulo : comp. with our passage Cic. phil. 13 2 si aut ciuis aut homo habendus. We have the full form in Cic. Verr. iv 14 homines qui aut non minoris aut etiam plaris emerint ; Ov. her. 14 41 Aut sic aut etiam tre- mui magis, and often. 5 in paiimpsesto Relata : this can scarcely be Latin : in the passage, which Ellis after Hand cites from Cicei*o, no editor I think would retain * in codico ' with * in codices ' and * in codicem ' almost in the same sentence. Baehrens' palimpsestos is perhaps to be preferred to the singular, Relata seems genuine ; else * in paiimpsesto Artata ' would not be a harsh cor- rection : 25 1 1 insula V for inusta . ' T et i et L hand raro permutantur * Baehrens p. XLIV. Mart. I 2 3 Hos erne, quos artat breuibus membrana tabellis ; ^u 5 1 4—2 I( 52 CATVLLI Longior undecimi nobis declmique libelli Artatub labor est : XTT 190 PelJibus exiguis artatur Tiiiius ingens. 6 Everything is on the grandest scale, reams of royal papyrus, new uolumina or rolls made up from this papyrus : see Ellis. 7, when a single roll is in ques- tion, umbilicus in tiie 6m(i, is used to denote the wooden cylinder with projecting bosses; or umbilici in the plur. to signify the orna mental bosses at each end. As several rolls are spoken of here, it is uncertain which of the two meanings iLu wuid has. Tliu meaning uf ' loiii rubra' is not clear: with Elli^ T should have taken them to be some sort of fastening for the uolumen: Mar^^uardt v pi 2, p. :]9n, says they are the indfx attacueii to the jnll : Et cocco rubeat superbus index. Then wpmhranae due the parchment wr;4ppers, one for each of the libn or uoluminay coloured generally with l>uii)iOj sometimes with BaHron: besides the passages cited by Ellis see the locus classicus at tlu^ l>eginning of thv Tristia : 5 Nee te purpureo uelent uaccinia fuco ; M::^ T 117 16 purpuraque cultiun. Martial had this line and its rhythm in his mind when he wrote i 66 11 Nee umbilicis cultus atque membrana : he has the sin- gular because he is speaking of a single roll : Catullus has the plural because he is speaking of more than one. In neither is there any epithet, as the wrapper was understood to be ornamental in itself. But now I come to the point, on account of which T have dwelt at such length on tl is locus classicus for the history of an ancient book. To my abiding amaze- ment every editor from the poet's fellow townsman, old Auantius of Verona, in January 1502 down to the very latest l>rings hopeless confusion into our passage by changing the ^nemhranae of Mss. to membrana and join- ing the word on with what follows. Let us see : Ellis CARM. 22 53 m . in his copious commentary takes memh^ana to be the wrapper of the roll ; and it can of course have no other meaning ; for in Catullus' days the Romans used only papyrus, never parchment, for a regular liber or uolu- ^nen. Books made up like ours and written on parch- ment seem to have come into use about Martial's time; and even if they had been known to Catullus, to take the word here in this sense would make nonsense of the context. Now, that plumbo denotes the small round plate of lead which, instead of pencil or stylus, the ancients employed with a regula to rule straight lines along the page, we all know : see Rich s. v. and Beck- man whom he cites. ElHs quotes nine passages from the Greek anthology to illustrate the word and con- cludes that *Derecta plumbo' is a condensed expression for 'plumbo notata lineis ductis ad regulam'. But not one syllable does he say as to the purpose or the meaning of scoring over these purple or saffron-coloured wrappers with 'lineis ductis ad regulam*; nor do I believe any explanation can be given. Well, and what then are the ' pumice onmia ae- quata' ? omnia must include all the objects mentioned in 6 and 7. Thus Suffenus, after getting his bright- painted bosses, his scarlet lora^ his piuple wrappers, must have employed his pumice it would appear to scrub them clean of all their ornament, in this shewing himself indeed ' infaceto infacetior rure'. Tho* Auantius, Guarinus, Statius^ Muretus, Scali- ger, Graeuius, Vossius, Doeringius> Silligius, Lachman- nus, Hauptius, Rossbachius, Schwabius, Muellerus, El- lisius, Baehrensius, are there to check my presumption, I feel no doubt that v. 8 is to be joined with what follows : ' When you read these thousands of verses, kept so straight by the lead and evened all witlv 54 CATVLU pumice, yon fine and well-bred gentleman Snffenus turns out a common hind or ditcher'. If the an-ange- ment of the sentence be called in question, I would refer to my not^ on Lucr. v 789 where I have given 5 like pasf^agea from him : take iv 430 Tecta solo iungens atque <>mriia dextera laeuis Donee in obscurum coni conduxit acumen : take too Cat. io6 G5 Virginia et saeui contingens namejue leoniy. 8 pumice om. aecj. : the precise Import of these words may be questioned; but in all the Lfitin passages which Ellia cites here, and in 1 2 'pumice expolitum', he has mistaken the meaning. In these, as well as in Ov. trist. II 1 13 Quod neque sum cedro flauus neo puoiice leuis ; Mart, i 66 10 pumic.^ta fronte si quis es noiidum; 117 16 Rasum pumice, thera is no reference whatever to preparing the papyrus for \vriting. They one and all mean that after the uolumen wns completed and rolled up, both ends of the closed roll were smoothed and polished with pumice: Ovid's 'geminae poliaiitur pumice froutes ' shews this clearly ; but so do the other pa-ssages, tho* not so directly, as in most of them it accompanies their rcK^eiving their purple cover. In our passage the words I think mean that after the verses had been all fairly written out on their ruled lines, the pumice Ucis applied to remove all inequalities in the writing, all blots, portions of ill made letters and the like. For we must remember that in ancient writing the pen used was coarse and thick, the letters were large and irregidar compared with our print. For the c' he brings nothing m support of it but the ' tritae aures', which I tried to shew was nothing u> llie point. 14 rure, 12 modo scurra, 2 urbanus : Plaut. most. 15 Tu urbanus uero scurra, dehciae popH, Eus mihi tu obiectas ? 21 manticae quod in tergo est : ' the half of the wallet which is on his back': Liyy iii 14 3 iuniores, id maxime quod Caesonis sodaUum fuit; xxi 52 2 quod inter Trebiam Padumque agri est; xxii 4 1 quod agri est inter Cortonam urbem Trasumennumque lacum ; XXX 20 5 quod roboris in exercitu erat ; Aea ix 274 campi quod rex habet ipse Latinus ; Lucr. iv 372 quod liquimus eius; Ten heaut. 1048 quod dotis dixi. [Beprinted from the Journal of Philology^ vol. 5 p. 305] 22 12 and 13 Scurra has the same meaning here which it has in Plautus : a townbred fine gentleman, the opposite of one brought up in the infacetim rus : ' Urbani assidui cives quos scurras uocant*; ^Tu urbanus uero scurra, deliciae popli, Rus miJii tu obiectas\ The ^homo ue- nustus et dicax et urbanus' of v. 2, and the ^bellus ille et urbanus' of 9 are expressions synonymous with scurra: [Cic. pro Quinct. 11 nam neque parum facetus scurra Sex. Naeuius neque inhumanus praeco est um- quam existimatus :...Iibertate usus est quo impunius dicax esset]. Compare too Pliny epist. iv 25 3, who 18 imitating Catullus, though the scurriliter there has at the same time the bad sense which it afterwards iicquired : quid hunc putamus domi facere, qui in tanta i 5B CATVLLI re tarn serio tempore tarn sciin^illter Judat, qui denlque in senatu dicax et urbanus est ? It is plain from the whole context that the tristius of manuscripts in our passage is quite out of place, and nearly all critics and editors have adopted Pontanus' conjecture tntius. But tritius seems to me hardly more appropriate than tris- tiu.s: at first sight the ' tritae aures ' of Cicero might appear somewhat in point ; but that only means ' ears much practised' on some subject. The saarra is the very opposite of what is trite and commonplace. ! he latest editor Mueller is not satisfied with triiius, and reads scitius. There is a word which seems to me exactly suited to the context and, when rightly explained, as near perhaps to the manuscript reading as tritius. Lexicons quote from QuintUian 'indicium acre tersumque'; ^ele- giae tersus atque elegans auctor'; and the hke from him luid others. He uses too the comparative: 'multum eo est tersior ac purus magis Hora tins'. Nonius quotes Varr ) and Cato for the older form terfus. Thus Lucixv tiuH hi\s Jictus {or JIjcus, and artuSyfartus, sartus, tortus cilwaja retained the t, Catullus then wrote, I believe, tcHiiis, and s was written over the t to explain the 8 meaning: thus tertius would readily pass into tristius. 23 7—11 Nee mirum : bene nam ualetls cranes, puicre concoquitis, nihil timetis, non incendia, non graues ruinas, non furta impia, non dolos ueneni, non casus alios periculorum. 10 furta Haui/t. facta V. I CARM. 22, 23 59 This poem, of which I have quoted 5 out of 27 lines, the' its subject leaves no room for the highest quahties (jf Catullus' poetry, is a most finished and witty speci- men of light and airy banter, of easy yet vigorous ver- sification. This Furius and AureUus, the companion with whom he is joined in the 11th and 16th poems, are among the most enigmatical of all the associates whom Catullus commemorates. They would appear to have been needy men, more or less parasites and de- pendents of Catullus among others, yet at the same time with some pretensions to fashion arid breeding : in the next poem Furius is called a 'belJus homo' or fine gentleman. Why were they selected in the memora- ble 11th poem to carry the poet's last message to Les- bia? was it because that poem, probably one of his latest and written with direct reference to the 51st, perhaps his very earliest, was designed in this point too to stand in glaring contrast with the other? were Furius then and Aureh'us to carry the 11th poem to Lesbia, because M, TuUius Cicero had carried to her the 51st ? I am somewhat surprised, and an accomplished scholar has likewise expr-essed to me his surprise, at the interpretation which Ellis has put on this 23 id poenu *The attack' he says 'is unusually fierce even from Catullus and we may doubt whether the object of its unsparing sarcasm ever forgave the injury'. ' Even to one familiar with Catullus' habit of assaulting his most intimate friends most violently, and who had him- self experienced something of this scumlity in 16, the personalities of 23 must have seemed to go beyond the licence naturally conceded to poets; they could not be treated as merely jocose*. Elsewhere, p. 376, he plaees this poem among the three or four coarsest of all 1 1rat (^^atullus has written. I regard it in a mueh more in- 60 CATVLLT CARM. 23, 25 61 nocuous light : I can fancy Furius taking it philosophi- cally enough and being more than consoled by a dinner or a sum of money much smaller than he asks for at the end of our poem. However, as I have said, he is to me an enigmatical personage, and many people no doubt would find the poet's banter offensive enough. To come now to the verses which I have quoted above : in i Haupt's furta seems to me a certain cor- rection, just as in 68 140 I take the generally accepted furta to be a certain correction of the facta of V: see Haupt quaest. Cat. p. 9—12, who well supports his emendation. But I would likewise call in the antiqua- rian Arnobius iv 28 praecellere in furtorum dolis: these words may very well be a reminiscence of ' Non furta impia, non dolos ueneni', as his 'unius bubulci' a few chapters later may recall the 'unus caprimulgus' of the preceding poem. Why should not this constant imi- tator of T.ii cretins occasionally have the contemporary Catullus in his thoughts? Take too Seneca Agam. 673 (708) Non quae tectis Bistonis ales Residens summis impia diri Furta mariti garrula deflet : the fact that Seneca here is on quite another topic rather strengthens the supposition that he had CatuUus' 'furta impia' in his mind, the more so that just before he may have been thinking of some other verses of Catullus, 65 12—14, aa weU as of Virgil ; and most certainly a few lines be- low ^fliietu leuiter plangente sonent', he had in his tlioughts CJat. 64 273 leuiterque sonant plangore ca- chinni, confirming and Baehrens against nearly aU recent editors. 11 casus alios periculorum : besides Cicero quoted bv Doering, comp. Cic. epist. v 16 5 casum incommo- dorum tuorum; beU. Alex. 7 1 ut ad extremum casum periculi omnes deducti uiderentur; bell. GaU. viii 34 i € « simllem casum obsessionis; Suet. Claud. 25 ad arceridos incendiorum casus. Tn the last line 'sat es beatus' is surely a certain correction for 'satis beatus' of Mss. : Ellis should not in his first volume have adopted Bergk's 'beatu's': this archaic elision of the vowel in es and est together with that of 5 in the preceding word was unknown to Cicero and Lucretius even, who yet eHde the final s so much more freely than Catullus does. I much doubt whether even Lucilius admitted such a licence. [Beprinted from the Journal of Philology, vol. 6 p. 306] 25 4—7 Idemque Thalle turbida rapa-cior procella, cum diua mulier arios {or aries, or aues) ostendit osci- tantes, remitte pallium mihi meura, quod inuolasti, sudariumque Saetabum catagraphosque Thynos. The second line in this extract is one of the most desperate in Catullus : fifty conjectures have been made by critics and editors, old and recent ; not one of which I beUeve has found much acceptance. All the explana- tions oi diua for instance strike me as thoroughly un- satisfactory. Though I do not think that the conjecture I am going to offer is likely to be received with more approbation than former ones, I yet venture to give it, in the hope that it may perhaps present the question in a new light. This then is what I propose : Conclaue com uicarios ostendit oscitantes. What suggested the reading to my mind was first the very common substitution in manuscripts of d for cl as I / 62 CATVLLI in CatuUus 7 5 orct dum for oracluin ; G8 43 sedis for saedu] and noxb the irequency with which our arclie- type confuses a and co ; many instances of which con- fusion I have given in p. 23 of the thbxl number of our journal. Thus condaueco might pass into condaua, com diua; and then muiatnos into midierarios or some- thincr elde that looked like I^atin. Condcme was a rooro that could be locked up, if ne- cessary, and might be used for a storeroom, a bedroom, a diningroom, or the like. The uicarii, who are often spoken of by writers and in inscriptions, were the slaves of slaves and were employed in any menial capacity. Probably then at some feast those uicarii would have charge of such articles as are mentioned here, and when they were off their guai'd, Thallus would take the oppor- tunity of pouncing upon the things in question. It hns always seemed to me more probable that they should be stolen in such a wav as this, than taken from the person of their owner. On the above verse more conjectares appear to have been made than on any other line jn Catullus : Schwabe records eleven, which exhibit the most astonishing di- versity of meaning and language. Ellis and l>ael\rens add to the number. By the way I do not know v/hether Ellis ciui support his gauias: my feeling and imj^reb- glon are certainly for ydakts ; but as 1 have iio evidence one way or the other, I will not argue the question. I have ventured to reprint what I wrote some years ago ; because it strikes out a new sense and situation, different from those given by any of the other multitu- dinous conjectures. But I feel now, as indeed I felt at •) !« CAEM. 25 63 I* i the time, that my reading is far too venturesome, espe- cially in tan:iperirig with the genuine-looking ^ Cum diua'. It seems clear from the fasti Maffeiani, Dec. 21, C I. L. 1 p. 307 and the Fasti Praenestini, Dec. 21, with Mommsen's supplements, C. I. L. i p. .319, that the mysterious Angerona, with mouth closed and sealed, who knew and must not reveal the hidden name of Kome, might be called IXua : comp. with this Pliny iii 65 non aliejmrn uidetur inserere hoc loco eAemplum rellgionis antiquae, ob hoc maxime aiientium institutae. naniuue diua Angerona, cui eacriiicatur a. d, xii kal. Jan., ore obhgato ok>ignatoque sinmlacrum habet : comp. too Macrob. sat. I 10 7 and lanus' note. Adhering there- fore to the general sense of what I have proposed above, I would suggest Cum Diua mi [or, iam] uicarios ostendit osciiantes. But when O and G are examined, it would appear that aries is the oldest form of the corruption, and that Clues, alios, arias are rude attempts to correct. I assume then that (except ostendet for ostendit) the words midier aries akne call for emendation, and I still believe that the oscitancy of servants and not of guests is referred to, as all the property Btclen ia Catullus' own. No one eeems to have thouglit of the goddess Murcia, ojid ^'et she would be in point: August, ciu. dei iv 16 dc^m Murciam quae praeter modum non moueret ae faceret borrunem, ut ait Pomponius, muicidum, id est nimia desidiosum ct ina(jtuosum. I dont know what might be thought of the follovnng attempt ; f *uro. diua Afurcia atrieis ostendit oscitantes. Comp. too Arnob. ly 9 quis [pracsidem] segnium Murcidam : so the sole codex : Murdrnn Sabaeus. In (Jatuilu3 atrieis is a very simple connection for aries: C>i CATVLLI I liave observed already on 10 32 with what exceeding fre(|uciH y Ills Mss. confuse r and t : let me here men- tion, as III d 1 ri point, 36 12 uriosq; O utriosq ; G, WILL ' al uriosq;* written above; 14 18 Curram. Cura n Cur tam G ; 66 4 certis G ceteris ; 63 27 Attis. aiii> \ ; Ii! i Marrucine. Matrucine Y : es for eis 1 need not illustrate From whatever part of the house Thallus stole these things, whether it were the dining- room or another chamber or the Atrium itself, he would have to pass thro' tliis Atrium to get to the door, and in it servants would naturally be posted to observe what was doincr. As our passage is so notorious a CatulHan crux, T vA\] not hesitate to quote nearly the whole of ILtrtial VII r 59. The epigram is upon a thievish guest, and Martial could hardly fail, when writing on a similar subject, to remember one whom he loved so dearly and knew sn w( n as Catullus. Aspicis hunc uno contentum lumine... 5 huiiC ni conuiuam cautus seruare memento: tunc lurit atque oculo luscus utroque uidet. l>-i Ilia solliciti perdunt ligulasque ministri el latet in tepido plurima mappa sinu. lapsa nee a cubito subducere pallia nescit et tectus laenis saepe duabus abit. nee dormitantem uernam fraudare lucerna ^ erubuit fallax, ardeat ilia licet, si nihil^ inuasit, puerum tunc arte dolosa circuit et soleas surripit ipse suas. If our poem was in Martial's thoughts when he wrote this epigram, we might fancy from v. 9 that he supposed the pallmm to have been stolen from Catullus' person. But then v. 1 1 might well be a reference to 10 ) CAEM. 25, 26 65 some such reading as I have given to Catullus. What the ' catagraphi Thyni ' were I have not the least notion ; but the poem seems to imply that all the articles were stolen at the same time, and it m not likely that they were all taken from Catullus' person or even from tlie dining-room. I cannot help feeling that the * Si nihil inuasit ' of v. 13 is a reminiscence of our * quod inuolasti', the force of the two expressions is so similar. If the ' oscitantes ' be the guests, one might suggest ' Murcia ebrlos' : ebrios first becoming eurios, 12 minuta : a popular homely word, like so raauy others found in Catullus. Besides Cicero's * minuta uaui- gia', I have noted down from Plautus ' curculiunculos minutes', Terence 'pisclculos minutes', Yitruuius *mi- nutum theatrum' : in the Bellum Africae and the Bel- lum Hisp., both written in a very plebeian style, I have found 6 or 7 instances of ' minutus ' or * minu- ta tim'. The latter Virgil admits once in imitation of Lucretius ; but very many writers reject the word entirely. If the examples too which are given in the lexicons be examined, it will be found I think that the writers employ a homely plebeian style ; or else Cicero, like Catullus, is either adopting the popular style, as in his letters to Atticus, or is using the word in a disparaging contemptuous sense. Hence, as in so many analogous cases, hellus and pulcher for inBtance, while paruus lias disappeared, we find minuto, mcnv, etc. in the different llomance languages. 26 I Tlie uestra of and nostra of G leave us un- certain which reading was in V. Baehrens follows ; Ellis argues for nostra; while Schwabe, tho' unac« M. c, 6 6 6 CATVLLI qimiDted with O, prefers to take nostra even on con- jeeturt. Fuiius is so shadowy a personage and I am so \i I aisle to decide how much or liow httle truth there maj be in c -atiillus* banter, that I feel reluctant to pro- nounce '.% lecided opinion one way or the other. But on the whole my feehag is for nestray as I think that Catullus, tho' he would readily jest with a d ri^ friend like FabuUus on his own poverty (as in 13 8), would be 111« n lik' Iv to leer at a butt like Furius for his lack of meafis (as he does in 23), than to expose his own. CatiilliiH couteraporaiy Furius Bibacuius, a poet too of the B aiie school, who elsewhere laughs at the famous jTramrnanaji \ aierius Cato for his abject poverty, writes a poem on Gate's mortgaged Tusculan villa, which de- pends, like our poem, wholly on a pun for its point : Catonis modo, Galle, Tusculanum tota creditor urbe uendifubat. mirati sumus unicum magistrum, summum grammaticum, optimum poetam, omnes soluere posse quaestiones, ■umiiii deficere expedire nomen. en cor Zenodoti, en iecur Cratetis I Whether we read uestra or nostra, our poem has pro- bably auiiiu reference to the request of i'urlus referred to in 23 26. 27 3 and 4 Vt lex Postumiae iubet magistme ebrioso acino ebriosioris. Til 4 O and G have ebriose: the letters o and e are 00 often interchanged in our Mss. that in V or some CAKM, 26, 27 67 predecessor of V they must have been almost indistin- guis}]al)le. I have collected 50 instances and more of this confusion : not seldom, as we shall see, rightly oifers e where G perversely ha^ o; from which it would follow that in V the two letters must often have been difficult to distinguisk I have touched upon this aU ready at 6 9 ; and I sliall liave to recur to it again and again. That, as G and indicate, Catullus wrote 'Ebrioso acino' I have little doubt. Gellius vi 20 G has a curious comment on this line. The Mss. of Gellius are very corrupt there ; but Haiipt (Ind. lect. aest. 1857: opusc. n p. 121) proves clearly that Gellius meant to say the genuine reading in Catullus was ' Ebria acina'. with a pleasing hiatus of the two a*s ; tho' some assigiied to Catullus * Ebriosa acina', others * Ebrioso acino'. But, while Baehrens accepts ' Ebria acina" os the genuine readmg, Haupt rejects it as a vain fancy of Gellius and reads with most of the Editors ' Ebriosa acina'. 1 doubt tlie existence of acina at all, and unhesitatingly follow the lead of our Mss. in the persuasion that Gellius is pursuing a mere chimerical crotchet with no more foun- dation for it in fact than for what he says of Virml iust before. I do not therefore look upon this verse as giv- ing any Indication that the text of Catullus, as found in our Mss., had been designedly tampered with in or before or after the time of Gellius : Gellius knew of the reading 'Ebrioso' as well ;is of * Ebria'. Again in 37 18 I accept without demur the 'Cunlculosae' of V, in the belief that Prisclari wlio twice quotes that ^erse, wrote down, through some odd negligence or hallucina- tion, * Celtiberosae Celtiberiae', and then in one of the two passages copied down what he had written in the other. 5—2 68 CATVLLI CARM. 29 6» 29 tReprinied from the Journal of Philology, vol. 2 p. 2—34] % present design is to examine at length and dissect a single poem of Catullus, tlie 29tli, from a wish to abate some shameful scandals which have attached themselves to the fame of the greatest of the Komans, and at tlie same time to try to rescue from obloquy a hnmbler man, who yet ap})ears to have been a most efficient servant to two of the first generals in history : perha{)s also to mitigate our censure of Catullus himself who has propagated these scandals, by shewing that what looks like foul insult is three paks of it meant only in jest. But first a word or two about the name and, what 18 of more importance for our immediate purpose, the date of the poet. The unadulterated testimony of ma- nuscripts calls him merely Catullus Veronensis, but we know from Suetonius and others that his gentile name was Valerius. Though there h.« been more doubt about his praenomen, I thought that Schwabe had set- tled the question; but i see that Ellis regards it as still open. Jerome, copying Suetonius' words, names him Gams Valerius Catullus, the word Gaius being written at full length, so as to preclude aU possible error in the case of a writer whose Mss. are so very valuable and so independent as those of Jerome: a scarcely less weighty authority than Suetonius, Apuleius terms him in his Apologia C. Catullus: what is there to set against such overwhelming testimony ? And yet Scaliger, Lachmann. Haupt, Mommsen and other distinguished scholars de- cide for Quintus, mainly on the authority of a passage of Pliny, XXXVII 6 § 81. But there the best Mss. and the latest editor have Catullus, not Q. Catiillus ; and the Q. I wager will never appear in any future critiVal edition. In the other four places where he mentions the poet, Pliny calls him simply Catullus. But tlie important^ though very late codex D designates him as Q. Catullus, and a few other less important Mss. have the Q. ; but clearly D and the rest have taken this Q. from Pliny who was a most popular author when they were written ; and the Q. got into the in-* ferior codices of Pliny from a common confusion with Q. Catidus so often mentioned by him. As then Catullus was not at the same time both Gaius and Quintus, Scaliger s conjecture of Quinte for qui te in 67 12 can have no weight whatever against the convincing evidence of Suetonius and Apuleius, though it has been adopted by Lachmann, Haupt, Ellis and others : the poet always calls himself simply Catullus. His age has to be decided l>y the testimony of Je- rome, corrected by that offered by his own poems. Intense personal feeling, the odi or amo of the moment, characterises so many of Catullus' finest poems, that dates are of the greatest importance for rightly appre- hending his meaning and allusions, much more so indeeil than in the case of Horaces more artificial muse. Je- rome under the year corresponding to B.C. 87 records his birth : * Gaius Valerius Catullus scribtor lyricus Ve- ronae nascitur': under that answering to B.C. 57 he says * Catullus xxx aetatis anno Romae moritur'. Here I have little doubt that he has accurately taken down Suetonius' words in respect of the place of birth and * [With my present knowledge, I should put ' worthless ' in the place of 'important'.] ^ 70 CATVLLI CARM. 29 n death and of the poet s age when he died. But, as so often happens with him. he has blundered somewhat in transferring to his eoraplicated eiu the consulships by which Suetonius would have dated ; for it is certain that raany of the poems, and among them the one we are about to consider, were written after B.c. 57, Lach- mann hit upon an escape from the difficulty which once approved itself to many : in 52 3 we have ' Per consu- Jatum peierat Vatinius'; now Vatinius was consul for a few davs at the end of B.C. 47 ; and henee Lachmann infers that I'atullus at all events was then living. He supposes therefore that Jerome has confounded the Cn. Octavius who was consul in 87 with one of the same name who was consul in 76; aiicl that Catullus was boni in 76 and died in 46. This is ingenious, but hardly can be tnie. Schwabe, followinp- in the track of more than one scholar, has ahewn that it is by no means necessary to assume that Catullus saw Vatinius consul, 1 1 6 has cited more than one most striking pas- sage from Cicero to prove that this creature of Caesar and Ponipey, marked out by them for future office, was in tlie habit of boasting of his consulship to come, as eaiiy a.s b.( . 56 or even 62: Catullus therefore in the liiia quot^ d need only mean that Vatinius used to say, 'a-H 1 iiujKi to be consul, I swear ii is so'; and flu- verse ihm crimes with it far more point. Again 76 is too kiu I I kite for liis birth : it is plain that as early as 62, wheji lie would thus be only 14 years old, Lo h'ad be- come entangled witli Lesbia, wlio was no other than the formidable Clodia, the Clytemnestra quadrantaria, the Medea of the Palatine ^ When the reference to * [This dale js disproved qnite as deciKively by 12 9, where PoUio, who was born iu that very year or at the latest in 75, U spoken of at» a jpuer: see my r^^murks on that poem.] a(TL% tjt eKKolfe voov irvKa irep (f>poP€6pTO)i/, If such allurements made captive in a moment the Olympian himself, how were they to be resisted by a youth of twenty-two, that youth a poet, that poet Catullus? 'Haec bona non primae tribuit natura iuuentae, Quae cito post sep- tem lustra uenire solent', says the teacher of the art of love ; and Lesbia was then in her seventh lustrum. She was a fearful woman, but she has also been fear- fully outraged and maligned. Seldom can an unfortu- nate lady have had the luck to incur the burning hatred of two such masters of sarcasm as Cicero and Catullus. She destroyed the luckless poet ; yet we owe her some X 74 CATVLLI gratitude ; fur she gave us one of the great lyric poets uf the world. But at present I will dwell no longer on these mat- ters : I will come at once to my more special subject, tlk" iliiiii poeoi, of wliich I have so much to say that I nhtill probably tire out my readers' patience. And first I wni priiit. the piece at length, leaving the words ^pai el Hi the only four places wliere there is any doiibt as to tiie reading : these i will discuss as I come to then) in raj dissection of the poem. QniH 111 c potest uidere, quis potest pati, nisi impudicus et uorax et aleo, ManiunaMi habere quod comata Gallia habebat cam te et ultima Britannia? 5 cinat'dtj llomule, haec uidebis et feres ?^ et ille nunc super bus et superfluena perauibulabit omnium cubilia, ut albulus Columbus aut ydoneus? cinaede Ronmle, haec uidebis et feres? 10 es impudicus et uorax et aleo. eone nomine, imperator unice, fuisti in ultima occidenti?: insula, ut ista nostra defututa mentula duoentiea comeaset aut trecenties? 1 :> quid est alid sinistra hberalitas ? pariiiii expatrauit an parum hellu.itus est? paterna prima lancinata sunt bona: secunda praeda Pontica iride tertia liibenu quam scit amuis aurifer Tagus. 20 liunc Galliae timet et li.itaimiae [Auantiui, foUowed hj Siatuia and most of the older editors, ard recently by 1 K MucUor and BaohrenB, have added here v. 10, Ks impudicus c 4. : Uiis repeat i'^ri adds greaily to the -yjimietty of the poem and is probubly right.] i f CATiM. 29 75 quid hunc malum fouetis ? aut quid Lie potest nisi uncta deuorare patrimonial eone nomine urbis opulentissime socer generque, perdldistis omnia? But before T begin to examine more minutely the poem itself, I must from love of Caesar and indt ed ' f Catullus himself endeavour to shew that iii tlieir days, and indeed long before and after the most offensive and indecent personahties meant something very dif- ferent from what they would mean in the present diy. Had it not been so, civilised society could hardly have gone on in ancient Greece and Rorae dunng tiieir niCbt brilhant and energetic times, or in the Middle Agt s down indeed to a quit^ recent period. Just tlurik, to take two conspicuous and widely distant exaiiipies, of the appalling personalities of Aristophanes and Dante ! Pubhc opinion craved for and found such vents for tlie relief of its pent up feelings towards the great ones of the earth, whether demagogues, popes or kiiigs. Coupled with this love of personality there was a ten- dency, which to us seems sti'ange and aloiost incompre- hensible, towai-ds outrageous indecency and buffoonery. There was more in this than can be explained on any ordinary principles of human conduct. When in old Greece the majestic beauty of ejuc poetry came into being together with the orotic licence of lyi ic, elegiac and iambic poetry ; when side by bide with the august solemnity of tragedy was seen the old comedy rioting in a liberty which turned into ridicule gods and rnen alike, the belief clearly wa;:? that gods aiM:l men alike dreaded Nemesis and wished by sucli sacrifices of dig- Uity to appease that awful piwer. We iruist- give a similar interpretation t ^ the scenes witiies;ded in the v/ \ c rATTLLI cnt liedniLs of (Jhrlstendom during those ages when men hiul iciiik, if they ever had it, and yi^t at stated seasons of" the year parodies went on, the most bla^^phemous and obscene, of all that was held most sacred. Appa- reatij Irom long use and wont this curious love of in- decency continued till quite recent liiiies to infest the light literitiiie ^f jest books and the embittered po- lemics uf ifi^n V Miversaries, In the middle of last cen- n r ■ ^t*h;iirt s Cciluifiiiips tmon Frerlerick of Prussia are q i!tt Its revolting to our sense as those of Catullus against Caesui, or Calvus and Clodius against Pompey, and they were meant too more in earnest. In ancient Italy the union of indecency with bitter personality was very rife, the latter being fostered as in Greece by the fierce struggles of party in the free communities, the former by curious religious supersti- tion. As in Greece and throughout the East, so in Italy the evil eye, the fascinum, was believed to have an extraordinary influence, and this influence it was thought emld best be averted by obscene symbols and obscene verses: thus * fascinum' became a synonyme for ueretrum\ The evil eye wa.s most efficacious where human happiness appeared to be greatest: in three cases therefore it was especially guarded against, in the case of children, of a marriage, and of a triumph when man was supposed to stand on the highest pin- nacle of glory and felicity. Therefore, as Varro tells us in the de hng. Lat. vir 97, puerulis turpicula res in coUo quaedam suspenditur, ne quid obsit ; and there is a striking passage in Pliny xxviii 4 § 39 quamquam illos [infantes] religione tutatur et fascinus, imperato- rum quoque, non solum infantium custos, qui deus inter sacra Romana a Vestahbus colitur et currus trlumphan- tium, sub his pendens, defendit medicus inuidiae, iubet- CAIi^: *'> r J # 77 que eosdem respicere similis medicina linguae, ut sit exorata a tergo Fortima gloriae carnifex. A similar protection against Fortune, the executioner of glory and happiness, was afforded from the earliest times by liie Fescennine songs, connected in meaning and origin with this fascinum : the indecent ridicule thrown thereby on the great or the fortunate was believed to turn aside the evil eye. While patrimi and matrimi were ad- dressing the gods in pure and lofty strains, with regard to other religious solemnities we have Ovid in the fasti in 67 5 saying, Nunc mihi cur content superest obscena puellae Dicere : nam coeunt certaque probra canunt; and 695 Inde ioci ue teres obscenaque dicta canuntur, Et iuuat banc magno uerba dedisse deo^ In marriage as might be expected the evil eye was greatly dreaded; and therefore the fescennine verses were a vital part of the ceremony, as important as the invocation of Hymen Hymenaeus. Look at the long episode of the ' fescen- nina iocatio' which comes in the midst of the epithala- mium, and mars so rudely to our feeUng the exquisite gnice and deUcacy of Catullus' 61st poem. It is strange but true that this address to the 'concubinus' was meant a^ a compliment to the beautiful Aurunculeia and the highborn and accomplished Torquatus : it was not meant to be taken seriously, but was only a sacri- fice to Fortune the carnifex. If this be doubted, I would appeal to Seneca's Medea 107 foil, where the chorus, celebrating lason's marriage with Creusa, says *Concesso, iuuenes, ludite iurgio....Ilara est in dominoB lusta licentia. . . , Festa dicax fundat conuicia fescenninus : Soluat turba iocos. tacitis eat ilia tenebris, Siqua pe- regi-ino nubit fugitiua marito': meaner mortals like the 1 [On obscenity in feasts of Liber, to avert 'fascinatio', comp. August, ciu. dei VII 21.] /■ y f" 78 Ci^TVLLT CAllM. 29 ninaway Medea may many in quiet f but a Creusa or an Aiauaculeia lias a claim to be honoured in being thus degmded by the fescennine licence. When Cato and Marcia married for the second time amid the gloom of civil war, after the death of Hortensius to whom she had been made over, Lucan mentions among the signs of mourning that * Non soliti luaere sales, nee more Sa- bino Excepit tristis conuicia festa maritus*. But on their first marriage doubtless the fescennina iocatio had sounded as loudly as Hymen Hymenaee in honour of the then youthful Cato. The car of the conqueror could not escape, and we kno\^' from Livy and others that on every triumph the victorious commander was followed by his legions sing- ing ridiculous fescennine verses. The greater he was and the more adored by his soldiers, the greater would be the sacrifice demanded by Fortuna and the more ribald the fun in honour of tlieir much-loved general. Caesar, as we shall see, has suffered grievously by this ; he has suffered also as well as his successor in another way. During their reigns the licence of invective was quite unrestrained, as we may learn from the well- known speech of Crerautius Cordus in Tacitus : * sed ipse diuus lulius, ipse diuus Augustus et tulere ista et reliquere': but the consequence he draws was hardly true in the case of Julius. Tiberius however in old age, wearied with the burden of redressing tlie world and driven wild by the treachery of his most trusted friends, resolved to put a stop to this limitless ' scanda- lum magnatum'. Though its open display wa,s thus checked, it went on in secret with more rancour than ever. He himself has bitterly paid for this; and so has Julius, as in the days of Suetoiiius and Dion Cassius people had forgotten that in his time the abuse meant 79 \ little or nothing; and these two writers have taken lite- rally, what soldiers said in boisterous good-humour, or (^tullus and the like from temporary pique or some equally frivolous motive^. But with the cessation of virulent personalities the custom of writing light licentious verses did not corne to an end : Catullus had said in thorough good faith * Nam ca^tum esse dccet pium poetam Ipsum, uersiculos nihil necesse est, Qui tum denique habent salem ac leporem, Si sunt molliculi ac parum pudici'. These lines the younger Pliny, a man of sterling worth and indeflitigable industry, repeats with approbation; and in another place, epist. v 3, he reckons the writing such poems among *innoxiae remissionis genera', for which ' Homo sum' is all the defence ne^^ded; and he draws up a formidable list of predecessor^^ who have indulged in this pardonable recreation: amon^ others Tullj, Calvus, Pollio, Messala, HortensiiLs, M. Erutus, Sulla, Catulus, Scaevola, Varro, the Torquati, Gains Memniius, Lentulus Gaetuhcus, Seneca; diuus lulius, diuus Augustus, diuus Nerua, Titus: a Nero could not degrade this noble art which had been practised by Virgil and Nepos, and before them by Ennius and Aceius. Apuleiu::^ quotes the same woixls of Catullus, and to Pliny's list adds the name of diuus Hadrianus who composed many such trifles and wrote for a friend this epitaph 'Lasciuus uersu, mente pudicus eras'. Ca- tullus therefore had once a goodly band of brothers to ' [We ought uever to lose siglit of tho fact that nearly all the ^^rofA pods and irriters, who were contemporaries of Gaesftr and trr-nniuitted tlieir a«i»timents to fiuoceediflg generations» belongf d to tlie * boni ' or ' Opposition '. Now in soch an age of puUiug down and building np opposition meant frantic hatred and aiitagcnism. This to my mind accounts for a certain ill-omened air which Boems lo hajig about the Dictator's memory in the pages of Lucan, Tacitns and Suetonius, and which in justice belonged more to his successor than to hiin. Cromwell's fate much reserablM Caesar's in this respect.] ■^^ 80 CATVLLI keep him in countenance, though he is now almost the sole representative of them left. At last I turn to our special poem, which is cer- tainly one of the most powerful and t>nlliant of our author s satirical pieces. For fully understanding the allusions, it iv^ of importance to know the time when it was written, and this is not difficult to determine. Some of the older editors, Scaliger among them, have gone absurdly wrong, referring for instance the ' praeda Pontica' and *Hiherct' to Caesars latest conquests, after the death of Pompey ; though the poem (see vss. 13, 21 — 24) plainly speaks of the latter joining with Caesar ID j)ampering their unwoi-thy favourite Mamurra. It was written after Caesar s invasion of Britain, ^js the poem itself plainly declares, probably therefore at the end of 55 or beginning of 54, when Caesar was in C^isalpine Gau!, having returned from his first invasion late in the preceding summer ; hardly after the second invasion which took phice in the summer and autumn of 54, S.S the poet, we saw, appears to have died by the end of that yean In the latter case there would scarcely have been room for the events which must have occurred afterwards, Catullus too, as Jerome in- forms us» leaving died in Rome. Clearly theref.-re our poem, together perhaps with the less important, though more ofiensive 57th, is what Suetonius refers to in the well-known passage, lulius 73 Valerium Catullum, a quo sibi uersiculis de Mamurra perpetua stigmata im- posita 71 nn dissimulauerat, satisfaeientem eadem die adhibuit cenae hospitioque patris, sicut consuerat, uti perseuerauit. At Verona therefore where Catullus' father resided Caesar must have asked the poet to dinner, aiid in the winter of 55 — 54; for after the re- CAEM. 29 81 conciliation Catullus for some reason, perhaps mere wantonness, must have again declared war, as appears by the obscure but offensive attack of the 54th piece, the concluding lines ' Irascere iterum meis iambis Im- merentibus, unice imperator' plainly referring to the *imperator unice' of our poem. Angry no doubt he was at the repetition of such waspish and ludicrously un- founded insults; but of his many imperial quahties none was more glorious to himself or more salutary to the world than his practice of the art not to be angry over- much : his clemency cost him his life; yet made his memory what it is. But the * perpetua stigmata' meant both to Caesar and Catullus something very different from what Suetonius seems to imply: Catullus could not have dared so to beard the irresponsible proconsul in his own province, Avho with a breath could have swept from off the earth ' te cum tota gente, Catulle, tua'. What such insults really implied will I tmst be presently shewn. Though I feel no doubt that our. poem was written at this time, I see no weight in the argument of Haupt and Schwabe that it must have been composed in the lifetime of Julia who died during Caesar's second expedition to Britain, as otherwise the 'socer generque' of the last line could not have been used. Whatever the legal meaning of these terms, Caesar and Pompey in history were always * socer ge- nerque': those eminent scholars refute themselves by Virgil's ' Aggeribus socer Alpinis atque arce Monoeci Descendens, gener aduersis instnictus eois'. PtecoUect too Cicero's reply to Pompey's question 'Where is your son-in-law?' 'with your father-in-law': Lucan a dozen times over plays with this favourite antithesis, as in ^socerum depellere regno Decretum genero est'^ ' [Cicero again, ad Att. x 4 3 alter (Pompeias)...elapgns e soceri maribns ao ferro, bellum terra et mari comparat.J M. o. 6 82 CATTLLI CARM. 29 83 !l At the time our poem was w/itten the league be- tween Caesar and Pompey hjid lasted about five years, since tlie consulship of Caesar in 59, and had given them absolute power in Rome and throughout the em- pire, whenever they chose to exert it ; for what could the constitutionalists or 'boni' do against the masters of 20 legions or more? Crassus had just started on his disastrous expedition and was otherwise of email ac- count. It was a despotism, tempered only by their^,^ own moderation and by epigrams, such as these poems of Catullus and the confidential letters of Cicero: in his public speeches he had to praise without stint. Not- withstanding Caesar s unprecedented successes in Gaul Pompey with the vulgar was stiil the greater; but acute observers like Catullus and Cicero saw that the other had already got ' the start of the majestic world', though he did not yet 'bear the palm alone'. Pompo-y could be thwarted and bulKed even by a Clodius; be- fore Caesar s will all must bend, The letters to At- ticus, which may be looked on as soliloquies by an in^passioned nature of more than ItaUan fervour of temperament, give a singular pictuie of Cicero's feelings towards Caesar. Caesar behaved to liim as an enemy with a kinder courtesy than Pompey shewed him as a friend; he forgave him every ofience before he had time to ask forgiveness; compelled his subordinates Antony, Balbus and the rest to treat him when it declared op- ponent with punctilious deference. Yet for all this, perhaps because of all this, admiring as he could n<>t but do Caesar's social and personal qualities, he felt all his aspirations so nipped and kept under by the other s commanding genius, that hatred the most intense took possession of his mind: *hoc ripas horribili est uigi- lantia, celeritate, diligentia' was his constant feeling. Yet he, thinking and speaking in earnest, never dreamed i of fastenmg on Caesar any of these ridiculous scandals of Catullus. Read the letters written to Atticus after those ides of March on which he received his own death-warrant: he glories in that day; but soon finds that he has got nothing 'praeter laetitiam quam oculis cepi iusto interitu tyranni'; that the tyrant dead is worse than the tyrant living ; that he could speak with less danger ^uiuo tyranno quam mortuo; ille enim nescio quo pacto ferebat me quidem mirabiliter: nunc— \ At last in XV 4 we have this outbreak: ^if things go on thus, I like not the ides of March. For he should never have come back after death, nor fear compelled us to ratify his acts; or else— heaven's cui^e light upon him, dead though he be— so high was I in his favour that, seeing the master is slain and we are not free, he was a ma^ster not to be rejected at my time of life.' I blush, believe me : but I have written, and will not blot it out'. For these a.wful words neither Cicero nor Caesar is to blame, but the fortune of Rome: they must express the feehng of the ' boni ' generaUy who could not see that old things had passed away. But though Catullus would take advantage of such feelings, with him it was always as I have said the odi or a7m> oi the moment that constramed him to write and made him the poet he was ; and his unabashed candour and cynical effrontery lay bare to us the motives which impelled him to this attack on Caesar and Mamurra. The 41st and 43rd poems shew us that the latter had by his wealth supplanted him in the affections of a pro- vmcial beauty, 'Decoctoris arnica Formiani^ a phrase repeated for effect in both the poems just mentioned. This Formian spendthrift is our Mamurra of whom I will now speak more at length. Though he was a man of some mark in his day, he would have passed into 6—2 84 CATVLLI oblivion but for the unenviable notoriety Catullus has given him. Owing solely to this notoriety he is spoken of by Pliny in xxxvi 6 § 48, a passage to which we shall recur more than once : he t elk us on the autho- rity of Cornelius Nepos that Mamurra was born at Formiae, was a Koman knight and was praefectus fa- brum to C. Caesar in Gaul. Horace as we know de- notes Formiae by the name of ' urbs Mamurrarum', whether with reference to Catullus or because the family w^as really very important there. Caesar, it may be on account of his annoyance at such attacks, never once mentions his name, which twice occurs in Cicero; once in the weD-known account which he gives Atticus of Caesars dhiin poem, which on all considerations are incredible. Nay it is clear that by this fescennine-like raillery the poet simply means 'you have cheated me, my fine fellow, out of my mistress, and you and jour two mighty patrons, who have given you the means to do it, shall bitterly smart for this*. And now^ I will turn to other such-like charges which can be shewna I believe to be as utterly baseless as this Mamurran banter : Catullus, though he will not let Pompey escape, directs the main force of his in- vective against Caesar as Mamurras more immediate patron: in vss. 2 and 10 he calls him 'impudicus', which in Latin has a peculiarly offensive meaning, being a synonyme of the 'cinaede' which he apphes to him in 5 and 9; and in the brief but yet more impudent 57th poem he begins with 'Pulcre conuenit improbis cmaedis, Mamurrae pathicoque Caesarique', and goes on in the like insulting strain. Suetonius was an in- defatigable collector of anecdotes and facts concerning the early Caesars; but, removed from them a century and .a half in time and still further in feeling, for reasons some of which we have touched upon above, and per- haps from the Boswell-like character of his mind, he is often unable to distinguish between what was meant in earnest and mere joking or conventional invective. Yet, while in a passage we have already referred to he gives as one instance of Caesar's exceeding placability his ready forgiveness of Catullus, though he avowed that these verses about Mamurra had set upon hirn a perpetual brand, in ch. 49 he proves that these very verses meant little or nothing. For there he tells us ' pudicitiae eius famam 7iihil quidem praeter Nicomedis contubemium laesit, graui tamen et perenni obprobrio et ad omnium conuicia exposito'; he then gives a list 88 CATVLLI I of these 'omnes' to wLich I shall presently refer. But first for the story itself: Caesar when a boy shewed that in Sulla s words he had many Marii in him ; when he was but eighteen he refused to divorce his wife ComeHa, by w^hom he was already father of Julia, and preferred to wander about a proscribed fugitive in hourly peril of his life, though Pompey had at once obeyed the dictator's commands. He then escaped to Asia and served under M. Minucius Thermus, was sent by him on a confidential mission to Nicomedes of Bithy- nia, successfully performed it, returned and took part in the capture of Mytilene and received a civic crown for saving the life of a soldier. It was in consequence of this visit to Nicomedes that the absurd and scanda- lous story took its rise at some tune or other. From a long list of angry opponents or bantering jesters who 20 or 30 years later taunted Caesar about this matter kSuetonius singles out Gains Memmlus as making the charge in a definite shape; 'C. Memmius etiam ad cyathum ei uinum Nicomedi stetisse obicit cum reli- quis exoletis pleno conuiuio, acKJubantibus nonnuUis ur- bicis negotiatoribus quorum refert nomina'. This then Memmius must have learnt or pretended to learn more than twenty years after the event when he was praetor ni Bithynia. But supposing the memories of these merchants of the place did not play them false, what does the stoiy mean ? A young noble of the highest bu-th, of distinguished bravery, energy and talent, the representative of Eome at a king^s court, fii-st foully disgraces himself with that king and then gratuitously parades his degradation before a large company. A circumstantial lie is often the most self-con vie ting of lies. It IS possible enough that the story may have arisen from the handsome and accomplished youth J *, 1 prr^pr^se ' IWr.n (qnnque alia?) iiideni!!! luce* as a better rhythm and an easy currection. We now come to the very corrupt v. 20, though the sense re«|iiired is plain enuiigli. i^ Mamurra to have what 1 v^i^^-liairer! Gaul and farthest Britain had? Was It to ietd hi:" lust, O general without peer, you the other day were in tiie outmost island of the west ? He then in iiLs increasing wrath jums with Caesar his bro ther-iyraiii P lupey who first pampered the wretch: * "^^t ista nostra cet/: his gormandising and wantonness nothing can appease : first went his own patrimony ; Tiext the spoUs taken from Mithridates by Pompey ; third] V till' booty got by Caesar m Further Spain: what ne-\t i he will now have tlv^ riches of Gaul and Hntain, opened up only yesterday. — But many and va- riuiio liu/vt; bofii t.hr methods tried to crni the i^eqviired purt3 iambic, as may be seen m tlie criticiil notes of Sehwabe and Eiiki : Time Britannia, huac tnnete Gal- liae : Timete Galliae, hunc time Biitanina : « ir. etc, none of them satisfying in sense or keeping near to the Ms, Heading. And Schwabe witii reason remarks tliat no con \dncifig emendations have bccu Hictdu m CatuUus, where this lia.^ not been closely adhered to. fie od mits himself that a pure iambic verse would be very far {^referable t) any other, if a satisfactory one could be devised; hut despairing of this he gives us one which suits the sense and context excellently: Ninic Galliae timetur (timet') et Britannia^. But a purr^ iambic appears to me not only desirable, but necessary; Elhs too requiring a pure iambic reads 'Neque una Gallia aut timent Britanniae' : i will state my objec- tions to this : it departs rather widely from the Alss. ; nur dn T think the plural Britanniae could have been CARM. 29 9» \ f i used by Catullus, as he is speaking of the one islandy a corner of which was invaded a few^ months before :- Pliny IV IG § 102 says 'Britannia insula clara Graecis nostrisque monircentis.... Albion ipsi nonien fiiit, com I^ritanniae uocarentur omnes de quibus mox paulo dice- mus': and then )ie names a large number of ivslands, 40 Grcadovs, 7 Acuiodae, 30 Hebudes, Mona, Vectis, etc. etc. . a curious passage, but it will not I think support tiie plural in Catullus, any more than his own ' Mauult quam Syrias Bntanniasqneh which means of course 'prefers to Syrias and Britains', as we say 'to whole w<>rlds*: Ellis might of course read 'timet Britannia'; but tl;en with ' Gailia' and * Britannia* it is diificult to sec how the oe of idl Mbs. coidd have come into both words: of course, if it w^ere in one, by attraction it could get into the other. The sense too he rrives the verse seems to me very unsuitabhi : Neque enim Gallia tantummodo aut Britanniae Manmrram timent; quod post commemoratas ex Ponto atque Hiberia praedas iure uidetur additum. But surely Catullus doe? not mean to say that Pontus and Hiberia fear they are going to be plundered, because Go.ul and Britain fear it: they, if they ever feared him, must hke his own patrimony have long ceased to do so; as lie had k^ng ago spent all that could be got from them. The poet plainly means that the newly acquired lands, Gaul and Britain, seeing he has already spent his own means and the spoil of Pontus and Hiberia, are now gomg to be drained to satisfy his greed; or something like it. And, while on this subject, 1 would say that Ellis in another passage, 11 11, appears to me to have done our island scant justice by reading ' Gallicum Rhenum, horribilem insulam ultimosque Britannos', for the/hor- ribiles' or * horribilesque ultimosque' of ]\Iss. : Caesar a 7-^ 100 CATVLLI R-.v mniAht have looked horrible In English August weather, any more than Cuba or .Jaiiiaica to the first Spanish invaders. But what would and did look hoi-- rible was the stormy channel, the ' l)eiaosus ocean us', betweeii thf Callic Rhine ann ilie Britons: if then 'hombilesque' represents the archetype, Haupt's ^hor- nbile aequor' is excellent : if, as seems probable, que is a clumsy interpolation to help the metre, I do not sur- render my former conjecture m the old Journal, vol. 4 Ij 2S9, 'hoiTil>ilem salum' : that is, as there explained, for ^ * horribilesultimosque \ * horribilesaluultimo.sque \ Ennius having 'undantem salum' and the Greek won! being cral >;. Ellis similarly explains his reading as a corruption from 'horribile isula idtimosque', ^quum ex- cjdisseiit litterae ula propter insequentes uV : but long before this contraction and corruption could have taken place in Mas,, the form 'horribileis' was utterly un- known and could not mediate between two readings. And now I will try to recommend my own latc^r correction of v. 20 : Ellis having postponed it to his own put me somewhat out of conceit with it, when I w;i8 again encouraged by a flattering senteiice in a piiper read by Or W. Wagner before the philologie^d society oa Dec. 20, 1807: he says ^ am convinced Mr iiuiiiu s emendation as mentioned by Mr B. Ellis obviates all difficulties'. If we are to have a pure iam- bic, It seems pretty clear, unless very violent changes be made, tiiat ILmc represents a lost amphibntchvs (^--^) : leaving this for a moment, I divide into words m a different way fnra our Mss. and therefore their CARM. 29 101 I I I lost arclictj'pe the continuous letters of some original, immediate or not, of that archetype : this original had I assume ' ofaHiaetmetetbritannia' i.e. ' Gallia et metet Britannia' : our Mss. after their archetype give 'GoUiae timet et Britanniae' : Britannirie from the attraction of Galliae, I have collected from our Mss. a liundred instances of ahsurd corruptions owning to a wrong ar- rangement of undivided syllables : a few that seem to apply to the present case I will give here : 28 9 Om- nem mi {for Memmi), 44 7 expulsus sim (expuli tussim), 44 19 Sestirecepso (Sesti recepso), 54 5 pcniore cocto (seni recocto), 93 2 si saluus (sis albus), 98 1 in- quam quam (in quemquam), 108 1 Sic homini (Si Co- mini), 14 9 si ilia (Sulla), 17 24 potest olidum (pote stolidum), 57 5 nece luentur (nee eluentur), 61 198 Pulcre res (Pulcer es), 63 23 menade sui (maenades ui), 63 47 estuanter usuni (aestuante nisum), 65 3 dulcisai- mus harum (dulcis musarum), 66 8 Ebore niceo (E Be- roniceo), 66 11 Quare ex (Qua rex), 69 3 Nos ilia mare (N'on si illam rarae), 79 1 quid inquam (quidni quern) ; and many more besides. Now that we have so much of our verse, the rest will soon follow : out of Hunc we have to get a dative referring to Mamurra and a con- necting particle : tlie particle shall be et which so often comes into or falls out of the beginning of a verse ; thus in 61 211 we have ' Et ludite' for * Ludite'. The dative shall be huime: 'Et huicne Gallia et metet Britannia ? ' ' and now shall Gaul and Britain reap for him?': 'Et huicne' exactlv as in v. 6 'Et ille'. Plan- tus, so different in some respects, is Catullus' own bro- ther in love of familiar idiom; and he shall illustrate our metaphor: mercat. 71 'Tibi aras, tibi oocas, tibi seris : tibi item metes, Tibi denique iste pariet laetitiam labos'; mostell. 799 'Sibi quisque ruri metit'; epid. Ii 102 CATVLLI "I m ^filii istlc nee seritar nee metitur, nisi ea Cjuae tu uis uo!o\ Huicm I prefer to Iluice which I am not 5iire Catullus would ha\-e used: ' hicne, haeune, liocne, iiuiiciiu, hacne, hasne', one or the other, I have mei with not only in Oicero and the Fronto palirnpse.sr ; but III Propertius, Statius, and again and again in Seneca's irairedk^, wLere the metre coniirnis them ; and huicne is nearer the hanc of Mss. And now for our fintl critical difficulty: I may mention by the way that all recent editor» in v. iii make malum agree with hum) : though I should hesi- tate to contradict them, I must say that I have always thought it more emphatic as an interjection: 'why, the mischief, do you pamper him, both of you?' liis wrath ever nsmg and now involving in it Ponipey. In inter- rogative sentences this use of 'malum' is very common in Plautus, not uncommon in Cicero and the most idio- matic writers : 'qui, maJum, bella aut faceta es?' ^pae haec, malum, impudentia est?' and the like. Then in V. 23 for the corrupt ^ opulentissime' many conjectures have been nmde which may be seen in Schwibe and Ellis : but since Lachmann most have adopted his cor- recuon 'o piissime', as completed that is to say by Haupt who re4ids ^orbis, o plissimei Socer genej-que, p. o/ : This has never seemed to me quite convincing, though I hesi- tate to reject what so mony great scholars have sane- tioned: but it is the united force of ^eveiul different objections that weiglis with me: 'o piissimei' is not verv wide of, and yet not so very near Urn Ms. reading; then it involves a second alteration of ' urbis ' to ' orbis'' slight enough in itself; but thus we have tivo changes! one ill a uord wliich seems genuine; then I must lay the ' 8uc(u generque' is to my mind much weakened by having an epithet attached, still more is the force of OAHM, 2i) 1 03 'perdidlstis omnia* impaired by 'orbis' being joined with it: we can see Iroiii the letters to Atticus tliat this was a favourite phrase of tlie * boni' durijig the three-heiided tyranny: thus ii 21 1 'iracundiani atque intemperantiaTTi illorum siirinis experti, qui Catoni irati omnia perdidemnt* ; i i 65 *uel perire maluerint quam perdere omnia': xiv I I 'quid quaen's? perisse omnia aiebat'; I 4 3 ! inaie meministi claraare te omnia ]> lire, si ille funere elatus esset': [com p. i/oo Cato ad M. iilium: et hoc puta uatem dixisse, quandoque ista «x^r^i^ ^^Jas littera^ dabit, omnia conrumpet; (Cic.) epist. a/1 Brut, i 3 1 et certe, nisi is Antonium ab ur))e auertisset, peri' issent omnia.] How greatly the moral emphasis of these words ' perdidistis omnia' is weakened by the addition of orhis, may be seen from such a passage a.s this of Livy, praefat. 12, where he m contrasting the present with the good old times: 'nupor diuitiae auaritiYe Seneca's *luem tantain Troiae atque Aciiiuifl', ' Helena pestis exitium lues Viriusque jjupuli', *ista generis infandi lues', 'sacra Thebarum lues', 'iste nostri generiB exitium ac lues': Catullus therefore means 'ob Mamurram, istam pestem dominae urbis': after shewing that he has ruined or is luining one province after another, he finishes with this hhr terest of his taunts: ' Was it then on his account, for this plague-sore of the mistress Town, U fatlier- and son-in-law, that ye have ruined all?* It now remains to point out what Catullus probably refers to, and I must quote at length the pa*s.sage of Phny twice before spoken of: xxx\ i h § 48 * primum Eomae parietes crusta mar- moris operuisse totos domus suae in Caelio njonte Cor- nelius Nepos tradit 3iamurrani Fonniis natum, equitem Ilomanum, praefectum fabrum C. Caesarls in Gallia, ne quid indignitati ^lesit, t^li auctore inuenta re; hie namque est Mamurra Catulli Veronensis carminibus proecissus quern, ut res est, domus ipsius clarius quaui Catullus dixit habere quidquid habuisset comata Gallia. !iam(][ue adicit idem Nepos primum totis aedibus nullam lii^i e mannore columnam habuisse, et omnis solidas e Caryatio aut Lunensi': in these words Pliny, who dearly loved a scandal and was hke his nephew a great a^lnpror of ihcW ' eonterraneus' Catullus, makes up his story by uniting with the poet's abuse Nepos' narrative of facts, it; is natural enough that Mamurras wealth and extravagance, combining with that scientific and 1 I meobanical skill which Caesar'.s -hief engineer officer must Jiave possesso*!, would induce ]»im to indulge in arciiitectural (iisplay aud ia the invention of nev- fo,.n,s of construction and ornament; and, as Catullus' very abuse proves Wm to have been many yeare in the en- joyment of great wefdth, that already he had begun the house wJiich Nepos and Pliny speak of. Other kinds of extravagance or pretension may have joinetl to rouse the jealous and supercilious feelings of Catul- lus' coterie towards the newly enriched upstart, as thev nught regard him in their antagonism to Caesar and Poinpey: this would explain and point Catullus' last and bitterest taiuit, that he was the 'lues' of the mis- tress town. The last I say; for to my fciste the force and beauty of the poen. are greatly impaired bv placing either with Momnisen the four, or with Schwabe the two concluding verses after v. 10, or by cliangijig with Ribbeok the order throughout ; nor do I a^ee with bcliwa.be that the position which the last verse has in the poem of the Catalecta, is no argument whatever that It had the same pkce in our piece; the force snd point of the parody surely in some measure depend Upon tlutt. Our argument might have been niustrated by an exammatiou of other poents directed against Caesar or Mamurra or both. I have referred above fco the obscure 5ith, the close of which is a manifest reference to o^r poem: the 93rd, consisting of only two lines, is written in a defiant tone towards Caesar, probably raucii about the same time as our 29th. Towards the end there are four obscure, unimportant and uninteresting, but most insulting elegiac epigrams, addressed to Mamnrra under the name of Mentula which th« 13th line of our pueiu must have fastened upon him among the ' boni'r these 108 CATVLLI four with some other of the lat^r elegiac pieces the world would williiigly have let die. To one only of them shall T rrfpr in conjunction with tht> 57th : the latter attacks both Caesar and Mamurra in a tone that would be even more oliensive than that of our 29th, if it6 very excess of ribaldry did not loudly attest that it was only meant for petulant banter, one part of it flatly contradicting the other if taken in earnest. I shall con- descend to my a word on two verses orJy, 6 and 7, which, illustrated by what we know of Caesar, we shall thus interpret: he and his first scientific officer, at the end of the year 55 and beginnings of 54, used to be closeted together for tiours every day in Verona, map- ping out Caul and arranging the march of the legions aitii the movements of the fleet, so that all should be assembled at tiie ri^rht moment in the Portus Itius for the second invasion of Britain ; relaxing themselves at time-^ by sketching out plans for draining the Pompiine marshes and enlai*ems exhibit in dealing with wholly fictitious persons and incidents : cum salua in- fimarum quoque personarum reuerentia ludant ; quae adeo antiquis auctoribus defuit, ut nominibus non tan- tum ueris abusi sint, sed et magnis. I hav^e to make a few, and only a few, criticisms on the criticisms which have been made on me. 4 ante : I am surprised to see Ellis still argue for U7icti 8 haut idoneus : this, the virtual reading of Mss., I still look upon as giving the most satisfactory sense ; and I can- not, tho' the latest editor Baehrens accepts ^ Adoneus', 1 10 CATVLLI see any suitableness in tlie comparison of the CatuUian Mamurra with the beautiful and chaste Adonis. 1 do not deny that tliis or that pcissagc may be found — in Orpek, not Latin — where one may be called an Adonis for his beauty and youth alone. But Mamurra had neither youth nor beauty : Ellis actually quotes ' niueum Adonem ' from Propertius where the poet is talking of Adonis' death by the boar s tusk ;* but MannuTa was not 'niueiis' and was not killed by a boar. '20 Et huicne Gallia et metei Britanriia: 1 am vain enough still to prefer this conjecture to any that has >)een made before or after it. Ellis still ar^^ues for his own con- jecture, which wanders away from the Mss. and, as I have endeavoured to shew above, yields no proper sense. Hut I word on his criticisms of my reading: it 'has always seemed to me unlike Catullus, not only in the position of ?ie, but in the place of metet, and the only half-obscured assonance Gallia Bnfnnnia\ The * half- obscured assonance ' is too refined for my ear, tho', as I have observed elsewhere, I might, but would not, write * et metent (metet) Britanniae'. Then as to the ne I protest it has, if not the only, yet far the best place it can have in the verse : it cannot be annexed to Et. I could cite 100 examples from all the best writers of ne having a position such as it has in Horace's Praeter cetera me Romaene poemata censes Scribere posse ? but I will confine myself to two or three examples whicli closely resemble Et huicne : Ter. Andr. 492 aut itane tandem cet.; eun. 848 Sed estne liic Thais? hec. 81 Sed uideon Philotimum ? Plant most. 522 Sed tu etiam- ne rogas ? will this suffice ? But the place of metet ? I presume he means that the natural position would be *et BHtanriin metet' : so it would be, but tho' Catullus does not so often indulge, as Horace does, m these and I CARM. 29 , i ^ much more irregular arrangements of worfls. vet not only have I cite.! from him elsewhere several very irmch harsher collocations, such as ; Non, ita me diui. nera gemunt, mennfc : an excessively strange and awk^, ard sentence; but m the very next poem, 30 3 iani me pro- (lere, lara non dubitas fallere, perfide ? and also 5 Our,m tu neglegis ixc me miserum deseris m malis, as 1 m..i exactly resemble our passage : the first of the two Ellis muat accept aa a pamUel. And surely to a criticism like this a tu quoqm ia allowable : well, this is FJUh' own vei-se 'Neque una Gallia, aut 'metent Britanniae' r As 1 said above, I cannot believe Catullus would have used the plur. ' Britanniae'. • 21 malum: I proposed above with hesitation to take this for the interjection; 'why, the mischief: this usage la common enough in Cicero, and 1 Lad marked down a pa.ssage, de oflf. ir 53, which I observe is quoted by Jilhs, beginning 'quae te, malum! ratio', where Ucero IS translating a royal address o? Philip to his son Alexander. But. says Elhs, ' to me this seems be- neath the dignity and the indignation of the poem' in proceedmg to comment on the other half of the verse: quid hie potest Nisi: he sayn u .s a ' comio lormuJa : thus in one and the same veree an expression which Cicero thinks not beneath the dignitv and tiie indignation of Phihp, sober and angry, is beneath the digmty and indignation of this verae ; while a comi. formula is not. Truly EllL. applies a difierent fifarui.rd to his neighbour and to himself The strongest argu- ment perhaps, and one not mentioned by Ellis, for mak, ing nullum the adjective, comes from Catullus himself 64 175 Nee malus hic.hospes : but there the su!,.(,' makes a decided difference; and the repetition here of quid h,c • seems to me in favour of ' Quid hunc, malum I ' k \ 112 CATVLLI CARM, 29 lin But as T >a.id above, I look on the point as a doubtful one. 23 . No one I fear will ever decide what is to be read Itere ; and I shall ad«1 ii<">f1iing to what T ^ave already said, it strikes me now, as it struck me betbre, to be a positive inanity for Catullus to say of Rome 'urliisi pudet meae', as Ellis makes him say; nor can 1 accept the conjecture of the latest editor Baehrens. 24 Socer geiierqae : there is certainly much to be BBid for Baehrens' Gener socerque, us Virgil has it in biB parody. At the same time it does not strike me as certainly true : the poet is thinking much more of Caesar than Pompey, and might thus be disposed to put 'Socer* first ; while, as Pom})ey was the elder, another might be disposed to name him first ; and in tlie Aeneid ' Ag- geribus socer cet/ the socer coming first is to me not without weiofht. I would now, with somewhat more knowledge on the subject, add a very few words to what I have said above, p 68, 69, about the poet's praenomen and the tbne ui liib biith. Ellis is, 1 verily believe, the one scholar living who still maintains liis first name was Quiiitus, and not GaiiLs. Ellis appeals to the authority of Lach- ' mann and Momrasen, as well as Scaliger. Lachmann, whom Mommsen followed, was ignorant of both G and U ; circumsistite earn, et reflagitate * moecha putida, redde codicillos, redde, putida moecha, codiciUos'. non assis facis ? o iutum, lupanar, out bi perditius potes quid esse. 15 sed non est tamen hoc satis putandum. quod si non alin«. potest V. 17 ore, ConcUmate,cni,,i. ore. Cond. uulgo. I \ V A Tl >i , o I . 4 a. 119 I liave printed tlie whole of this lively and hrnnor- 0U6 puciu, iiut. iliat 1 have a.nything t^ say, in addition to what has been said by others, on the greater part of it ; but because I have long felt that there Is a hitch in one portion, and wish to make my reasoiis eh ar for attempting to remove that hitch. I cutirely go witli Ellis in thinkiiig that liOsbia caniiot be the object of attack. With vss. IJ, 12 and 1^,20 I wouhi compare Plant most. 600 Mihi faenus reddat, faenns actutum njihi,.. Cedo faenii;^, rerhle faenus, faeniH reddite. Daturin obtis faenus actutum mihi ? Datume faenus ? Ill keep the potes of G and 0, that is of V : Cic. ad Alt. xi 1 8 2 sed hoc perditius, in quo nunc sum, fieri nihil potest ; XIV 1 1 nihil perditius, shew 'perditius' not to be * unique'. 8 Turpe: sui'ely not 'strictly an adverb \ but the neut. ace. of tlie adjective, so often joined by the poets with verbs denoting any l)od}ly action, as 'Perfidum ridens Venus' : in one of the pasaages which Ellis quotes from Cicero all editors now read ' turji pace'; in the other the adverb is 'hilare' from ' hilanis'. 13 o lutiim, lupanar : Cic. in Pis. 62 o tenebme, Iutum, sordes. -^ 16 the manuscript reading here seems to me to i interrupt tlie einijiie and natur-al progress of the poem, : the words would properly mean: 'if nothing else can extort a bhi-fi from, her brazen facel But even assum- ing they can mean : 'if nothing else can be done, let us J extort a hha,.-^}!': even tlni» the plain piirpo,rt of tliis very simple poem 'm thv/a;rted. Tiie extorting .'i bhish must surely be the same as sh,amiri,g lier Liito doing what we want. But in that ca^e there is a iiiost awk- ward stop at the end ot 17 ; and 18 proceeds as if there was nothing between 15 and it. Westphal seems to s 120 CATVLfLI have sought to remedy this by putting )6 and i7 after 23, and reading Qiw, si for Quod si : my remedy Ls much p-iiiipit r and i think more efficacious : I change a single letter only and alter the punctuation after ore: * if nothinsf else can do so, in order to extort a blush from her brazen face, bawl out once more in louder tones'. Catullus, like the older writers generally, em- ploys pote ioY potest very freely; as 17 24, 45 5, etc. We might retain potest and read : Ferreo ut canis ex- I riinamuB ore. Concl. ; but I preier the other remedy. Aciiien be-ptif))iiiB 3U0S amores t(^nens in gremio 'mea' inquit *Acme, 111 U: |H rdite amo atqne am are porro omnert mm\ assidue paratus annos 5 qiiaiituiii i|iii pote pluriiiium perire, bluill^^ ill f..]l)\a, Iiiiiiaqiie tosta eacHif) u»Miiaiji obuius ieuni'. hoc ut dixit, Amor sinistra ut ante dextram sternuit approbationem. 10 at Acme leuifer caput reflectens it dulcia pueri ebrios ocellos iUo purpiijuo ore sauiata 'sic' inquit, 'mea uita Septimille, huic uni domino usque seruiamus, lb ut multo mill! maior aeri<)ri|ue ignis mollibus ardet m inedullis'. hoc ut dixit. Amor sinistra, ut ante, dextram sternuit approbation em. nunc ab auspicio bono profecti 20 mutuis animis amant araantur. if ' . CARM. 42, 45 121 unam Septimius misellus Acmen mauult quam Syrias Britanniasque: uno in Septimio fideUs Acme facit delicias libidinisque. 25 quis ullos homines beatiores uidit, quis Venerem auspicatiorem? 8 ut ante is corrupt. Perhaps sinister astans. 9 Dextra V. The whole of this poem too, the most charming"^ picture in any language of a light and happy love, I have printed, in order to make clear the vievr T take of its action and motive, which seem to me not to have been quite rightly apprehended even by those editors, Scaliger, Vossius, Baehrens, etc., who have seen that v. 8 is corrupt; The ut ante has probably, as Baehrens says, come from 17, and may have displaced something quite different, such as ^sinister ipse', or *manu sinistra' but my sug- gested ' sinister astans' gives the sense that is reqiiijed. The scene which the poet paints is quite distinct to my mind, while from Ellis' notes 1 caiiiiet gather liciw he represents the situation to himself; aiid Baehrena ' sinistra ab Acme', as well as his punctuation uf 17, is not compatible with my view of the matter. Septimius is resting on a couch of some kind and is leaning with his right sid^ against it : Acme is re- clining on his bosom. Th^y are both therefore looking more or less towards the left. Septimius declares that he loves her as dearly as mortal man can love, llie moment he has said this. Love well-pleased, standing on their left, sneezes at them approval towards the right (as he must do, being as he is on their left). Then Acme, slightly bending back her head and kissing the sweet boy's eyes drunken with passion (which he would hold down to meet her lips), protests that her passion 4 « M 122 CATVLLI is umdi btruiiger liiaji his. TLe Dioment she Lad Bpoken this, Love on ihv left hand, just as before, sneezed at thvm approval towards tiie right. The twice-repeated omen encouraged them in their passion : ^ Now starting from so fail' an augury, bouI answering 30ul, ihvy luve, are leaved again''. The poeiii, thus explained, k surely Simple enough and keeps clear of all the Mffflculty' in which Ellis in- volves himself and it. 3 te perdite amo: 'amare coepit perdite' occurs twice in F^Tence. amare: this is more emphatic than Froelich's conjecture 'amore', accepted hy Schwabe: 'te' then belongs to 'amo', to 'umare' and to 'perii-e ; for, since Catullus has in 35 12 Ilium deperit inpotente amore, and in 100 2 'depereunt' wit I) the accus. simply and without 'amore', and aa Plautus Poeri. iv 2 135 has the less usual 'hie alteram efflictim perit', also without 'amore', there seems no reason to refuse to Catulhis the same conislruction ' purue tt ; and ' amoi-e* without an epithet would cer- tmniy be weak. With the change of word in 'amare .•.Quautiiia qui pute^cnVe', I would compare "SUvt, x 8G i Nemo noua ealuit sic inflammatus arnica, Flagrauit qiiaiito LauruB amore pilae. There is even a greater hitch in Cat. 9(] 5 non tanto mors inmatura dolorist Qumtiliae, quantum gaudet amore tuo. 1 2 comp. Apuh apol 403 oris sauia purpurei. 54 [Beprinted from the Journal of Pliilology, vol. 6 p. 301— S04] The lost manuscript of Catullu.^, fioni which di- reciiy or iodirectiy all the others ai^e derived, would appear lo have handed down thiH trivid and umuiev-. kt ii c.wiH. 45, 54 L jLmtJ esting poem in the following shape, if we take no account of two verses repeated without meaning from a former poem, or of the heading which belongs to the next poem and has been wrongly inserted m this one : Otonis caput oppido est pusillum et eri rustice semilauta crura subtile et leue peditum libonis si non omnia displieere uellem tibi et sufficio seniore cocto irascere iterum meis iambis inmerentibus uiiice imperator. In the thh-d number of our Journal I examined at some leng-th the 29th poem in M^hieh Caesar and his fnend Mamuna are assailed with so much wit and tru- culent virulence. The Ja^t two lines of our jresent poem contain a direct reference to the other, the unice inijperator here dLstinctly pointing to the imperatOQ^ wm^^e there. It is how^ever for critical purposes only that I now discuss tins 54th poem, not for any hLs- torical or personal references, wliich are altogether un- known and, if they w^ere known, would probably tuin out to be of no importance w^hatever. Tliree shght and manifest corrections were soon made in the manuscript text : Oionis^ at once became Othonis ; for svJ/t4.'.io, wliich doe^ not appear to be a Latin name, from the tune of Scaliger Fuficio or Fu~ fecio, a well-known name, has been generally read ; and seni recocto soon took the place of the unmeaning and ^ Otonis I take to he the reading of the archetype, iiol the Octonu of moBt of the oxi^ting M39. The Latin ct becamd t or tt in Italian; and for this rt^son an Italian would instinctively translate his own tt back into ct: Giotto calls himself loctua. For otanis then a scribe would at once write oct.mis, which he would know to bo a Latin word. Tor similar reasons I believe tha archetypo had eri, not Jicn, in the second line. [CyttJluF probably wjote *Otonib', as Baehrens now printfi it.] 124 CATVLLT iiDmetrical seniare cocto, Scaliger clinching this emen- dation by these words : * glossarium inteipretatur a7r€- (f>Oov y{povTa cum Jiunc locum in animo baberet*. But alter these obvious changes have been made, most of the critics, old and new, look upon tlie poem as TTiiitilated and unintelligible. Victorius speaks of its Cimmerian darkness ; Muretus says that a Sibyl alone could interpret i^, that it manifestly consists of muti- lated fragments of different epigrams, incapable of being understood or con-ected. Scaliger s emendations are clumsy and his explanations wrong. Of recent editors two uf tlh most eminent, Lachmann and TTaupt, as- sume two lat u^ne, one after the third, the other after the fifth line. I will quote the poem in the shape in which it IS presented to us by the two most recent cri- tical editions. Ellis prints it thus : KJXAixjiM lapuL oppido est pusillum ; tet llcri rustice, semilauta crura, subiile et kuc pi/Jitum labonis. at mn effugies meos iamhos si non omnia displicere uellem tibi et Sufficio seni recocto irascere iterum meis iambis inmerentibus, unice imperator. The verse in Italics is a fragment of Catullus which EIIls supposes to belong to this poem ; which in Lucian Mueller's edition becomes two poems and assumes the following shape : CARM. 54 125 / LIIII. Othonis caput oppidost pusillum ♦ * ♦ Neri rustica semilauta crura, subtile et leue peditum Libonis. ♦ ♦ ♦ si non omnia displicere uellem tibi et Fuficio seni recocto I I LIIIP. Irascere iterum meis iambis inmerentibus, unice imperator. Though I dissent with diffidence from so many eminent authorities, I cannot conceal my belief that the poem ii* quite entire and unmutilated, and that the change of one other letter will render it perfectly intel- ligible, dispel the Cimmerian darkness and enable us to dispense with the Sibyl's assistance. Before offering any further explanations I will print the poem as I think Catullus may have written it : Othonis caput (oppido est pusillum) et, trirustice, semilauta crura, subtile et leue peditum Libonis, si non omnia, displicere uellem tibi et Fuficio seni recocto : — irascere iterum meis iambis inmerentibus, unice imperator. Tiie proper interpretation of the whole poem ap- pears to me to depend primarily on the right under- standing of the words si non ounnia ; and fl)r this uia prima salutis, quod minime reris, Graia pandetur ab urbe ; 126 CATVLLt or rather, 1 slioiild say, not fruiu it Greek city, but from the cit v uf th,e Troiaii Anterior. Tt. is iint known who Otho or Libo or Fiiiicius Wci8, but it ib plain that the poet means to say that C'ltho and Lih^j were fa- vourites of Caesar and i uticius, standing in the same relation to the faiiier as he had Bcurnloiisl}- «lescribed Mainiirra as doing in the 29th poem. I could wljsh, he says, that Otho's head (right puny it lis) and, you tho- rough elowii, thr»se haLf- washed legs of his, ahl Libo a offensive habits, if not everything else about them, should disgust you. Then pretending to recall his for- iiier quarrel wiili Caesar, he breaks uil abruptly with the words, ' you will be enraged a second time with my innocent iambics, general without peer'. VnJpins of Padua saw, as I have said, that this was the meaning of si non orirmia, and he has illustrated the ex|)ression from Cicero pro Sestio § 7 ut ille...si non oranem, at rdiquem partem maeroris sui deponeret. But tiie j)Lr ase may be illustrated by other passages which I have given in fuy note on Lucretius ill 406 Si non oiiinIiiiodi5, at magna parte aniniai Priuatus ; ii lui/ Si liiju omnia simt, at multo maxima pars est Consi- milis; Lucil i 33 Muell. Si non amplius, at lustrum hoc })rot .jleret iii! im. The at in these passages makes the antitliesis nK>re distinct, but it can hardly be necessary in a style iikt» tliat of Catullus. Schwabe, aful before him Doering, accept the expla- natji Ii f>f VulpiUd, bui/ like most of the editors they make more than one quite unnecessary altemtioii In the text. Th.uB nearly all omit the eM of v. i ; but the pa- renthesL? appears to me to add force to the expression ; .aiid parAiii theses are ii very marked feature of most Uitiii styles, as T have shewn in my Lucretius. With our present passage compare Seneca HippoL 35 At i ii C/^p.M, 54 i *L » Spartanos (genus est audax Auidumque ferae) nodo cautus Fropiore liga. Then in v. 2 Schwabe with most others changes rustice to rustica ; but the vocative is much more spirited and emphatic, the semilauta crura marking the coarse rustic. Of course I do not pretend that mj reading *Et, trirustice' is more than plausible; but I change but a single letter, and T and E are among the letters most frequently confused. With trirvaticus I would compare not only (rigewinics, but also Plautus' tiifuVf tri/urcifer, triparciis^ triuime/ica. It is poasible Catidlus wi'ote ter imstice ; it is quite possible too that a new name lurks in the manuscript reading, such as Ileri, which many adopt. But, I confess, I think that the passage Is more spirited without this third name, and that it is mora probable Catullus should speak uf Caesar and Fuficius as having the same relations with the same tA\Hi persons than with the same three. This point however must remain uncertain : on the general nkeaning of the whole poem I feel no uncertainty what- ever ; or rather I would say that i should have felt none, if so many distinguished scholars had not found it 80 unintelligible. I have not much to add to what I have reprinted above. The latest editor of the text Baelirens believes it like me to be one poem; but I confess he makes changes in the text which seem to me to be uimeces- sary. Ellis adheres to his former opinion: he gives four pleas for rejecting my arrangement, the third of which I wUl first examine: 'Even if we allow the first five lines to be consecutive, the aposiopesis before 'Irascero iterum' is immeasurably hai*sh, not to say unintelh- gible*. T leny that there is any 'aposiopesis* at all; L '' i. 128 CATVLLI wid I affirm that, so far from the transition being harsh or unintelligible, on it depends the main point of the poem : the poet in the first five linea makes his charge ; and then bethinking himself of tlie similar charges he had made in 29, and of the proconsul's wrath which it had excited, he says : Iraecere iterum meis iarabia In- merentibus, unice ivijyerator: the hist words at once recalling that poem and its imperator unice. What is there thii is harsh or unintelligible here ? Take the following transition, with an * aposiopesis' as well, in Cic. pro Mil. 33: De nostrum omnium — non audeo totum dicere. uidete quid ea uitii lex habitura fuerit, cuius periculosa etiam reprelicnsio est. There you have something harsh and, if not unintelligible, yet not to be cleared up by any one now living, while I think I have m.ade (Jatnlhis' meaning clear enough. Take again Mart. X 9 Vndenis pedibusque syllabisque Et multo Bale, nee tamen proteruo, Notus gentibus ille Martialis Et notus populis-— fpild inuidetis ? Non sum Andrae- mone notior caballo. Is that less harsh than our poem? His fourth plea is this: 'Nothing is gained by in- terpreting the poem as a complete whole': my answer is that 1 think something is gained. His first plea, like the fourth, seems merely to be a plea in mitigation of his ow! most singular arrangement: the Mss. repeat here (c'ls is by no means unusual with them) two Hnes which belong to another poem; therefore they may have also perpetrated the other enormities which he flakes them to be guilty of: but from which I have res(-ued them. The second plea does not touch at all my general argument: *The Mss point to a proper name'. I have fully admitted that they may; but my reasons for thinking they did not were a quite subordinate, or rather n quit-e indifierent, point iii the general argu- CARM. 54, 5 Fv r. J O <] ■ \ ments But wLv Et m'. the rp.-t/^ine of V, bhould not come its ca.sil^ from Et tri rustice^ as froiri ix propc^r name, I confess I do not see. The reiison I ha\'e sriven above for my reading is 'that it is more probable Catui- \u^^ mm.i\a speak of Caesar and Fuficius as having the same rekiions with the Siiine two persons tlian wiili the same thret-^, I now m;» ilxithur, and think it likely that CatulluBj using a peculiarity of syntax conimun iu J^tin, meant to say that Caefiar had such relati. >ris with Ot/io alone; Fuficias with Libo alone: conip. Mart ii *2 1 Creta iiedit maguum, nialu:i dedlt .Ifaca noraen, Scipio quod uictor ouodqiie Metellos iiabet; vi 13 7 Vt Maitis reuocetur amor summique tonanti^ A le luno petat eeston et ipsa Venus; xi 48 Silius haec magni celebrat monimenta Maronis, lugera facundi r|iii Ciceronis habet. Heredem dominumque mi tiimnJique larisque {so Mss, ue-ue editions) Non aiium mailet Nee Maru nee Cicero. T cannot say I approve of Baehrens* correction of V. 1; is not ^piisillum os' at the end of it an eiir;ioii unexampli I in Catullus? His correction of 4 L^ c*)- tainly not an obvious one: to confirm my own readiug I would cite, in adrlition to those given above, Cic. epist. XVI 24 1 A t lamma, si non potes omne, partem aliquam uehm extorqueas: where, an in Catuliiih (/ i^ absent. 55 1, 2 and 7—10 Oramus, si forte non molestum est, 2 demonstres ubi sint tuat tenebrae. ... 7 femelias omnes, amice, prendi, quas uultvi nidi tanien streno. I -J I M. C. 130 OATYLLI I» ii ucl te sic ipse flagitabam: 10 'Camerium Tnihi, pc'usimae puellae 8 wreno. 8cre>.u V. i> i!..s.=. ptrhopi usque, mde Bacirrn*. I win . xfu.iiii.- one sentence onl} of tKis involved and stiff i>oem, as nearly all the editors seem to have :„tnH{nc«i unu.'ces,-a y ai,d Lurtful changes there. . > seized hold of all t!-.. .venrhe", -wi.oni 1 Baw uotwith- Btandiiig we:ir an imtruubl.d countenance: ah, even so I contm'ii.Hl to aerurind vou of thein: Camprius I want, ? f, ,,.rl^' Ma.rt. u 1! 1 t>n,dfronte behum uubila ludes," linfc. <> T kfu-p tl.. Ms. reading which editors have .; liangHl i". very various ways. If any chanj^e is needed. T wotild simply road ' A ! te uel sic : l.ut tfdd iiaorpositiou of tc between uel and s-ic m not i dunk un.diomatic: c6mp. Tib. (Solpicia) iv 11 3 A! ego vu.n alitor tristes euincere m-^rbos Optarim quam te si quoque aeUe pnteni; Mail, in ! D 12 Xec sic in Tyna siuJ.me cdtus eris: i.e. ne in Tyria quidem smdonfe sic: IX 8 1* Diiexore priiu^ pueri. iuuenesque senesque; At nunc infantes te quoque, Caesar, amant: quoque has such a positioTi more than once in Lucretius: lllud m his quocpiG te rebus, tamen: though i thus seized upon tli-L,, th-v \vore quite untroubled, as if they knew themselves to be innocent. But Baehrens seems to me richt m assertuig that ipse has no meaning: Ellis says: 'with ray own lips"; but hov. fise could he ask? my vsque suits the hnperf jlagkabam well. 10 to iUustrate the omissi'.r. nf the verb, see my note on 10 25. ■ r CAEM. 55, 57 131" 67 Pulcre canuemt improbia dnaedis, Mamurme patlilccHji.ie Caesarique. nee niiruiu : maculae pares utrisque, urbana altera ^x ilia Formiana, 5 impressae re^ddenit nee eluentur: morbosi pariter, gemelli, utriqae uno in lectieulo, eiaditnli ambo, non hie c^uam ilie umgis uorax adulter, riuales sooiei pnellulanira. A 10 pulcre conuenit improbis cinaediB. 7 iecticulo Baehrens* Jec^nlo G uulgo. This short poem is on iJie sam^ theme, and rlisplays the same amazing impudence, as the 29th. All tlmt I^ have to say on the pei-soDril and liistorical (|acstions with which tlie)" deal hm bcM-n discussed ^o fuilj in my comments on that 2yth poem, that T am wholly dis- miss them here. I think it well worth while however to examme tlie structure of the poem itRclf, ns hj a better pimctuatioja I can, if I am not mibtoken, both add to its point and do away with, all occa^iou for tampering with the text which appears to be perfectly sound. And first I would say that in v. 7 the Iecticulo of O seems to me, as to Baehrens, to be ahiios^ certainly right, and to be one of the many gains for the text if Catullus which we owe to and to alone. I do not mean to say that the prosody of lectuld is iiniiosBible ; but no scholar will deny I think that Iecticulo gives us a rhythm far more in accordance with the technical rules which Catullus observes in his hendecasyllables. 9—2 V / A 132 CATVLLT But the fui'Mi m the word? The lu'o lirRt declensiuiis form their diininutives as a rule by tho addition of -id : uillula, inannulus, paruulus, paliiduiub, pueilus (pneriilus), and a multitude of likt forms : therefore *lectus, 4, lectulus ; pannus, -s |iuMniiiijs*, The tJiird adopts a leoi^^hened form. -!c?/'', Hometimes -ecui : cau- liculuH, eoliicuhis, tristiculus, nubecula, uulpecula and the like, The fcuitJi decltMisi* >ii jn thiR as in many otlier })oint3 follows the laws of tie iliird : uersiculus, artieuiuft, quaesticulus, anicula, inai.icula. corniculum. Now we learn from the lexicons that 'pannibus' is quotod from Ennius by Charisius, from Pomponius by NoniiiR it was therefore once of the 4th as well as the 2nd decl , and consequently we find 'pannlculus' as well as pannuliifl'. Ussing on Plant. Amph. 509 (513) cites Prisclan vi 73, who quotes Cornificius for the jciom. plur, lectus, and this passage of Plautus for the gen, sing, lectus, and he is supported in this by the Mss. of Plautus : lectits therefore was once of the 4th deoL and cfuiformably with this Catullus uses ' lecti- cuio'. 6 uiul 7 : The exact force and meaning of these two verses T have brought out by a punctuation differing from that of all the editors, who join 'gemelli utrique', or elBo have recourse to conjecture, Haupt reading tenelli Baehrens macelli, for the quite genuine gemeUi. 'Tainted nlike, true twin-brothers, both together on a single sofa, most learned witlings both'. Horace in his satires and epistles uses gemellus with much the same sarcastic force as Catullus and may have had him in his thoughts: we should compare too 100 ^ hoc est, quod dicitur iUud Fraternum uere duloe sodalicium; which shews tlie expression to be proverbial, utr. uno \n lect. . Cie^ In PW G7 Gra^ci stipati, quini in lectis, saej.^ CAKM. 57, 59 133 j'lnres, ipse solus; Mart. IV 40 5 Tecum ter denas i ii- meraui, Pontice, biuijias; Communis nobis iecta^ et unus erat. I would strengthen my argument on these two verses by calling in one whose aid J have often L^ voked already. Martial knew Catullus so thoroughly that I feel he had their words and rhythm in Km rnind when he wrote the last two lines of his ironical epigrain, XII 40; the last 7 verses of which I will eite: Succarms misero, precor, furori Et serues aliquando neglegenter Illos qui male oor meum perurunt, Quos et neetibus et diebus opto In nostro cupldus sinu uidere, Formosog, niueos, pares, gemellos. Grandee, non pueros, sed uni- ones. On v. 2 Ellis says ; * The que, joined as it k with pathico and tluia standing between Mamun-ae and Ca^mrique, distributes the vice equally to both*: I am quite unable to see how que does this ; it seems to me a simple instance of que joined with the 2nd instead of the 1st w^ord of the clause, a usage not uncommon in Lucretius and some other writers: comp, also 76 11 ^tque istinc teque reducis. I doubt too whether Catul- lus meMit pathico to refer at all to Caesar, tho' Schwabe also, quaest. p. 189, maintains it does. 1: Comp, Petron. 94 et ego iracundus sum et tu libidinosus ; uide quam non conueniat his moribus. 59 I : If rufulum is the true correction of tla ^Is. ru/um, 1 would read Bononiensis rufa rufulum fellat ujior Meneni. * -_# 134 CAKM. 59, 61 135 CATVLLI 1 feel pretty sine that rufaiB an epithet, not a wdine; for whiit point is there in the Iwu uatnes being the bcime ? 71/fus was a common tei m oi reproach : Ter. beaut. iOGl nifarrme illam iiirf^-iQem, Caesiam, cet. ; Plant. a^iiL ii :i '2n Mmmentm riialis, rufnlus, aliquan- turii ueiitr,h)8!i,H, cot.; Mart, ii 3:j ('ur mm basic te, l*iiilaeni? calua es: Cur iion ba«io te, Fhiiaeni? rufaes: cet, with II point at. tbe eini wiiieh recalls our verse, like the i*i>nipeian inscription 24:M rula, itauaJe, quare baaaleiaa. Mart, x ii :^2 i ii\i>v niia eriiiibfiH sepfeic; 54 Orine niber, liiger ore, cet.: ('atniiys himseU^ 67 -H» ne tuli.it rubra 8i.ii»erei.ha, imfulutu 1 thuuc^ht. of loner ago; ;uh1 KlfiK io^ I nee refer» to this word, tho' he retains the proper name. These rufuli, a peculiar kind of *tribuni militum', were often appointed through mere favour by generals or consuls; often too they were idle young men of fashion. I was prepared to illustrate the subject; but its elaborate treatment by Marquardt, 2nd ed. ii p. 353 foU., supersedes the necessity uf doing this. I think it however not improbable that the poet wrote *l\iiiuiii aiciit fellat*: the anvf might easily fall out between vm and/ 3 comp. Ter. eun. 491 E flarama petere te cibum posse arbitror. 61 W})at I chifefly wish to dwell upon at present in this long and charming epithalamium is a question with regard to its metre, a question not without inter- est, as much of the beauty of the poem depends on its gay and plastic rhythm. One of the most striking characteristics of this and of that other glyconic poem, \ the 34th, written in stanzas of four lines, is tlieir strict observance of the Greek law of the synaphia. Every verse of the stanza, except the last wnuch enci^ with a long or short at pleasure and takes no account what- ever of what follows, must end with along syllable, and a final vowel or m must not remain uiielidfHl beibre a vowel at the beginning of the next ver.se. Tlie obser- vance of this law by OatuUus gives to liis gly conies much of their charm and spirit; and itti neglect by Horace is in my opinion one of the gravest defects in his glyconics and asclepiads. It will be seen however that in his fourth book his rhythm does not depart so widely from this law, as in his earlier books. The 34th poem offers no metrical difficulty; but in our 61st all the recent editors without exception, obey- ing a ukase of Lachmann, have, greatly I think to the detriment of the poem, divided the stanza of five lines icto two of three and two lines respectively. The rea- son for 30 doing is the following: according to most, of their texts, in no less than 10 instances between v. 116 and 182 — and in one other case of which I will speak farther on — this law would otherwise be violated : mu- dum i O; abstine | O; eat | 0; seruiat i O; auimit j O; forem | 0; tibi | 0; magis | 0; uiri j 0; pueliulaiu I 0. In these verses too they change no les8 than 22 times the Ms. io into o: if this be right, it points to de- signed interpolation in our Mss., the motive for which is not easy to detect, I would moreover call attention to the fact, that in vss. 4, 5, 39, 40, 49, 50, 59, 60; as well a^ in vss. 5, 10, 19, 25, 31, 38, 48, and 66 of the other epithalamium, the 62nd poem, in all of which the metre requires o before Hymen or Hymenaee, the Mss. always give us o, never io. I would further ob- serve that if in the ten instances, enumemted above, i / > 136 CATVLIJ CARM. 61 137 nunc we will say were substituted for io, the rule of the fe/uaj^liia aii'i of the ioug tiual syllable wou]-1 W- observ- > -\ ill cvHry case: ift'.o in the line which always follows each of tUi..Hc ttu iiueb Bpecifu-d, a.s well a.s m v. 143 S !5i'), this nunc took the place of Io, {L,- collision be- t «-^, 11 w I would be avoided. For hku k this: while i;i ;M iiu' last line of che stanza, nnd m nnr G\ every oil, line, end quite indifferently with a lon^ or a short bvliabJo; Luna, Hyraenaee, nupta, etc.: this is never the case with the third verse of the stanza in 61 : here the nunc would always restore the synaphia in full'. I come now to the main point : in all the 22 verses, affected by it, I substitute Jo for Io ns iJuwes suggest- el ku.nu, two: Ell,, obseryes: rth rioting in regard to io : Y all the 1 1 times that the line * Io Hymen Hymenaee * recurs, axlded at the end another 'io*. This is strange, becaikHt? It Is not likely to have beeii interpolated in any manuscript which was written at a time when metre wim understood ; aiid on the other liand, when oui" archt tji'e V was written, the world was so entirely ignorant of Catullus' lyrical metres» that, tho' a scribe might by accident have taken it from the preceding verse once or twice, he is ih t likely to have done so consistently. But another equally curious fact is to be observed : all the four times that the verse 'O Hymen If vmenaee ' recurs, V added * Hymen ' at the end. I p )H< d to explain this curious double phenomenon an; ^lisno: as f i'hiws; this 'io' and this 'Hymen', thus placed extra metrum, perhaps were ? dded in this way to mark the fact that after each stanza ending ^itli ' ^ ITvmen liviiunaee' and with ^Jo Hvmen Hympnaee*, the chorus made a pause, and shouted in the one case * Hymen', in the other * io\ it may be in a louder tone, it may be more than once. This too makes it impossible in- my opinion to main- tain that our stanza of five lines is really two stanzas, of three and two lines r^pectively : one of the essential |)r the laws of synaphia, the latter is quite independent of them : Liuidissima maximeque | est profunda viorigo— Insulsisaimus cet. Now not only does the synaphia liold, as we have observed, between the 3rd and 4th vss. ,of uur stanza ; but where the same refrain is repeated four times over in the two last lines of the stanza, it ia introduced each time with exactly the same general run; as for instance in the first of these stanzas; Qui rapLs teneram ad virmn Virginem, o H}nienaee Hymeri, O iiyman Hymenaee, the stanza thus as it were ostentatiously proclaiming itself to be one and indivisible. The sole exception, or apparent exception, that re- mains to be considered, is in the last stanza but two : Sit suo Bunilis patri Manlio et facile insciis noscitetur ab omnibus et pudicitiam suae matris indicet ore* Dawes cures this by transposing omnibus and imciis : it is possible Catullus may have lengthened the em- phatic syllable of the verse, as Virgil has so often done with -us; it is possible too that some one of the cor- rections that have been made, such as obuiis or adueniSy may be the true reading ; for omnibus does not strike me as well suited to its place, and obuiis for instance might readily pass into an abbreviation of- omnibus: compare the double reading ohuia and omnia of G \n 64 109. Anvhow one apparent exception in nearly 50 e 140 CATVi.LI CARM. 61, 63 I * 1 stanzaa Is in my judgment quite insufficient to establish or to upset any law. Years ago I was surprised to see the last two lines of tli(^ staiiz?!. just quoted quite misunderstood m Ellis' tranFlatinn: ^Mothers chastity moulded in Features iMiUv It veahng'. The true meaning ought to be be- yonc! (!;spute : however, as a confirmation of that mean- ing, i jotted down Martial s imitation, vi 27 3, Est tibi, nuae patria signatur imagine uoltus, Testis ma- tvnvie nata pudicitiae ; and this passage J ailerwards 1* liii i W8R o-iven by Mr Cranstoun in ilTustration of his coiTect and spirited translation. My surprise is now increased to find these very hues cited by Ellis in sup- port of his wrong explanation, to which they are quite irrelevant : Sucte is em] imtic, a mother truly his own, [ -riiaps with some notion of the son repeating the mo- ther's features, as the daughter the fHther\s. Lucr. iv 1226' : the wunU uf course mean simply: let him bear witness to his un^iliers chastity by shewiiig in his face ti sir nil- Ifkeiie.s;:^ lu lik father and thus provino- himself Uj !,t' liiH iltthers son. His note too on 201 is not cor- rect, and his illusti-utions are irrelevant: *Subducat prius qui uolt' is not 'unusual'. There is no protasis mid apodosis here, and SiibduccU ib not a * strict sub- junvtiv, ', but a simple imperative : 'Let him who wills ^" «:'eko'^i up your joys, fir-st tAikp the rale of the Biiruh and t lift 8f arR'. ] ] i Toilite, o pueri : niirely o should be kidded, not en with Baehrens: it is uiuy another in- ^•tance of the ever-i-eciirring confiision of ^ and o in our Mss. to wiiioh J have so often dnnvn attention: m the very ne^t line has tiido for uideo, where the e is ab- sorbed in o. 1 J o9 r(?nf Beo^Vy i^oi-Teq TTpoo'TrjdiiyLa koI tvttov^: ib.id, (nT^cr-iike vtavi- CTKOV'^.. hiaa-Kivdaa^ (Is I'.iAAou?, per' avkr^Toji' u' yvvai- Keiat^ crroXatS' €^(n'Tas rvprrara Kal rr-oi.^^': COmp. too the very odd story Und id' Anacharsis h) Htjmdotns yt 9: TTJP GpTTJV TraO'CLP cVcTiAtt Tjj Oc^, TVfJLTTapd T€ Cyn)^ Kak e.»c<)>]cra/x€i'os dydX.para, and the iiJiiuiiiou by Clemens Alex qri/ted by Wessehng. The plural Tvirot, is used i)i the CJaili; and 1 init-T tliat iIh» ivnoi wtnc chiefly medallions of Cybele and Attiii. Now Att>i naturally would wear only a medalhon of Cybele, which he would haiig round Mf^ neck or perhaps on his left wrist: comp. Huet Domit. 4 cert^uiiini prae8edit...capit6 gestans coro- iiairi aureain enm elii<^ie iouis a€ Iimonis Minoniaeque, adsidenti! IIS Diali sacerdote et coiiegio Fiauialium pari hnhitu, fii^i (luud illoi^m coronis inerat et nmH^ ijunqo. typos \< found in Oic. ad Att. I 10 3, written 67 B.a: the stnuige typiim or tupum woidd latarally be cor- rupted into a Latin word: thus in Oia L I M has lypos, wliicL Ieiisc;«ii's edition turns into Uppos; arid m Pliny XXX r 1 5 1 the Ikunb. has tyriim for typurrL Suidaii s. u. i CARM. TnI 1 4 3 TVTralg has l^o^Ta Ty/xTia^^a /caf timd^: T had something to say on this; but shall refrain. The 'typanimi ac typum' suits * tua initia* better than 'typanum* by itself. ib. 74—77 Roseis ut hie iabellis sonitus citus adiit gerainaa deae tarn ad auris noua nuntia referens, ibi iuncta iuga resoluens Cybele leonibus laeuumque i>ecoris hostem stiraulans ita loquitur. 74 hie. lime V. citus addidit Bergk. Bonus editus Troelichy Schuabe. perhapa sonus excitus. 75 deae tarn ad •cripsi, deorum ad Y. 77 peooris uetus conectio, pectoris V, In 74 perhaps Bergk's citus is the simplest diplo- matic correction, tho' i am not certain that CatiiJJus would have used citus as a partic. But Froelich's sonus editus is also an easy correction, as well as my sonus excitus, and Catullus elsewhere uses excitus no less than three times. In 75 not a few violent corrections have been made, which may be seen in the notes of various editions. I feel confident that Geminas comes from the poet himseli*: my dm Uxra for deorum is certainly not a violent change, when we bear in mind, what I have so often insisted upon, the almost chronic way in v/hich our Mss. interchange o and e, t and r: 'Whan these sounds, uttered from his rosy lips, carne bringing with them to the two ears of the goddess tidings so strange and novel'. With *deae — Cybele' comp. 3 dene, 9 Cy belles, geminas auris is very idiomatic : 51 10 sonitu suopte Tintinant aures gemina©^: Ovid has * Auribus * I cannot enough wonder ai Ellis' continued retention of the absurd gtmina^ and all to save the change of an a to an ^ in our Mss, )'m\ I /' 1.44 CATVLU U ! e gemmifl', and *gemina8 n mus'; tlie Culex, which often imitates CatuUus, 148 ' ^^n^^^ aures';^ Virgil ' Temporibus geminis' : Martial 'gemiDas manus\ 64 1—28 Pellaco quondam prognatae uertice piniis diciintur liquiday Neptuni nasse per undas Phasidi»i5 ad fluetus et fines Aeeteos, cum lecti innenes, Argiuae robord pubis, 5 aiirataiM optantes Colchie auertere pellem a LSI Bimt uada salsa cita decurrere puppi, caenilii u^^rrentes abiegnis anqMora iialmis. diua r|ull)iis retinens in eummis urbibus arces ipsa. K'ul f\:(Mt. violitant^m rlamme cnrruui, lu |unr:i c:)ifiangen3 inilexae texu^. curliiae, iila n!»'!<'in ciiffu |)rima imljiiit /ufi[s!iitriten. quae simul ac rodtro uentosiiro proscidit aequor, t* rraque remigio spumis incanduit unda, emei-sere freti candenti e gurgite iiviltuPN 15 aequoreae monstrum Nereides adniirantes. iliac (quaque tdia?) Uideiunt luce niarinas mortalea oculis nudato corpore Nymplias Tiiitricum tenus extantess e gurorite cano. turn rhetidis Peleus incensus fprtiir aniore, 2U tuifi T!u tLs iiumanob nun despexit hymenaeos, turn 'rill tidi pater ipso iugandutn Pelea sensit. o nmiis )ptato saeclorurn tempore nati herlK^s, Baiuete, deum gens, o bona matruni 53* progenies, saluete W^^Tumque iterwmque, honavxim : uos eo'O Baepe men i.ior cariiitne coinpellabo, teque adeo exiniie taedis trlieibus aiifU- llieRsaliae columen i^eleu, cui luppiter ip .^^6, \ S CARM. 64 145 ipse SU08 diuuin genitor concessit amores. tene Thetis tenuit pulcherrima Nereine? u.lcre\. 23 gens .eS*;. F,^<«,. genus V. ««i<,o. matrum «cAoJ. Faron. mater : al. matre s^pjrscr. G. mater 0. 23 h oems be token into consideration; and, tho' all hia innovations may not be improvements, Virgil's obliga- tions to him are by no means insignificant. That he has effected these improvements mainly 1 v a careful study, and bj a jiartial adoption, of tlie rhvthm of the Greek heroic, will not escape any competent observer. I v.ii! call attention here to one point only, which I have never seen noticed by any one else. One of the most striking features of the Greek hexameter, which marks the verses of all poets alike from Homer to Nonnus, is the free use of trociiyic cadences in the first half of the verse and tlie systematic avoidance of them ill the middle of the fourth dactyl: Avn? j eVctra | ttc- Soi^Se [ Kv\ivh^7o Xdas dvaiSyj^;, Virgil and other careful wi'iters of Latin verse employ this trochaic rhythm very much less than the Greeks do, in the first part of til 6 verse. But on the other hand they, most of them, do not shun this trochaic rhythm in the middle ot the fourth dactyl: auditque uocatus Apollo— uolu- crique simiUima somno; tho' the Greeks, unless in the most exceptional circumstances, entirely reject this cadence. And Catullus too never once admits it in liis two hexameter poems, containing between them 474 verses. Ennius is careless enough in this as in many other matters: he has this cadence some 25 times in about 500 verses, Lucretius avoids it most in his is much fftrtLer from the Mss. tbaQ Mommsen's; and hi. whole explanation thwarts completely in my judgment the plain sense of PlinV. words. By agnosciB et hoc castrense uerbum' Vlhvy «imply means ^in^his term con- Urraneus too (as in other terms which I have employe.l in lormeF letters to yon) yon ^il recognise a word of the camp'. Again, tho' to us Cutnllns' elegiacs may he haraher than his hendecasyUablcs, it does not foUow that they r ^) 1 ^ ii . . ^ i \. ■f i CAX.il. 64, 65 ]53 most poetical and most careftiUy written parts. Cicero, unless I am mistaken, throughout about 750 verses always observes thw Greek rule, except once only: Cum caeloque simul noctesque ! diesque fenmtiir: and 'noctesque diesque' may be almost regarded as a single word. Ovid uses this cadence very freely, much more freely than Virgil: he has 70 instances in the 778 lines of Metam. r. Perhaps the more careful Latin poets so often employ this cadence, because ihey dislike, or seldom use, what is with the Greeks the most favourite of all rhythms : Aeternum frangenda bidentibus : omne leuandum; and words like 'bidentibus', 'simillima'. etc. can hardly be brought into the verse, without employ- ing one or other of these two rhythms. Where how- ever he has Greek names to deal with, Virgil luxuriates in this Greek cadence: in Geor. xv 336—343 he has four instances of it within eight verses, and again in 463 Atque Getae atque Hebrus et Actias Orithvia^ 65 1—18 Etsi me assiduo defectum cura dolore seuocat a doctis, Ortale, uirginibus, nee potis est duleis Musarum expromere fetus mens animi (tantis fluctuat ipsa malis : ^ We can hardly be wrong in assaming that CatuUus, in respect of the hciameter as weU as of his other metres, would take counsel with Ciana and Caivu8. Pseudo-Probus p. 226 5 Keil: u syllaba nominatiui casus breuis est masculino siue feminino genere atque communi..; feminino. nt Oaluus in lo *Frigida iam celeris nergatur. nistinis ora': so the Ms. 'oeleri poragrata Borystheuis ora» Parrhasius. 'fortasse celeri superata' Keil. This makes Calvns violate the law which CatuUue obeerves so carefully. Why not rather * celeri superatnr Bistonis ora', or something such? By this we shall also save the credit of the poor grammarian, whom the other readings impeach oi most scandalous ignorance, as a feminiiie nominative ia the cause of his quoUng the verso. y t54 CATVI.JJ CARM. 65 a 55 5 immqne mel nuper Lethaeo gurgite fratris |)aiii(iuJum raanans alluit unda pedem, Troia Kboeteo quern eubter litore tellus ereptiirii nostris obterit ex oculis. numqufim ego te priinae mihi ademplum in flore iuuentae. 10 riiii!it|tiarii ego te, uita frater amabilior, aspiciam posrhac. at certe semper amabo, semper inaesta tiia cannina morte canaio, qualia. sub deasis rainorum concinit unibris Daulias absumpti fata gemens Itylei): 15 sed tamen in tantis maeroribus, Ortale, mitto haec expressa tibi carmina Battiadae, ne tua dicta uagis nequiqiiam credita uontis efiiuxisse meo forte putes aiiiino. 1 confectam G. 2 Seuocat Jfrt^, «u/f?o. Sed nacaf V. Deaocat i?a€Areni. 3 dalcisfiimus horam V. 9 om. V. 12 morte canam itali, morte tegam V. The Ortalus here addressed is probably the famous orator Q. HorteDsius Ortalus, the friend and rival of Cicero, whose name Ilortensius by some strange freak of chance has got mixed up with our 95th poem. Our present poem must have been composed much about the same time as 68 a, and probably at Verona, where that poem was written, in his fathers house we may surely assume. He has no books to send to Manliua and ^viJi j|.r ^vrite him love-poems. But we see he is ready to divert his sorrow by translating for Ortalus CallimacliiLs' Coma Berenices. 9 : The verse I have given probably comes pretty aear the sense of the one which is lost : if its com- mencement .vas the same as 10, its falling out can readily be accounted for. The strange 'Datanus' has a barbarous ungrammatica; laterpolation ; AUoquar, au- diero numquam tua loquentem : which EUis in my opinion vainly tries to explain. 1 2 iiiirte canam : this seems a certain correction of the Ms. 'morte tegam': from the great simUarity of letters canam becanie mm, and the te of morte was attached to it to make a word.' This phenomenon is common in our and in all Mas.: comp. 3 Mulcissimus harum' for 'dulcis Musanim': still better 76 1 1 animiun offirmas : anmio offirmas V : I might give 20 instances of syllables wrongly doubled : see 68 91 where I propose *Quae taetre' for'^'Que uetet' of Mss.: 58 5 magnanimi Remi: magna amiremini O. Plant. Trm. 540 Sues mortuntur angina aoerrime : ? an- gina taeterrime: first ^teterrime' became ^terrlme'; and then the a of angina attached itself to make a word \ I am really sorry to see Ellis retain ^ tegam': this is his note: 'tegam, I will muffle or veU in silence. That this is the meaning is sliown by the comparison with the nightingale singing veiled from sight amid the leaves'. As if the nightingale ever muffled or veiled in silence its song, or a^ if Hegam carmina' had any meaning at all Why, the shrill ringing out of the nightingale's notes, their filling the air with sound, is the prime notion the poets cormect with its music : Qiiolis populea maerens philomela sub umbra Amwsos queritur fetus,.. at ilia Flet noctem ramoque sedens miserabile carmen Integrat et maeslis late loca quesfi- his tmplet: comp. this with 12 and 13 of our poem. Nay Homer, whom Catullus had in mind, refutes Lira too: dr)Za>p KaXoj^ d€L8r}crLt^,.,A€pSp€0)v ii r:€rdkoi(ji Ka6€iofi€i^r) TTVKivolaiv, "Hre l9a/xa rpwrraicra x€€l tto^ kvr^x^a ff>o)VT]v, HalS' 6\o(Pvpofi€urj ''ItvXop SIKoi.: 'muffle or veil in silence'!: comp. too Sen. Agara 670; Here. Oet. 199. ^ Comp. my ' lilw quaqu* ' for ♦ Hla atqiw ' in 64 ^6. I- 156 CATVLLI \ GG 15—18 E-stne TiDViiQ uuptis odio Venus? an quod auentum frnstrantur falsis gaudia lacrimulis, lil^ortifii tlialaiiii quas intra iimina iunduut \ non, ita me diui, uera gemunt, iuerint. 15 an quod aaentnm scHp^t. atqne parentum Y. anne parentam uulgo, anne paueufces Biiehrens, There is much that h harsh and obscure in this poem, tliu translation of an original which no doubt "was itself somewhat involved. T inten«1 however to touch only on a very few points. 1 5 : That pareriturn has no jjlaee here h to me a self-evident fact, which Bati t IS has rightly acknowledged; tho' I think his correction by no means a happy one. Manifestly the 'liusbaiKi^' must take the place of the 'parents'; and my corn^ctioii is I think I'eallv nearer V than ii^ the vulgate * anne parentum': I iaivt r; r and over again called attention to the astonishing frequency with which and e are interchanged in our Mss. : the confusion be- tween {/ aiiil jj^ which occasionally occurs, probably goes back to some original wiitton in uncials or in capitals: 16 i and 14 Pedicabo. iiodiea.bo V. 21 9 LJ tyi... lyai V. (i4 iu4 c^iioeepiusuccendit \ . t hi? correction by Statins is ad I teii by all recent editors except Ellis alone. 10 7 (|uoiiiodo Be. quomo posse 0. liiii (i/i quod {an quia) is an elliptical expression for an cojif 'juud, much resembhng the quod tor quod... hM fit quod, which I have explained and illustrated at 10 28. It recurs below in v. 31 Quis te in utauit tan- tiis (ieus ? ail quod amantes Non longe a caro corpore abcbsc uuiunt?: the phrase is a favourite one with CARM. 66 157 Terence : hec. 662 Censen te posse reperlre ullam mnli- erem Qu;ie careat culpa? an quia non delincinit iiiri? 784 Quid mihi istaec narras ? an quia non tute duduiji audisti? i'horm. 602; eun. 907: m heaut. 505 we have the full form : an eo jSt, quia re in nostra aut gaudio Sumus praepediti nimio aut aegritudine ? 18 is one of those very harsh collocations of words, of which T have given other examples from Catullus, a^ below, vss. 40 and 41. 77 Quicum ego, dum ulrgo quondam fuit, omnibus expers unguentis, una mllia multa bibl I have never felt much doubt that the sole corruj)- tion in these two verses lies in the w id expers, for which we want a word with the exactly opposite mean- ing, 'abounding' 'steeped in'. {j( tiie numerous cor- rections which have been made, the best seems to be Doering s, who often takes a straightforward common- sense view of a corrupt passage : omnibus explens Se unguentis: perhaps 'explens Vnguentis se' would be slightly nearer the Mss. : ' mia I think should cer- tainly not be tampered with. 93 Sidera corruerint, utinara coma regia fiam I proximus Hydrochoi fulgeret Oarion. 93 corruerint Lachmunn, cur iterent V, EUis rightly statues the essential meaning of these verses ; but I don't think he explains correctly the con- struction, in which there is nothing irregidar : ' Tho' the stars shall all have to tumble down for it, T pray 1 may become again a royal lock. Orion, if he hked, might then shine next to Aquarius': all the stars between l^g CATVLLI CARM r^6, 67 159 them having flillen down, to let the look make its escape among them, fuhjeret is an instance of that use of the imperf. and pluperf. subj. which Madvig (de fin. II 35) illustrates from Cicero and others, and of which I have collected numerous examples from Virgil and ()vitl : Obruerent Rutuli teHs ! animam ipse dedissem ! Atque haec pompa domum me, non PalLanta, referret ! : cor^nierent cannot well be right, fyclgeret : v. 61 fuJge- remus : Lucr. varies the conjugation in the same way : Virgil in the in£ has only fnlgere, effulgSre.feruire. 67 dulci iucunda uiro, iucunda parenti, sal lie, teque bona luppiter auct^t ope, ianua, quam Balbo dicunt seruisse benigne olim, cum sedes ipse senex tenuit, 5 quamque ferunt rursus uoto seruisse maligne, r^ostquara es porrecto facta marita sene : die agedum nobis, quare n in tat a feiaiis ill dorninum uetei'em deseruis^e fidem. *non (ita Caecilio placcam cm rmdita nunc sum) culpa niiM est, quamquam dicitur esse mea, nee pec(?atu!ii a me quisquaiii [xite dicere quicquam; uuruiii ^iHtii purujli lanua },ie tacit. qui, quacumque ahquid reperitur non bene factum, ad me omnes clamant . ianna, iai!p;i tu<* est'. 15 mm. iMuQ aatis est uno te dicere va^,^rho, ned lacere ut quiuis sentiat et uideat. *(|Ui pc].s8iioi ^ nemo quaerit nee scire laborat*. nos uolumus : nobis dicere ne dubita, priniuiri igitur, lurgo quod ieriiir tradita nobis, ialbiim est. non illam uirpriui attigerit. 10 20 i / I 30 languidior tenera cui pendens sicula beta numquam se mediam sustulit ad tiiiiicam : sed pater illius gnati uiolasse cubile ^ dicitur et miseram conscelerasse dninunu- 25 sine quod impia mens caeco flagrabat amore, seu quod iners sterili semine natus erat/ ut quaerendum unde uride fbret neruosius ill ,d quod posset zonam soluere uirgineam'. egregium narras mira pietate parentem, qui ipse sui gnati niinxerit in gremium. ' atqui non solum hoc dicit se cognitum habere Brixia chinea suppositum specula, flauus quam molli percurrit flumine Mella, Brixia Veronae mater amata meae, 35 sed de Postumio et Comeli narrat amore, cum quibus ilia n^aJum fecit adulterium. dixerit hie aHquis : qui tu isthaec, ianua, nosti, cui numquam domini limine abease hcet, Dec populum auscultare, sed hie suffixa tigillo tantum operire soles aut aperire domum ? saepe illam audiui furtiua uoce loquentem solam cum anciUis haec sua flagitia, nomine dicentem quos diximus, ut pote quae mi speraret nee linguam esse nee auriculam. 45 pra^terea addebat quendam, quern dicere nolo nomine, ne toUat rubra supercilia, longus homo est, magnas quoi Htes mtulit ohm falsum mendaci uentre puerperium'. quaerenduB unde V. « nnde LaC^nann. 31 hoc dicit se 0. Baekrens. se dicit C. hoc se dieit uul,o. 32 is corrupt, 37-^0 Schy;abe, Baehren^give to Catullus. This oddlj humourous poem has greatly perplexed] the commentators. Muretus says : stultum est, quae 40 / 160 CATVLLI ) ito sciipsit Catiillus ut ne turn quidem nisi a paucis quibus hae i-es cognitae essent uoluerit intelligi, ea se queinqiinin hodie credere coniectura assecutiinim ; while Tumebus adv. xvi 1 calls it * aeqiie ac folium Sibyllae obscurun? ♦ t tciiebrieosuin' and refers it to Clodia and her liusbaiid Caecilius Metellus I Schwabe i p. 346 quotes the words I have cited and admits their truth : he does not expect to clear away the difficulties of the poem . liuc^ non id agimus ut tenebras omnes nostris explicationibus dispellamus, sed ut nor? FiuIIos saltern eiTores quos interpretee superiores non euitanmt eflu- gere conemur • and certainly his theory strikes me as involved and improbable.' Ellis begins by saying ' that the <'t»ciiritie3 which surround this poem are so con- siderable that it seems hopeless to do more than sketch in outline tlie story which it contains, leaving the sub- ordinate points undecided' ; and his comments through- out blit:;\v iiis utter embarrassment. 1 may be under a strange hallucination; but for years the poem has seemed to me quite simple and in- telligible. Two lines, 12 and 32, the former of which I have attempted to correct, the latter I have left un- touched, nrt^ so Corrupt that the text must remain un- certain ; but they do not obscure in the least the genei-al meaning u^' the poem, t will first briefly state its sub- ject; next I A'ill give a paraphrase of the whole, which wnll mask iLe coarsenesses without detriment to the sense; I ^viil then add such critical and exegetical com- ments as Bia) Beem advisable. I may say that I have now before me a letter, in which two years ago 1 gave to Professor Sellar the same explanation as that which I now oti'er. This is a dialogue carried on in Verona between the Pitt anrt the door of a house in that citv. This house X CARM. ^1 161 had been in good repute, while it was owned by a worthy widower, Caecilius Balbus the eider, now dead. It waa now in the possession of his son and heir, Caecilius Balbus the younger. He was a worthy man like his father; but the house had forfeited its good name; for tliis Caecihus had married after his father s de^th. Tho wife had lived in Brixia with a former husband; but when she entered Caecilius' house in Verona, she wa^ believed to be a maid. It was not so: the former hus- band it is tine had not consummated the raamage; but that husband s father had debauched his own daughter- in-law, either through foul lust or from a wish to gee an heir for his son. BrLxia saw and can tell of this; yes, and of many other deeds of shame. Tho door learnt all this r>y often overhearing her recounting to her maids these enomu'ties. 1 — 8 : (Catullus) O door, may heaven shower all its blessings upon you, door, well-pleasing to the husband and master of the house, well-pleasing too to liis father before him: you are reported to have served old Balbus well and firithfuUy ere^vhile, when he was master in the house; but then on the other hand it is told of you that you have carried out but scurvilv his wish and prayer, when the old man was in his coffin and you had come to be a bridal door. Tell us why yo)i fure so chiUJgc^d, it is said, as to have reiiounced your old loyalty to yoiir lord. — 9 — 14 (Door hx].) As I hope to please Cat-oi- lius to whom I now belong, tlie fault is not mine, tho' it L3 said to be mine; and no man can pretend that I have done any wrong; and yet through the people's un- derh"ind xnalice the door forsooth is brouglit in guilty. For when aught is found anyhow to turn out wrong, they all call out at me *Door, the fault is yours'. — 15 and IG (C.) It won't do merely to say that; you must M. c. 11 .-*'^ // ' 162 CATVLLI make the world feel it and see it too. — 17 (iJ.; iiuw can J? I iolxxly asks or cares to know. — 18 (C.) Y( k, T do: don t hesitate to tell me.— 19— 28 (D.) Well then, to begin with tliis, the story is false, that she was hand- ed over to us a maid. Her first husband, it is true, is not likely to have touched her, for he was incapable; but the father of that husband is Siiid to have violated the bed of his son and to have plunged into guilt the unblest house, either because his sinful mind burned with unlawful passion, or because he wished to beget an heir for his son. — 29 and 30 (C.) An exemplaiy father this, of whom you tell, to cuckold his own son! — 31 — 48 (D.) Yes, and, Biixia tells us, this is not the only sin of that woman's which she has espied from her overlooking height, BrLxia whom the yellow Molla tra- verses with his gentle stre<'mi, BrixiJi loved, mother of Verona mine. She has to spoak of Postumiiis a^i well, and of the intrigue with Cornelius, with both of whom the woman coramitted foul adultery. Should a])y one ask, *Poor, Low do you know all this, who never may be away from j^our master s threshold, nor overhear the people; but, fastened here to the post, have for sole duty to open up or close the house?' my answer is that 1 have often he^rd her talking in stealthy tones, alone to her maids, of these scandals of hers, and mentioning by name those whom I have mentioned, hoping the while that I had neither tongue nor ear. To these lovers she used to join one more, whom I do not choose to name, lest lie up with his red eyebrows. IJe is the long fellow who got erewhile into such a costly kw- business by that tramped up case of lying in with its mendacious birth. I do not know how this statement of the case may strike others : to me it is quite simple and intelligible. \ CAIIM. 67 t}0 I must now append some comments and exilanations, i iucunda to me of course is not * ironical'. 5 maligne ; another great and undoubted service which O lu-is con- ferred on Catullus. As I have already so often ubsen el and shall hereafter have cause to observe, no letters are so perpetually confused in our Mss. as o and e : 77 1 amice O, rightly, amico G; 76 11 instincteque O, iii^ stinctoque G : istinc teque I believe is to be read, uoto I think is right, tho' Froelich s nato may be simpler, and a and o, u and n are often confused. I teke lioto to express the old man s dying wish, Baehrenn e n- jecture 7iatae proves he does not apprehend the poem as I do. 6 marita : Schwabe well illustrates this from Livy XXVII 31 5 per maritas domos: comp. too Mart, X 19 12 Sed ne tempore non tuo disertam Pulses ebria ianuam uideto. 12 Every one I presume will have his own conjec- ture for this verse. Certainly the older corrections, in- cluding Lachmann's, are far too venturesome: istiiLS and qui te the metre declares to be corrupt; all the other words in the line appear to me quite genuine. Tho' I offer my own corrections with diflSdence, T do not tliink they are wide of the Ms. reading : with astu comp. Plaut. Pers. 148 praecipe astu filiae Quid falii- letur : if quippe be written with one p it will readily pass into qui te : comp. 14 15 oppinio for optimo, 62 54 apsi T for at si, 64 tuignare T hr pugnarc. Compare with its use here some words from the striking passage in Cic. pro Mil. 33 mouet me quippe lumen curiae, said in bitter irony of Sex. Clodius. Baehrens' est uox and cuncta are rather wide of the Mss. Ellis* est as cannot mean sermo est : in the passage from Cicero wliich he cites in his Ist volume, os means * impudence' *iaco' : a common sense, as Mart ix 91 2 03 hominis! In the 11—2 \ X 164 OATVLLT CARM. 67 1«S passage from Persius *os populi merun^ means *me- raisse in ore populi esse', * to be in the mouths' 'on the tongues of men* : quite another thing. As I hold it to be certain that Catullus waB named Gaius, not Quintus, of course i think Quinte false : it is in vain to appeal to Scaliger, Lachmann and Haupt, as they were without tiie convincing evidence which we possess. But this question of name has been fully discussed elsewhere, facit : facio ls used thousands uf times in Latin without an object : in my Lucretius 1 have given many examples: comp. too Virgil 8 Me me adsum qui feci; Sen. coutrou. I 1 19 non feci; 7 14 sciebam eiiim piratas non facturos; Martial's witty epigram ix 15 Inscripsit tumulis septem scelerata pirorum Se fecisse Chloe; x 75 13 fecit; xii 63 8 Ferrem, si faceret bonus poeta. 17 this reading, which Ellis has adopted, seems to rno too the best : querendus for quaerendum is an in- stance of that very common confusion in our Mss. be- tween final m and s of which T have already spoken more than once. 32 the reading must remain uncer- tain here, as no one can tell whether chinea is corrupt; or, if it be cornjpt, what word we are to substitute for it : specida must denote some Height, mth or without a watch-tower on it, which overlooked Brixia. But .w.p- podia ennnot. as Ellis will have it, be followed by an abl. instead of a dative : the commonly accepted * sup- posita speculae* is not a very violent con-ection. Yet I feci that an abh too is wanted, and that chinea is probably the corrupti^^wi of some simple epithet. If so, c:mnot a dat.be then understood? ^supposita ei specalae\ * Brixia uicina suppositi ab [au] specula' would not be so wide of the Ms. 'chinea suppositu specula': Virgil has * specula ab alta' twice. On the next two verses, about the present or past course of the Melia, why \ Brixia is called Verona's mother, I have nothing new to tell ; but can only refer to Ellis, to Vulpius and the multitudinous older Italian authorities whom the latter appeals to. The scholars of Verona, of Padua and otht r Venetian cities looked on it as a piece of impertinence for a second-rate Lombard town like t >rescia to claim to be mother of their own Verona. 34 the door may well say * Veronae meae'; and yet perhaps Catullus was unconsciously thinking of himselfl 35 and 36 Ovid, sj[)eaking there of Catullus, iia,d the Language aild the meaning of these two verses iu his thoughts, when he wrote trist. n 429 Nee contentua ea, multos uulgauit amores In quibus ipsa suum fessus adulterium est : in the second line he adopts the Catul- lian rhythm, and not his own : Fassus adulteriumst in quibus ipse suum. 37 — 40 are given to Catullus by Schwabe, followed by Baehrens; but I prefer the old arrangement which leaves them to the door, 44 Speraret: grammar and metre alike call for this reading, which G and in- directly point to: 'speret' ought not to be defended 46 comp, Petron. 91 supercilium altius sustulit, rubra: this refers to the colour of the hair, so common a re- proach with the Romans : comp. 59 1 Bononiensis rufa, and my illustrations there, and Mart, xii 54 Crine ruber, niger ore, breuis pede, lumine laesus. 47 and 48 : see Ellis, who means I presume tliat iA vexatious action was brought against the iiiaii for the *stuprum* of a free virgin or widow Before the Julian law on the subject, proceedings at Rome against a man for 'stuprum* were so uncertain and variable, that I am loth to give any opinion. Certainly a Roman iiad such perfect liberty to own or disown a child, that none could be fathered on him against his will ; and 1 do not \ 146 CATVLU CARM, 67, 68 167 see fur instance what all this parade of a fictitious lying in coulcl (fleet, more than the tsimple oath of tlie woman or of otlitrb that she had been debauched or outraged- Upon the other theory which Ellis cpmbats, we roight imai^ine it to be a trick for evading the lex Voconia : eiilier (he man^s father and mother, having no son, in order not to forgo the property of the mother's father had got up this fictitious lying in and asserted the sup- posititious child was their own ; or else this man was tlie f lUiir who, with his wife, played the saiue. trirh in order to keep the property of the wife^s father. In either case the *gentilis* or nearest agnate would bring the action, and Cat. 68 120 — 123 would be in point: Vna caput seri nata nepotis alit, Qui cum diuitiis uix taridem inuentus auitis Nomen testatas intulit in tabu- las, Impia derisi gentihs gaudia tollens. ohm perhaps tells fc)r the first of these two hypotheses, venter has the meaning which it has iu Horace, quoted by Ellis. 10 68 a Qnod mihi fortuna casuque oppressus acer bo conscriptum hoc lacrimis mittis epistollum, naufnigum ut eiectum spumantibus aequorLs undis 8ul)leu6m et a mortis limine restituam,. quern neque sancta Venus moUi requiescere somno desert nm in h cto caelibe perpetitur, nee ueterum du'ci scrip torum carmine Musae oblectant, cum mens anxia peruigilat : id gratum est mihi, me quoniam tibi dicis amicum muneraque et Musarum hinc petis et Veneris. sed tibi ne mea sint ignota incommoda, Manli, Tieu me odisse putes hospitis officium, ifc accipe, quis merser fortunae fluctibus ipse, ne amplius a misero dona beata petas. 15 tempore quo primum uestis mihi tradita pura est, iucundum cum aetas florida uer ageret, multa satis lusi ; non est dea nescia nostri, quae dulcem curis miscet amaritiem. sed totum hoc studium luctu fraterna mihi mors 20 abstulit. o misero frater adempte mihi, tu mea tu moriena firegisti commoda, frater, tecum una tota est nostra sepulta domus, onmia tecum una perierunt gaudia nostra, quae tuus in mta dulcis alebat amor. 25 cuius ego interitu tota de mente fugaiu haec studia atque omnes delicias foiimi. quare, quod scribis ' Veronae turpe, Catulle, esse, quod hie, quisquis de meliore notast, frigid a deserto tepefecit membra cubili': id, Manli, non est turpe, magis miserum est, ignosces igitur si, quae mild luctus ademit, haec tibi non tribuo munera, cum nequeOe nam, quod scriptonim non magna est copia apud mo, hoc fit, quod Iloma.e uiulraus . ilia domus, 35 ilia mihi sedes, ilHc mea carpi tur aetas: hue una ex multis capsula me sequitur. quod cum ita sit, nolim statuas nos mente maligna id facere aut animo non satis ingenuo, quod tibi non utriusque petenti copia praestost: 40 ultro ego deferrem, copia si qua foret. 11 Manli. mali V, 27 CatuUe V, rightly. Catullo all editors. 28 nota est Perreitis. nota V. 29 tepefecit scripsi. tepcfacit Y. tepefaxit uel tepefactet uulgo. 30 Manli. mali V. 39 praeato est Froelich. posta est V, facta uel parta uel porcta iiel aperta alii. I have not hesitated to print the whole of this poem, as well as the next and longer one, because I believe 30 \ \ 168 CATVLU that J have sojiiethiiig to say about them worth sapng m addition to so much that has been aJready well said by others, and that these two poems are of some mo- ment i'or determining the question who Lesbia was. Two years back from the time I am now v/riting I in- terchani- thalamium, the friend of Cicero and the epicurean cham- pion in the De Finibus, who was slain in Africa in 46 B. a at the close of the civil war there, that I can add notliing to his denionstration nor hope to convince any one who may question it. In 61 16 V has maUio; 215 G has Mcmlio, O MauUo; 68 11 and 30 V has rnali for Manli : such corruptions are inteUigdble enough, as Mss. peipetually confound Manlius, Mallius, Malius: if it be argued that external evidence is for Mallius or Maliv.% I should demur to this; but if it be so, then Mallius or Malius must be only another form of Manlius. But says Ellis *I assume here what it seems out- mgeons to deny, that the Mallius of the first part is the Allius and Mallius of the second *, I doubt whether he IS not the one scholar in the world who would deny tiiat it is—well, bold to assert that any one in Catul- lus' day.s could have borne two gentile names. A.llius and Mallius are both common nomiiia and an Allius Mallius OY Mallius Allius is not less odd than an Allius Tuilius Cicero, or a Mallius luiius Caesar. Or are ^ e to resort to the hypothesis that some Allius had adopt- ed Mallius, or some Mallius had adopted ARius, and that in the same poem CatuUus calls the man by his new and his old name? just as if somebody in one page had chosen to speak of the younger Airicanus sometimes aa Cornelius, sometimes as Aemilius, or to name his brother at one time Aemilius, at another Fabius. But my a- mazement is increased v/hen I find Ellis writing thus in the Academy (March 24, 1877): ^^he Cujacianus Is 4 i) CATVLLI OABM. 68 i I i \i now before me: If T doubt the genuineness of the tra- dition (4/. Valerii CatuUi, I must also doubt tliat of tlie Sexti Aurelii Propertii Navtae, which it equally contains'; as if every scholai* but himself did not scout the 'Aurelii Propertii* or 'Propertii Aurelii*, and the 'Nautae' to boot, as absurd ilgments; as if the poet had any other known names besides Sextus Propertius ; as if Mommsen and Haupt had not proved the 'Aurelius Propertius* to have passed from a forged inscription into some Interpolated Mss. ; as if the testimony of the Cuja- cianus were worth the material on which it is written. This is ominous indeed for his *Q. Valerius Catullus*. With the exception of some of the shorter epigrams this is to me one of the least pleasing of all Catullus' poems : it strikes me as prosaic, ill-conceived and ill- i put together. He seems to be unhinged by grief for jtlie loss of his brother; imder some constramt too per- jhaps; for he was surely living with his father, a man I of importance in Verona, whose hospitality Caesar, win li j.roconsul of the Gauls, did not disdain. I can- not help also fancying that he had hardly caught the full meaning of Manlius' epistle, which I believe to have been written in elegiac verse and to have been puiliaps somewhat obscure. Our poem produces on my mind the impression of some degree of coarseness in the character of Manlius, tho' Cicero extols so highly his accomplishments. Manlius, suffering from the loss of his wife Aurunculeia, had written to Catullus that he found no pleasure in the old poets, probably the Greeks; that he wanted him to send love-poems of his own, as well as any such-like productions of others which he had with him. Cicero tells us of Manlius* great love of poetry. But evidently I think Manlius* main purpose in writing was to entice him away from ji 1 Verona to Balae, or wherever he himself then was, by exciting his passion and jealousy vdth tales of Lesbia's intidelities. Else why should he lacerate his feelings by dwelling on so torturing a theme? The poet, being probably as I have said under some paternal constraint and also preoccupied by his grief for his brother, will not see this, will not quit Verona, and employs himself in parrying what were perhaps only feints on the part of Torquatus. At least I so read the poem : let us see. 5 foil. Schwabe has well shewn that 'sancta Venus' and 'In lecto caehbe* refer to the death of Vinia Aurun- culeia, the heroine of the epithalamium : the very fact that there must Iiave been a great Intimacy between the poet and the Manlius Torquatus of that poem, and between the poet and the Manlius of this, while all other circumstances chime in so well, makes the identity of the two to my mind more than ^ robable. 7 and 8, 19, 25 and 26 recall Ovid trist. v 12 1 Scribis ut oblectem studio lacrimabile tempus, Ne pereant turpi pectora nostra situ. Difficile est quod, amice, mones. quia carmina laetum Sunt opus et pacem mentis habere uolunt. 1 refers back to 7 : 'you ask from me here (hino) what you do not find In your own library, love- poems of my own and of others': ^musarum et Veneris' seems to me almost a hendyadis. 17 Multa satis lusl: *I wrote light love-poems enough' : the *hoc studium' of 19, the 'haec studia* of 26. That this is the meaning, the whole poem proves to me : no doubt they were the result of his experience of love- intrigues. Compare too the many similar expressions, some probably allusions to Catullus: Mart, i 113 1 Quaecumque lusi iuuenis et puer quondam, Apinasque nostras quas nee ipse iara noui cet.: the last line *Per quern perire non licet meis nugia' is also a reminiscence X 172 CATVLU CARM. 68 178 of Catullus : IX 26 9 Ipse tuas etiam ueritus Nero dici- tur aures, Lasciuum iuuenis cum tibi luslt opus : to Nerva of Nero's poetry which Martial admired: I have other passages of Martial at harid, as well an uf Ovid: comp. for instance trist. v 1 7 integer et laetus laeta et iuuenalia lusi; i 9 61 Scis uetus hoc iuueni lusum mihi carmen ; Virgil Carmina qui lusi pastorum audax- que iuuenta: Catullus himself 50 2 and 5. 20 — 24, compared with 91 — 9G, three in each set being word for word the same, prove that the two sets cannot iiave belonged to the same poem: nay, as the piDems mudt have been written nearly about the same period, they can hardly have been addressed to the same man. 2C Haec studia: the writing of love-poems, spoken of above, 26—29: following the Mss. I preserve here the oratio recta: all editors from the ^er^^ earhest to the very latest turn the sentence, I know not why, into the oratio obliqua by reading 'CatuUo', and make it to me unintelligible. First as to the grammar: is it not odd that esse should do double duty; *turpe esse Veronae esse ? turpe, like sumie, nee miruin, pote, etc. the old writers often use without eat; but could they write *scribis turpe' for *turpe esse'? In that case too the smiplest correction of 28, notast for nota, is made impossible, as .nt is called for\ Then hie must mean at Verona^ wliere Catullus was, just as in 10 hine, in 36 Hue both refer to Verona; and this Baehrens takes it to mean here, tho' to me that is out of the question. With my reading hie of course refers to the place from wliich Manlius is writing: therefore when you write, 1 Because Lucretitia uses 'unum— primum— suinmum quicquid— qua quic. quid' for 'quicque', Ellis 6])ould not jump to the conclasiou that Catullus could Mae *quisquis' for •ovei7 body' iu a totally different coimexion. 'it is a shame Catullus to be at Verona, because liere where I am whoever is a man of fashion has been warming his limbs on the bed you have abandoned':-— this, ManKus, is no shame, but mther a cruel soncWe As I have already remarked, I believe that Manlius' letter was in verse and that Catullus is quoting his actual words. But if this be disputed-»— for of course there is no positive evidence for it or against it— surely it will not be disputed that the poet could put his words into verse, and prosaic verse enough, and yet profess to be quoting him. Thus Mart, ix 70 1 Dix- erat 'o mores I o tempora' Tullius olim: but TuUius at the beginning of his Catilincs reallj said *o temporal o mores!': ii 41 1 'Ride, si Svapis, o puella ride* Paelig- nu3, puto, dixerat poeta: but Martial did not mea,u that Ovid wrote in hendecasyllables : Phaedr. m Intr. 27 Sed iam quodcumque fuerit, ut dixit Sinon : but Sin on said 'fuerit quodcumque*. Most ta,ke hie of 28 to be liome where. ManHus then was. This cannot surely be right : how then could the poet say what he says in 33 — 36 : * I have no books io send you because I usually live at Rome : that place is my home and abode' ? First of all he would hardly express himself as he does to one then in Rome: Ro- mac — ilia — illaT—: hyisia or some other turn of phrase, he would let that be known. Most certainlv too he would not say * I cannot send you books from Verona, becaiLse all rny books are at Rome' : he would have Siiid ' my books arc at Rome, where you are ; go to my library and choose what you want' : on every consider- ation a simpler affair than sending hooks from Verona to the very place where his friend was^ and that place Rome, the Ubrary of the world. We see how Cicero uses his friends* libraries as freely as if they were his 174 CATVLLI CARM. 68, 68' own in town and country alike. But, as T havp already argued, what Manlius really wanted wa^. to get Catul- lus to come to him, where Lesbia too was. By and bye I will return to this question ; but, as- suming for the moment, what I firmly believe to be the fact, that LcBbia is the notorious Cloe Cjileneum siceare emulsa pingue palude solum, quod quondam caesis mentis fodisse medullis audit fakiparens Amphitryoniades, tempore quo oerta Stjmphalia monstra sagitta 100 110 if. a 1 178 CATVLLI perculit imperio deterioris eri, 115 phiribus ut caeli tereretur ianua diuis, 1 lebe nee longa uirginitate foret. sed tuus altus amor barathro fuit altior illo, qui tuum domitum ferre iugum docuit. nam nee tarn carum eonfecto aetate parenti 120 una caput seri nata nepotis alit, qui, cuiii diuitiis uix tandem inuentus auitis nomen testatas intuUt in tabula s, impia derisi gentilis gaudia toUens suscitat a cano uolturium capiti ; 125 nee tantum niueo gauisa est uUa columbo compar, quae mutto dicitur inprobiua oscula mordenti semper decerpere rostro quam quae praecipue multiuola est mulier. sed tu horum magnos uicisti sola furores, l»iO ut semel es flauo conciliata uiro. aut nihil aut paulo cui turn concedere digna iux una 86 nostrum contulit in gremiura, quam circumcuraans hinc illinc saepe Cupido fulgebat crocina candidus in tunica. 135 quae, tamenetsi uno non est con ten ta Catullo, rani iierecimdae furta feremus erae, ne nimium simus stultorum more molesti. saepe etiam luno, maxima caelicolum, coniugis in culpa flagrantem concoquit iram, 140 noscens omniuoH plurima furta louis. at quia nee diuis homines componier aequm est, CARM. 68** 179 i ingratura tremuli toUe parentis onus, nee tamen ilia mihi dexstra deducta paterna Iragrantem Assyrio uenit odore domum, 145 sed furtiua dedit muta munuscula nocte, 150 ipsius ex ipso dempta uiri gremio. quare illud satis est, si nobis is datur unis, quern lapide ilia, dies, candidiore notat. hoc tibi, quo potui, confectum carmine munus pro multis, AUi, redditur officiis, ne uestrum scabra tangat rubigine nomen haec atque ilia dies atque alia atque alia. hue addent diui quam plurima, i|ijae lliemis dim antiquis solita est raunera ferre piis, 155 sitLs felices et tu simul et tua uita et domus, in qua nos lusimus et domina; et qui prineipio nobis te et eram dedit Afer, a quo sunt prime mi omnia nata bona ; et longe ante omnes, milii quae me carior ipso est, 160 lux mea, qua uiua uiuere dulce mihi est 43 Nei Baehrens. Nee V. 60 aUi 0. uli G. 53 torruerit Tumehus, coriuent V 55 lumina uulgo. numaia G. ntlmala 0. pupula Baehrens from Rllu' conj. 56 Cessare ne tristiq; V. 60 densi se^ corrupt, sensim Haupt Schwabs liarhrens. 61 uiatorum 0, perhaps rightly, lasso uvlgo. basso V uiatorum crasso Baehrens. 65 implorata Italu implorate V. implorati (-ei) iul iDiploratu alii. 66 allius 0, in margin manllius, manlius G. 68 dominae Froelich. dominam V. 75 Incepto a scr'.psi. Inoepto Froelich Baehrens. Iiicepta V. luceptam vulgo, 85 abesse Itali. abisse V. 91 Quae taetre id 8crip,L Que uetet id V. Quaene etiam Heinsiv^ Haupt etc. 102 (iraia I. Mueller. 118 tuum domitum corrupt, tamen indomitam Heyse, perhaps nyhily. 128 Quam quae Vossius. Quamquam V. 139 concoquit iram Lachnmnn. coti- dianaO, quotidiaua G. 140 furta Itali. facta V. 141 At cjuia Itali. Atq , T. Atqui alii: post hunc desunt duo uersus, 145 muta Ueysius. mira V. 1 48 dies V. diemm^o. 149 quo ilfur^tiw. quod^. 150 Alii Sca//(^ition ; for of course in such a case it was the woman, liot the man, v^ha had to be considered. '^^'' ^^ ^vofiKiu of the position to wlurh some would re- di ne Udna Rome must have offered many accessible I I It* t I CARM. 68^ 185 resorts. On the other hand women of mnk, so long as their character was of any account to them, had to be exceedingly circumspect in their conduct ; but it must have been open to them to visit a lady of respectabiiity and of raiik equal, or not much inferior, to their own. To appreciate the service rendered by Allius, comp. Taevyev dcre^eia'; 'EfjfxiTnrov rod kcojicoSo' iTotoi; Slwkovtos /cat TrpoaKaTqyopoimos, oi? TLepiKX^l yv^ voLKus tAevdepa'; us to avro cpoirwVas vTroSexotro (Plutarch Per. 32). Dat^s and his own reiterated hints prove beyond any reasonable doubt that Ovid's disaster was connected with the detection of the younger Julia. 70—76 * Thither my lustrous goddess entered with soft step, and planted her bright foot on the well-trod threshold, as she pressed on her creaking sandal : just as of yore came Lyx>damia to the house of Protesilaus, burning with love for her spouse, love handselled alas I in vain, since the burnt-sacrifice had not yet atoned the lords of heaven with its offered blood'! 70 Can- dida: transfigured, verklaert, with the sheen of divinity on her: the epithet of a god or a deified mortal : 133 Cupido Fulgebat crocma candidus in tunica ; Virg. eel. V 56 Candidus insuetum miratur limen Olympi Sub pedibusque uidet nubes et sidera Daphni^. 72 an>-uta: Statins and Ellis are surely right; the poet seems to have taken the creaking for a good omen : 'Their black and neat slipper or stertup with the creaking allureth young men' A. Willet cited by Todd in Johnson. The epithet thus greatly intensifies the ivipyeva of the K^S 186 CARM. 68^ CATVLLf 187 scene. Theocr. vii 25 Js rev irocrl PunrofiepoLo Tlana Xidog iTTaioiaa ttot apf^vXiheaaiv deiBei. 75 Incepto a : this IS as near tlie Ms. reading as I/iceptam, and surely gives a better meaning, as what follows seems clearly to refer frustra to 'incepto amore' : -^fxireXyjs in its true meaning cannot come into question ; tho' I do not deny the poet may have misunderstoof the word. Catullus is fond of a ! and it is not otiose here ; T i)ropose in 76 10 Quare cur te iam a! amplius excruciem, as a 8imj>le and good correction. These six verses are sweet in their flow and rhythm, beautiful and impassioned in their diction; as indeed is much else in the poem, which on the whole is more flexible and easy in its movement, and less hai\sh in its elisions than most of the poet's elegies : it makes us see that the Ovidian elegiac has lost much, while gainincr more. If we fancy ourselves in the poet's place, we can well imagine how this scene would stamp itself on his soul for ever, and give inspiration to hLs verse when the occasion came for describing it. WhUe he wm able to see her only perhaps at rare intervals and under all the restraints of social decorum in her husband's house, his love had risen to the pitch of delirium; he had ad- dressed to her some of his most impassioned verse such as the second poem, and the translation froiii Sappho in which he exaggerates the frenzy of his original : Ille, si fas est, superare diuos. He had come to look on her as his lawful bride ; and he now saw her face to face with nothing between them and fruition. If she was Clodia, as I believe she was, he saw before hun one of the most beautiful and accomplished women of the day, not yet branded with infamy. If, as is pro^ bable, her husband was now consul, he saw before him the first lady in the world, to whom queens and kin^' daugiiters would hasten to yield place. No wonder the poet's imagination should transfigure her into a glorified divinity. 7^ — 130: There may be some subtle symmetr}^ and refinement of proportion pervading this part of the poem, in which the poet commences the story of Lau- damia, passes to the Trojan war. from it to his brother's death, then back to Troy, from it once more to Lao- damia'r love, which he compares with the abyss of Pheneus, drained by Hercules, and so on to Hercules and Hebe; and then compares the same love to a grandfather's for a grandson born unexpectedly, and next to that of a dove for its mate, and finds it greater than all these — there may be some CaUimachean har- mony running through all this ; but my sense is too obtuse to perceive it. I vrill only touch on a few points of this part of the poem, which does not strike me as very successful. 84 abrupto: 'the idea seems to be that of a thread broken off' Ellis: most certainly not; abrupto is the older form of ahrepto: thus Plautus has 'subruptum, subrupias, and subrupuisse' : see Wagner Plant, aul. 39 ; see too my note on Lucr. iii 1031 : the antiquarian Pronto has 'corruptus' and 'surrupuisse' and their best Mss. shew that both the Senecas, and even that hater of archaisms Martial, all use the same form. If any one be unreasonable enough to deny to Catullus this form, then he must read ahrepto, not with Baehrens absumpto: comp. below 106 Ereptimi est uita dulcius atque anima Coniugium; Ov. met. vii 731 Jesiderioque calebat Coniugis abrepti. 85 abisse V: I am convinced this word caimot stand here for 'fore ut abiret': the examples quoted from Draeger by Ellis of the rhetori- cal use of the perfect for the future in Cicero and IJvy 1^1 188 CATVI.Ll CAKM. 68** A u «»» are such as any language could parallel, and to my mi I id (juite different from our passage. Nor can abiss€y I til ink, iii a sentence like this take the place oi perisse^ tlio i know flmt in certain combinations ahire and tVe have nearly the meaning of *to perish*. Baehrens' obiHse obviates this, but not the oilier difficulties. Nor does M leller s scirant improve matters; for surely scis- cere cannot be thus followed bv an infinitive, notwith- standing the solitary passage which lexicons cite from Sih'us, to which I know no parallel. It seems to me that the old correction al>e.Hse is the Amplest and best; (ox Quod most naturally refers to 'abreptum coniugium' *tlioloss of her husband': 'which loss the Fates well ki ew was not far away, if* once he went as a soldier to the lilan walls*. The use of *non longo tempore' to express duration of time is known to the best writers: Georg. Ill 565 nee longo deinde moranti Tempore; Ov. ars I 38 ut longo tempore duret amor; Mart, x 36 7 K uii uenias quare tani longo tempore Romafu, Haec puto causa tibi est; Juv. 9 16 quern tempore longo Torret quarta dies; 11 152 Suspirat longo non uisam tempore niatrem: even Cicero has 'tempore infinite* in this sense: see my note on Lucr. v 161: and Mart, i 88 8 iiic tibi perpetuo tempore uiuet, honor; i 36 5 Diceret infernas et qui prior isset ad umbnis, Vine tuo, frater, tempore, uiue meo. I could say something for apiscei; a conjecture of my own; but will surrender to abesse. If scirant be adopted, I would suggest 'Quod —scirant Pareae — non longo tempore abesset'. 91 Quae taetre id: this I read for *Que uetet id' of Mss. Heinsius' ' Quaene etiam\ which many accept, never commended itself to me. If my reading be fij^proved, comp. the very similar case of 65 12 'morte caiiMUi', a certain correction of the Ms. reading 'morte A,. t 1 1 tegam', in which one sylL Ls doubled, another lost, through similarity of form : see my illustrations there. I have already more than once — see my notes on 25 5 and 10 32 — spoken of the frequency with which > , f, tr, etc. are interchanged in our Mss. ; and this confusion would still more readily arise through contractions at the end of words : comp. 50 12 Versarer. Versaretur V; 12 7 Fratri, Frat 0. With the expression comp. 'J9 Troia obscena, Troia infelice sepultum: comp. too (Jic. de diuin. i 60 multaque facere impure atque taetre; ad Att. VII 12 2 nam istum quidem.., omnia taeterruue factunim puto. 102 Graeca: 'immo Graia, nt infra 109, supra (}& 58. neque enim OatuUus magis quam plerique poetarum in mythis huius populi referendis GraecorLim uocabulo usus est' L. Mueller; and perliaps he is right. 118: It is clear to me that in this corrupt verse Laodamia is made to bear the voke, and that Ellis and Baehrens are wrong in referring it to tne husband. Throughout the whole of this long and in- volved episode it is the consuming love of the heroine which is glorified: comp. espee. 119 — .130. It is indeed a strange incongruity of this intricate story, that the transcendent beauty of Laodamia is compared witli Le>sbia 8 beauty ; but her overpowering passion for her husband iliusti*ates the poet's love for Lesbia, not Lesbia's for him. To my mind the best of all correc- tion is Ileyse's : Qui tamen [tn] indomitam f, i. d.: tanien is more than once cornipted in Catullus: * but your deep love was deeper than that abysm, the love wliich taught you, tho' indomitable, to bear the yoke*. This use and position oitarnen is very idiomatic: Lncr, III 553 Sed tamen in paruo hcuntur tempore tabe: and see mv illustrations there which I could now add to: for instance Plant. Stich. 99 quom tamen absentis uiros r9(T CATVLLI CARM. 68^ I9i Proinde liabetis, quasi praesentes slut. 128 Quam quae: this must surely be read: Ellis devotes a long note to inprobius ; but it is in the absurdly irrelevant Qvmiiquam that the hitch Ues : the diplomatic change is very slight: see my note on 68 dominae. 131 — 134: After this very long digression he now takes up again what he quitted at 70— 72, and pictures her as advancing from the door, until the lovers are in each other's arms, in verses a! most rivalling those earlier ones. i:ri Ant nihil aut paulo: 22 4 we had aut—mtt for aut—aut etiam: here they mean aut— aut certe, a usage quite as common as the other : Cic. diu. in Caec, 41 aut nemo aut pauci plures causas defenderint, i Verr. 31 aut nulli aut perpauci dies ad agendum futuri sunt. But tho' the expression is not * curious', it does sti ili^' me as curious that he should admit the possibility of his divinity being a little inferior to any heroine whatever. 135 foil.: But now a vein of coarseness comes to truuble uiii enjoyment. 136 and 137: Catullus is in a state of exaltation, in glaring contrast with the depres- sion and constraint of the last poem: comp. wifh these lines the plaintive 'Id, Manli, non est turpe, magis miserum est' of the other poem. 136 : A sort o{ paral- lelism nins through much of this unequal and strangely constructed poem: here *Kara uerecundae flirta erae' answers word for word to 'omniuoli plurima furta louis' : we will bear with the few transgressions of oui decorous mistress, since Jimo, tho' she knows the many and many tritnsgressions of Jove who lusts after all alike, yet digests tlio rage excited by his infidelity. 137: The feeling of tliU line is well illustrated by his contempo- rary Lucretius- iv 1 188 Nequiquam, quoniam tu animo tarn en omnia possis Protraliere in lucem atquQ omnis inquirere risus, Et, si bello animost et non odiosa, uicis- sim Praetermittere et humanis concedere rebus: comp. too Ov. am. n 2 7 cur non liceat quaerenti' reddita causa est, Quod nimium dominae cura molesta tua est. Si sapis, o custos, odium (mihi crede) niereri Desirie. 139 concoquit iram: This conjecture of Lachmann exactly hits the meaning and piubably gives the actual words of the poet. 1^0 furta, even more than in 23 10, is a certain correction oi facta, Baehrens' concipit and per- Jida facta in my opinion ruin the point of the antithesis. 141: That two verses are lost here,, and not more than two, is clear to my mind: nee might poi^ibly, tho' not probably, be for ^wn\ but there must have been b, Catvlle in what is lost, to make tolle intelligible. But to assume with Ellis a lacuna of 18 vss. would be an insufferable drag on the poem which has at length done with its tiresome episodes, and can have nothing now to say to 'pius Aeneas* or to his wife and father. Here we are concerned with Aeneas' brother, not with Aeneas himself; with his mother, not with his wife or father. As quia would be written compendiously, At quia seems the best correction of Atq; : in the next verse tolle must have the usual sense of this imperative: *away with' 'have done with'; a sense so common as to need no illustration. *But, as mortals should not be compared with gods, [and as Juno's wrongs too are far greater than mine, do not uidulge, Catullus, in bootless complaints, and] have done with the thankless task of an over- anxious fatlier*. tremulu^ is a Yerj favourite word with Catullus: here it seems to have much the sense it has in 61 51 Te suis Utimulus parens Tnuocat: 'tremuluus with anxiety'. Give her the liberty she wishes. 143: Yes, and besides all this, remember too that I have not the claims of a lawful spouse: 'she came ii it 'i -^ 192 CATVXLI to my house, led thither by her father s hand*. EII13 quite misapprehends the meaning of 'Nee tamen', and Jiaehrens reads ta7uiem, which niins the sense. 1 have illustrated this use o^tavien at length in my note onLucr. V 1177 (aitl T 1050); and I could here add many more iiLstanees, as Cic. epist x 1 3 et, praeterquam quod rei publicae consulere debemus, tamen tuae dignitati ita fauemus cet. : where Wesenberg changes tamen to etiam, as other editors do or wish to do in more than one of the passages which J have quoted in my Lucretius. 145: 'But she gave me stealthy favours in the silent night, snatched from her own lord's very bosom'. raiUa seems to me unquestionably right: I have spoken again and again of the repea.ted confusion in our Mss, of t and r; and mini has to me no meaning: comp. G4 138 mi- serescere. mirescere O, mitescere G. 117 nobis unis; i.e. mihi uni: so above in 68 nobis: below in 156 and 157 nos, nobis: he must have felt some charm of patlios in this use of the plural, which he so strangely mixes up With, the singular. See the 107th poem, in which he expresses ecstatic delight at an unexpected revival of Lesbias love: Quare hoc est gratum nobis quoque — carius auro, Quod te restitnis, Lesbla, mi cupido. Res- tituis cupido atque insperanti, ipsa refers te Nobis, o lucem candidiore nota! : a seeming reminiscence of our passage: 'Therefore 1 am content, if to me alone is given one happy da}^ which my lady njarks with a whiter stone than usual'. 148: Tho' diem is a simple correction generuUy ado})ted, I choose to keep die% because to my ta.ste the involved sentence adds a piquancy, and is not alien to Catullus' style : 44 8 Non inmerenti quammim mens uenter, Dum sunq^tuosas appeto, dedit, ceuas; 66 18 Non, ita mo dlui, uera gemunt, iuerlnt; 40 adiuro teque tuumqae caput, Digna ferat quod «iquis inrjiiter CAilM. f]8 h 193 adfnrarlt : Lucan I 13 much resembles our passage !)ul is harsher: quantum terrae potuit pelaglque parari Hoc, quern ciuiles hauserunt, sanguine, dextia^. 149 — 152 refer back to the first teu lines.; as in- deed this part of our poem generally ha.s a parallelism with the first part. 155—160 : ' A blessing on you ail, you mid (if-i who is dear to you as life, your wiie ; and on your house in which my mistress and 1 have toyed ; and on Afer who in the beginning gave to me you and my lady, him from whom all the happiness of my life was first derived; and first and chiefest on her, who is dearer to me than my own self, my light, who while she lives makes it sweet to me to live^ 155 tua uita: tlie countenance of the wife w^ aU-important. nos I see my note on (]8, to which this v. refers. 156 Either EUis is or T am much out here. 157 te et eram is got readily from terram, and I think gives a fuller meanin^r than other corrections : Afer of course is uncertain, but it comes very easily from au/ert, and is a known nanie ; tho' I am quite ready to surrender it for Anser : ' cjui principio nobis terram dedit, aufert' would oecui^ very naturally to the pen of a monk, dreaming that it re- ferred to our Maker. By introducing Catullus and also Lesbia to AlUu:., M,:t mav truly be said to have hrst given to Catullus both AUius and Lesbia : eram : so 'erae' in 13G. The elision te ti eram is a very easy one : as the stnctest metrists, such as Ovid, tVeely elide me, te, se before short vowels: in Caiuilus hknself comp. 8 16 te adibit; 12 4 te inepte; 14 3 te odio; 6G 25 at te ego certe; 114 2 in se habet: all before short vowels. Whetlier t!ie pronoun be emphatic or not, makes not the siiglite.it difference: 6 16 uolo te ac tuos amores, C)6 75 quam me afore semper, Afore me a doininae; Aen. XI 410 Nunc ad te et tua, magne pater, consulta ^•^- 13 I /i x* v 1 ii 4 CATVLLI 68 reuertor; i^t r. I'licr 44 2 (jiiatus qui me et se hisce mv pediuit iui|)tris. 158 mi is necessary to metre and sense. 150 ; Rurev Ellis quite misapprehends the con- struction here. LESBIA 195 LESBIA This seems a not unsuitable place to say a few words on the question who Lesbia was. I have already more than once in the preceding pages, in the article fur instance which was written for the Journal of Phi- lology ten years ago and is now reprinted, expressed my fimi belief that she was no other than the notorious Clodia. This belief was held in the 16th century by such -scholars as-Yictorius, Muretus and Achilles Sta- tins ; but like much else, w^as suflered to lie in abey- ance until it was again revived in the present genera- tion, especially by the * Quaestiones' of Schwabe, in which this question, as well as others apportainmg to the life of Catullus, has been discussed with elaborate fulness. Since then it has been accepted by the ma- jority of scholars, tho* impugned by more than ono German critic who ha^ flattered himself that he has disproved or at least invalidated it. My belief in it has remained quite unshaken, nay has acquired new strength; tho' I frankly admit the prima facie unlike- lihood of a lady of Clodia's exalted rank having been the mistress of a young poet — ^an unlikelihood however which Clodia's life and character vastly lessen the force of. The question no doubt will still remain a dispu- table one: Mr Nettleship says for instance with refer- ence to it, in the short but excellent notice which he has given in the Academy of Ellis' commentaiy . ' We confess, in spite of the authority against us, to ha\ iiig our doubts on this pomt'. I shall be as concise as T can, both fnr the sake of clearness and because T rest of necessity mainly on the authorities so fully cited hy Schwabe and on the inferences which he and others draw from these authorities ; tho' I may be able to set one or two matters in a different point of view which rnay help to throw some fresh light upon them. Lesbia, Ovid tells us, and we should all have siii^ mised it for ourselves, was a feigned n^me. Where did Catullus get the name from? all will answer with Vossius, froTn his love and study of Sappho. But on this I would say one thing more. No one can doubt that his 51st poem, the translation of Sappho's famous ode, is among the earUest of his extant poems and was conceived and done in the rapture of first love, when he saw his divinity through the golden haze of yet uu- satisfied passion. The only two poems refening to Lesbia which we can well suppose to be as early as, oi earlier than, this one, the 2nd 'Passer deUciae^ and the 3rd 'Lugete o Veneres', contain neither of them Lesbia's name. May we not then conceive that, even as his ecstasy had impelled him to heighten his original by the * lUe, si fas est, superare diuos', so in continuing his version it may have struck his fancy how far better the burning words of passion which Sappho squanders so sadly on her Lesbian girl, her 'mistress minion', would fit themselves to his own bright goddess ? He would then write down * nam simul te, Lesbia, aspexi', and she would become once and for ever his 'Lesbian maid'. The bond which connects Lesbia witli Clodia ap- pears to me not to be formed by a series uf linkn, the 13—2 196 CATVLLVS LESIilA tliiiure of one of which renders the whole chain useless, but rather to consist of several quite independent chains, sonic of i^reater, some of less strength, which severally attacli the two together, and mutually strengthen and are strengthened by each other. Apuleius acquaints us with t!ie important fact that Lesbia's actiial name was (Jlodia. lb in may go Int a little way to prove her to be the Clodia we want ; and yet the mere name is something 1 tlunk, and lor die following reasons. The father x\pj)ius Claudius Pulcher and his two eldest sons spelt their name in the iraditional manner : why the vtHmgest son riilJius and the three daujxhters were called or called tliemselves Clodius and Clodia, I do not know. But clearly after tliis the form Clodius and Clodia became more common among liherti and libertaei tho' of course tliere were Clodii before this ; and Cicero in his speech IVr Cluentius speaks of a L. Clodius, an Jimerant (piMck silver of Ancona. T rnay observe that Lesbia cannot be either of the two sisters of the more ftmous Clodia, as one was dead awa the other already divorced and prosecuted by her husband at a time when LesiiLri was still living with iier husbanti. With the 79th poem however we make an impor- tant, to my mind a fjMiie deeiaive, ridvance towards the identification of the Clodia in question : Lesbius est pulcher : quid ni ? quern Lesbia malit, quam te cum tota gente, Catulle, tua. sed tamen hie pulcher uendat cum gente Catullum, si trifi notorum sauia reppererit. 4 notorum 0. natorum G. 'Lesbius is a pretty fellow . no doubt, since Lesbia prefers bim to you, n-fullus, with all your kith and VJ7 . kin. Bat this pretty fellow is welcome to sell Catullus with kith and kin, if ho can manage to get three kisses of acquamtances '. notorum of is clearly right : »a- tus is often used as a substantive ; Caes/ B. C. i 7i hi sues notes hospitesque quaerebant. There can be but one meaning to this : Lesbia was a Clodia, therefore Lesbius must be a Clodius. The poem points to foul charges of incest between Lesbius and Lesbia, resembling those which were current against Publius Clodius and his sister Clodia : the last line points to still fouler charges, the same as those which Cicero does not hesitate to bring against Clodius. Then the ^pulcher ^ surely this points to Clodius^ cog- nomen Pulcher, and recalls Cicero s repeated jests on the same name : surgit pulchellus puer— furor PulcheUi — Pulchellum nostrum— postquam speculum tibi alia- turn est, longe te a pulchris abesse sensisti. Wlieri ^ve compare the 2nd v. with 58 2 Ilia Lesbia, quam Catul- lus unam Plus quam se atque sues amauit omnes : the two passages would seem to refer to one another, and to something which the poet had said to Lesbia la the heyday of their passion. It is possible, not I tlmik probable, that the Clodius here alluded to is Sextus, whose character Cicero paints in much the same colours as that of Publius, Anyhow a Clodius it was. T would now again call attention to the poem 68 b, on parts of which I have just discoursed at such length' If that poem does not prove Lesbia to have been a woman of position, I have no more to say on the whole question. \7ho then was she, if she were not Clodia, wife of Q Metellus Celer? Dates, as I have already said, declare that she was not cither of Clodia's two sisters. And this I need not follow out, iis both the sisters were married to men of equal rank witii Metel- 199 LESBIA CATV'LLVS 199 lus, to L. JaicuUus and to Marcius Hex. respectively, and no ore will resort to either of these, who rejects the tliird. What other woman of rank was there in Rorae, named Clodia ? I look through the lists of the Appii Claudii and the Claudii Marcelli and find that, before P. Clodius and his sisters, they were one and all called Claudius, tho' once or twice a coin ur inscription may casually present the vulgar form Clodius. I now go on to another indication : in more than one poem Catullus inveighs fiercely against one Rufus, whom the poet had believed to be among his dearest friends, but who had in some way atrociously wronged him. Turn especially to the 77th poem : Rufe mihi frustra ac nequiquam credite amice : — FiTistra ? immo magno CTim pretio atque malo— Sicine subrepsti mi atque intestina perurens Ei ! 7ni3ero eHpuisti omnia nostra ho7ui ? Eripuisti, eheu nostrae crudele uenenum Vitae, eheu nostrae pestis amicitiae. Look at the whole of this ; compare the words in Italics with 68 b 157 Et qui principio nobis te et eram dedit Afer, A quo sunt primo mi omnia nata bona : Kuf'us had taken from him> what Afer had first given, tlie greatest bless- ing of his life— surely nothing else but the love of Lesbia. Now Cicero's speech in defence of M. CaeHus Rufus, fTor.1 which we learn so much about Clodia, true or false, lets us see that the orator and would-be politician, M. Caelius Rufus, a man a year or two younger than Ca- tullus, a friend and correspondent of Cicero, his letters occupjdng the whole of the 8th book 4' :ho Epistles, was entangled in a long mtiigue with Clodia, lodged m her house on the Palatine, and finally ran o to an iTitf mecine quarrel \ivnth her. These events took place from about the end of 59, soon after thi dt ath of Clo- > dias husband, to 57 b.c.; and during this period of tiuie the poet must have gone through the various phases of estrangement from Lesbia and of reconciliation with her, until the final rupture took place before his departure for Bithynia in the beginning of 57. Was not Rufus then M. Caehus Rufus ? I would finally appeal to my dissection of 68 a : Catullus informs us that he was writing from Verona. Manilas, we have proved, could not, as is usually main- tained, have written from Rome. He was writing from some place where there were many people of fashion, ' de mehore nota*. Lesbia was there, and unfaithful to Catullus. May not this place have well been Baiae, the favourite haunt of Clodia and the scene of her pro- fligacy, whenever she was away from Rome ? But many scholars I am aware feel the same as Mr Nettleship feels when he says ; ' Can Clodia ever have sunk so low as the triitia and angiporti of Rome? Does Cicero, in all his invective, ever hint as much as this?* Well, Cicero and her sometime lover Caelius Rufiis both called her 'Quadrantaria'; and that smacks very much of the triuia and xingipoHi', nay, Catullus himself never taunts Lesbia with being a mercenary prostitute, Uke the Ameana puella. We must not for- get too the poet's passionate nature, and how he often convicts himself in his envenomed attacks on those who have offended him. Take for instance the 91st and 116th poems: if Gellius was, and was known to Catullus to be, so abandoned a profligate and villain, why did Catullus degrade himself by trying so hard to gain his friendship ? If he was not such a man, then the poet's inhuman invective is no less ignominious for himself. But in truth Clodia would seem, like manj other women of high rank in ancient Rome, as in the 200 CATVXLVS Italy and France of the IStli and 16th and the Russia of I he 18th century, wlien hfr husbands death had freed her from constraint, to have drained every pleasure to the dregs, and finding them one after the other to be but vanity and vexation of spirit, to have come to 'feed Oil garbage' in the very r^^cklessness of satiety. Seneca in hLs Uippolytus (206) vrell depicts such a state of things : Tunc ilia nuignae dira fortunae comes subit Jihid«i: non placent suetae dapes, non tecta sani moris aut uilis cibus. LESBIA cu ,-■ i--fc A !!! penates rarius tenues subit haec dclii^utas eligens pestis domos ? cur sancta paruis habitat in tectis Venus, iDcdiumque sanos uulgus affectus tenet? _ I Lave dw, it longer on this question than I had intended to do; but at the risk of being tedioub 1 will bnng into the comparison with Clodin two ladies, one ct t iHin lier equal, the other even Iiigher in rank ; one of tb( in belonging to the same, the other to the next gene- ruLiuu. it is not nn em lettered poet, but the pliilo- sophical iustorian Sallust who (CatU. 25) thus paints the. cLaracter of Sempronia, the mother of D. . i,nus Brutus ; l.aec mulier genere atque forma, praeterea uiro, jiberis satis fortunata iuit ; litteris Graecis et n.tinis docta, psallere saltare eLgaiaius quani iiecesse 'St probae, multa aUa quae instrumenta luxuriae sunt 8,d ei carir.ra «Prnper omnia quaiu decus atque pudi- citia fmt; ppcuuiae an lamae minus paroeret, baud facde discern, r,.. : iuindo sic accensa, ut saepius peteret ^.iros quan, pet«retur...iierum ingenium eius baud ab- mirdum : j.us«e uersus facere, iocum mouere, sermone m. "el modestouelmolliuelprocaci; prolans mnltaefa- 1 OA ! cetiae multusque lepos inerat. Take away the 'liberis' and you have Clodia here painted to the life ; even the fine dancing and the verse-making suit her. The other lady is Julia, the only chOd of Augustus. dis gemta et genitura deos', married three times suc- cessively, the first and second time to the two destined heirs, the third time to the actual heir of the empire, the mother of many children, marked out to be emperors or mothers of emperors, a lady who retained the love of the Roman people even to her cruel end. Macrobius (Saturn, ii 5), following some old authority, describes her. as she was in her thirty-eighth year, speaks of her aa a strange compound of vice and exceHence, winnincr the affections of all by her 'mitis humanitas' and her varied accomplishments. But hear now what Seneca, a younger contemporary, says (de breuit. uitae 4 G) : filia et tot nobiles iuuenes, adulterio uelut sacraraento adacti, iam infracti [Augusti] aetatem territabant. The angry poet in his bitterest lampoon is not more merci- less to Lesbia, than the angry old father shews himself towards his only child in the public edict which he mada the Praetor read before the Senate, and which Seneca (de benef vi 32) has preserved for us. When the deed waa past recall, and, with his daughter's, he had laid his own honour in the dust, he deplored his headstrong. folly, and often cried out: 'horum mihi nihil accidisset, si aut Agrippa aut Maecenas uixisset'. But re;ul his own words; Admissos gregatim adulteros, pererrataru noctumis comissationibus ciuitatem, forum ipsum et rostra, ex quibus pater legem de adulteriis tulerat, filiae in stupra placuisse, cotidianum ad Marsyam con- cursuM, cum ex adultera in quaestuarkcm uersa vjs omnis licentiae sub ignoto adultero peteret. Does not the first part of this edict remind us of the 'salax taber 'j( 200 CAi\xr.vs Italy and France of the 1 5 th and 1 6tli and the Russia of tlie l-tli century, when her husband's death had freed her from constrauit, to have diiuued every pleasure to the dregs, and finding them one after the other to be but vanity and vexation of spirit, to have come to 'feed i)n garbage' in the very recklessness of satiety. Seneca in his Hippolytus (206) well depicts such a state of things : Tunc ilia maguae dira fortunae comes subit libido : non placent suetae dapes, non tecta saui muris aut uilis cibus. cur iii penates rarius tenues subit haec dehcatas eligens pestis dumos ? cur sancta paruis habitat !!i tectis Venus, mediumque sanos uulgiis affectus tenet? ^ I have dwelt longer on this question than T had intended to do; but at the risk of being tedious I will bring into the comparison with Clodia two ladies, one of them her equal, the other even higher in rank ; one of them belonging to the same, the other to the next gene- ration. Tt is not an embittered poet, but the philo- sophical lastorian SaUust who (CatU. 25) thus paints the character of Sempronia, the mother of Decimus Brntus: haec mulier genere atque forma, praeterea uirn. libens satis fortunata fuit : litteris Graecis et Latirns ^r^rfa, psallere saltare elegantius quam necesse est i^rolK.e, multa alia quae instnunenta Inxuriae sunt 8' d ci canora semper omnia .juam decus atque pudi- citia fu,t ; pecuniae an famae minus pareeret, baud facHc discerueres ; Iwndo .ic accensa, ut saepius peteret nr.^ qnnn, peteretur...nerum ingenium eiu. baud ab- surdurn : j.osse uersus facere, locum mouere, sermone '•f ".1 .nodestoncl molli uel procaci ; proraus multae fa- LESBIA 201 cetiae multusque lepos inerat. Take away the 'Hh«ris' and you have Clodia here painted to the life ; even the line dancing and the verse-making suit her. The other lady is Julia, the only child of An-ustus. dis gemta et genitura deos', married three time, suc- cessively, the first and second time to the two destined heirs, the third time to the actual heir of the empire the mother of many children, marked out to be emperors or mothers of emperors, a lady who retained the love of the Roman people even to her cruel end Macrobius (Saturn, ii 5), following some old authority, describes her, as she was in her thirty-eighth year, speaks of her aa a strange compound of vice and excellence, winnincr the affections of aU by her 'mitis humanitas' and her varied accomplishments. But hear now what Seneca, a younger contemporary, says (de breuit. uitae 4 6) : filia et tot nobiles iuuenes, aduJterio uelut Sacramento adacti, iam infnicti [Augusti] aetatem territabant. The angry poet in his bitterest lampoon is not more merci- less to Lesbia, than the angry old father shews himself towards his only child in the public edict which he made the Praetor read before the Senate, and which Seneca (de benef. vi 32) has preserved for us. When the deed was past recall, and, with his daughter's, he had laid his own honour in the dust, he deplored his headstrong folly, and often cried out : 'horum mihi nihU accidisset, si aut Agrippa ant Maecenas uixisset'. But read Ins own -.vords; Admissos gregatim adulteros, pererratiim noctumis comissationibus ciuitatera, forum ipsum efc rostra, ex quibus pater legem de adulteriis tulerat, filiae in stupra placuisse, cotidianum ad Marsyam, con- cursuni, cum ex adultera in quaestuaricm uersa zw,? omnis licentiae sub ignoto adultero peteret. Does not the first part of this edict remind us of the 'sala.x taber \ 202 CATVLLVS LESBIA, CARM. 71 203 na uosque contiibemaleB', the 'boni beatique' and 'omnes pusilli et semitarii moechr of our 37tli poem? Both Augustus aiid Catullus are really speaking of young men of fashion about town. And do not the words printed in Italics paraphrase in language rather less coarse the 'Nunc in quadriuiis et angiportis Glubit magnanimi Ilemi nepotes' of our 58th poem? 71 Siqua iure bono sacer, o Rufe, obstitit hircus aut siqua merito tarda podagra secat, aemulus iste tuus, qui uestrum exercet amorem, mirifice est a te nactus utrumque malum. 5 nam quotiens futuit, totiens ulciscitur ambos: illam aflSigit odore, ipse perit podagra 1 Siqua V. Siquoi uu^go. iure PaUadius. uiro V. sacer o Rufe gcripei, sacromm G. sacratorum 0. sacer alamm ualgo. 2 siqua scripsi. eiquam V. siquem uulgo. In order to apprehend the meaning of this unat- tractive poem, one should consult Haupt*s Quaest. p. 91 foil, tho' I do not agree with all he says, and he himself indeed in his edition has withdrawn his Ate. I have tried hard, but have been quite unable to understand and realise Ellis' conception of the poem. I have a strong suspicion that it is addressed to iiufus, as the 69th is expressly and the 73rd no less certainly. West- phal somewhere draws attention to the fact that Catul- lus not Ufifrequently thus alternates poems on the same persons or on similar subjects with others of quite a different complexion: comp. for instance 3, 5 and 7 ; IC, 21 (only 17 intervenes) and 23; 41 and 43. My correction s(icei\ o Rufe of the sacrorum (sacratorum) of Mss. Is not so harsh as it might appear at first sight to be ; and I avoid two or three further changes made by the editors. As I have already so often remarked, final in and s are again and again interchanged in our Mss. fro7n having been written with very similar cmn- pendia : f and f are often nearly undistinguishable, and, as e and o are oftener confused than any other two letters in our Mss., sacer o Rufe ohstiiit might easily j)ass into sacrorum, quite as easily I think as sacer alarum. It may be said, Rufus need not be named here any more than in 73. But there is a great differ- ence between the two cases: 73 tells its tale clearly enough; but 71 would be pointless and unintelligible without a name. Haupt, Mueller and Schwabe most properly I think accept iure for the Ms. uiro: e and o. as I have so often repeated, b( ing perpetually confused, the ductus littemmm are almost the same. I do not at all like Virro of Parthenius, which both EUis and Baeh- rens adopt; for bono has then no meaning to me; and I much doubt Vh^d in Catullus: he writes Naso, while Ovid always says Nas5, The 'sacer hircus' is of course the same thing as the 'trux caper' of 69 6. Haupt I.e. p. 92 quotes Isidore's illustrations of sacer in its bad sense: 'leno sacer' et ^sacer hircus', and with some rea- son concludes that Isidore is referring to our verse. This would go far to disprove alamm, as otherwise alaruyn too would naturally have been quoted to com- plete the phrase; just as he cites in illustration of sa!cer in a good sense * inter flumina nota et fontes sacros', and *Auri sacra fames' and 'sacrae Panduntur portae' for Its bad sense ^. I At the same time it cannot be denied that Isidore may refer to Georg ii 395 stabit eacer J).' reus ad aram : espec. if we compare 380 Non aliam ob culpam Baccho caper onmibus aris Caeditur; even if he is forcing Virgil's words fi 204 CAl \ LIJ ^^^^ ^ i kei^rt fie S'/ym of Ms8. while all editors read Siquoi; and in 2 mj sV^/z/a T^m^o is a somewhat slighter change than t he siquem of all editions. Tiie omission of the object in these two lines aeems to add point to the expression: ^ If m :uiv way, Rufus, tbo aernr-.ed he- gnat lias whh lull justice given ofience, or if in any wav the laiiiiiig gout deservedly scourges, your rival has with marvellous adroitness caught from you both mischiefs : f r lie thus punislies both,— himself and her; her he stifles with the smell, he is martyred himself with the gout': the last two verses are rightly ex- plained hv Haupt 1. c. p. D2. 1 o Rufe .-^'catuUua generally omits o ; but 87 5 o GeUi : for the meaning of obstUit coiap. Aen. vi G4 quibus obstitit Ilium e*t ingens Ghmi Dardaniae, and Plautus cited by Ellis, where too the object is omitted as here. Manifestly 1 think the vague generality which the absence of an object gives to the fii^t two lines, improves their point, such aR it is ; because it is the woman who is offended m 1, the man who is scourged in 2 : and vi t thn poet d.)es not wi.h in reveal that till the last line : in 4 too ^i te, which iiioHt editors alter, seems to me quite neces^ sary to the point ui the epigram. Jf fbl^ poem bo addressed to Eufus, ie. M. Caelius Rufus, then the ^uestruia .iiuorem' of 3 would seem to be Lesbia, and the Aemulus iste tuus' one of her many lovers. This and Gl)^ would then have been ^vritten at a later time than 73 and 77, wliich express the first anguish of jeahaisy and of friendship betraved. In the last line of'Gli th^^ fugiunt uf Mss. should 1 b^heve be fugiant-, f)r toe best writers always employ the indie. aiW *mi- ran, admirari si, qii,Hr but the subjunet. after 'cur': Anyhow Yir,nl would help to shew that 'sacer hirous' was • ttarked expression- and it u more emphatic withn^t 'alarum'. ' CAKM. 71, 73, 76 205 the d.wn Tightness and coarseness' which the indic. adds/ I do not apprehend. 73 A and 4 T would thus complete : Omnia sunt ingrata, nihil feclsse benigne iam iuuat : immo etiam taedet obestque magis. My lam iuuat would be more likely to fall out before the similar letters that follow, than either Pro- dest of most editions or Baehrens' luuerit : I feel little doubt that the lost word or words belong to what pre- cedes; not to what follows, as Haupt, and some others assume. My lam seems to have force, when we con- sider the Desine of 1, and the modo of 6. 76 Siqua recordanti bene facta priora uoluptas est homini, cum se cogitat esse pium nee sanctam uiolasse fidem nee foedere in ullo diuum ad fallendos numine abusum homines : 5 multa parata manent iam in longa aetate, Cam lie, ex hoc ingrato gaudia amore tibi. nam quaecumque homines bene ciiiqiuun aiit dicere possunt aut facere, haec a te dictaque factaque sunt : omnia quae ingratae perierunt credita menti. 10 quare curte iam a\ araplius excrucies ? quin tu animum offirmas atque istinc teque rediicis et dis inuitis desinis esse miser ? 'difficile est longum subito deponere amorem '. difficile est, uerum hoc qualubet efficias : 206 CATVLLI 15 una salus haec est, hoc est tibi peruincendum, hoc facias, sine id non pote siue pote. o di, yi uestrum est misereri, aut si quibus umquara extrema iam ipsa in morte tulistis opem, me miserum aspicite et, si uitam puriter egi, 20 eripite hanc pestem perniciemque mihi. heu ! milii subrepens imos ut torpor in artus expulit ex ouini pectore laetitias ! non iam ilJud quaero, contra nie ut diligat ilia aut, quod non potis est, esse pudica nelit: 25 ipse ualere opto et taetrum hunc deponere morbum. o di, reddite mi hoc pro pietate mea. 5 m-inent iam in longa scripsi. nianetu iulonga O, manenti * in longa G. maneut in longa uulgo. manent ciim longa Baehrens. 10 cur te iam a £>uij.»liu8 gcripsi, a om. V. iam te cur uulgo. our te iam iam Baehrrns. 11 Quin tu animum oflirmas Statlus. Qui tui animo oflBrmas V. Quidui anuiium Baehrens. istinc teque Heinsius. instincteque 0, istinctoquo G. 18 ipsam morte V. 21 Heu Meleager. Seu V. 23 me ut Ileyte. me ut me V. ut me uulgo. No other poem of Catulhis brings more vividly before us the fierce earnestness of his iu) passioned na- ture, which made him one of the great lyric poets of the worhh We heard him above, in 68 70 — 72, dwelling with rapt enthusiasm on the moment, which had stamped itself on his memory for ever, when Les- bia appeared on the threshold of Allius' house, and there was now no barrier of convention bet\N'een him and her. We saw how, by his total absorption in self, he could regard himself, the paramour, as an innocent bridegroom, and her, the faithless wife, as a pure and virgin bride. Just so in our present poem he can pic- ture himself to liis own heart as the virtuous and out- raged husband, and Lesbia as the well-beloved and traitorous wife of his bosom : *Such tricks hath strong imagination '—when it belongs to a Catullus. To no CARM. 76 f^; jL •J I ( other of his poems may we more justly apply the words of an accomplished writer in the North British Review (vol. 36 p. 232) : *He is one of the very few writers in the world who, on one or two occasions, speaks directly from the heart. The greater number even of great poets speak only from the imagination;,., but this one speaks as nature bids him the joys and sorrow^ . f his own heart': a criticism at once original and most tnie. I heartily agree with all that Ellis writes in praibe of this poem ; 'out I do not feel that 'it must have been written late'; it may have been written late; but so fiercely vacillating were the moods of the poet's mind, that I am not at all sure it was composed much later than the two parts of 68. This and many similar cases I acknowledge myself totally unable to decide upon. 5 : my reading here is I think nearer the Mss than others which have been proposed : iam is by no means otiose. 10 my insertion of a is a very simple coiTec- tion : Catullus is fond of this interjection , which is unelided, as here, in Hor. epod. 5 7 1 A, a. solutus ; Tib. (Lygdamus) in 4 82 A ego ne; (Sulpicia) rv 11 3 A ego non aliter. 11 animum offirmas: this I take to be a quite necessary correction of 'animo off.'; the absorp- tion of urn in the like letters which precede, and the doubling of o exactly resemble the examples given at 65 12 morte canam. The instances cited by Ellis of ojfinno followed by an infin., occurring too only in Plautus and Terence, scarcely warrant 'animo offirmas* here : I suspect too that Ovid was thinking of Catullus when he wrote met. ix 745 Quin animum firmas teque ipsa recolligis, Iphi, Consiliique inopes et stultos excu- tis ignes: which might support 'Quin tu' as well as 'animum'. istinc teque: this I am convinced is the right reading here: for the position of que conip. my ) 1 208 CATVLLI note on 57 2 M imurrae pathicoqiie: in our passage indeed ^jue couM not well have any other position : for que — Et comp. 102 3 Meque...Et, by no means a rare combination in iiatin. 18 *ipsa in morte' and 'ipsa morte* are e<^!iuii y near the *ipsam morte' of V: twice in \^irt;il \vc iiiHi 'Extremaiam in morte', and he was perhaps more likely to omit the prepos. than Catullus: thV Virgil Ims also 'extrema hora\ 21 Heu, mihi s. (not Heu mihi, s.) seems the simplest correction of >Sfe?^: 68 li^ Xeu U, Seu G. 23 mie iit iiie of V for ut me resembles 110 3 quod promisisti mihi quod V. 92 Lesbia mi dicit semper male nee tacet umquam de me: Tiesbia me dispeream nisi amat. quo signo ? quia sunt totidem mea : deprecor illam assidue, ueruni dispeream nisi amo. If GeUius had not chanced to preserve the last two verses, we should have depended on alone for them; one instance out of so many in which it shews its Buperiority over G. 3 simt totidem mea: Ellis' sug- gestion that 'the expression is perhaps drawn from the language of games' is probable enough. However that may be, the quite parallel expression in Hor. sat. ii 298 Uixent/ msaniim qui me, totidem audiet atque liespi- cere ignoto discet pendentia tergo, helps to shew that CaiiiHus' words are not to be tampered with, tho' no one li as given a precise explanation of either Catullus or lliirace. \ CARM. 92, 95 95 209 Zmyma mei Cinnae, nonam post denique measem quam coepta est nonamque edita post hiemem, milia cum interea quingenta Hatrianus in uno uerdculorum anno putidus euomtdt, 5 Zmyrna cauas Satrachi penitus mittetur ad undas, Zmyrnam cana diu saecula peruoluent : at Volusi annales Paduam morientur ad ipsam et laxas scombris saepe dabunt tunicas, parua mei mihi sint cordi moniunenta Phala^ci : 10 at populus tumido gaudeat Antimacho. 3 Hatrianus in (uel is) ecripH, Hortensiua V. 4 hunc «. addidi : om, V. 9 Pbalaeci addidi : om, V. eodalia Avantius, unlgo. Haupt first, at the end of his Quaestiones, and next Schwabe in his most elaborate dissection of this difficult and corrupt poem (Quaest. p. 278 — 288) have dispelled much of the darkness which long rested on it. I flatter myself I can make some further contribution to its criticism and elucidation. 1 regret to add that either T am qult;e wrong in this assumption, or else Ellis in his commentary, instead of advancing, has made a step backward, especially in his defence of the absurd *Hortensius'. Tliis unlucky word has caused L;l;1i~ mann, and after him Haupt, to separate vss. 9 and 1 from the rest, and make them into a distinct poem, bciiwabe has clearly proved that they cannot form a complete whole, and that 'Hortensius' must be corrupt. I will state as briefly as I can what Haupt, bchwabe and others have already made clear, and will then go on to what I have to add of my own. The Zmyma or Myrrha Is an epyllion, or short hexameter poem, of his friend Gains Heluius Cinna, M. c. 14 / 210 CATVLLI CABM. 95 211 mentioned above in our 10th poem, on the story of Myrrha, the daughter and paramour of Cinyras and the mother of Adonis. Catullus throughout presents th^s short but excellent epic in contrast with the vo- iuraiuous but worthless ' Volusi annales'. These ' an- nales* were a long chronicle in hexameters written by Volusius, a pseudonym for one 'J y.nusius Geminus, as has been demonstrated beyond dispute from a passage in Seneca. Already in his 36tu poem Catullus has mercilessly jeered at these 'annales Volusi', whether with full justice or not, it is impo^^sible for us to say. To judge from their pmictuation and comments, all previous editors woidd seem to m;ike the sentence end with the lost 4th line. Thi^ cannot be so ; for Catullus certainly would not use edita for edita est: the 5th verse takes up the 'Zmyrna' of tlic first: ' The Zmyrna of my Cinna, published ten sumiiiers and ten winters after it was begun, when all the time the putid Hatrian has been belching forth verses at the rate of 500,000 a year, the Zmyrna, I say, will he sent as far as the waters of the Satrachus ; Zmyrnj^. the hoar ages wiU long peruse : but the annals of Volusius will perish be- fore they get across the Padua and will many a time furnish roomy coats for mackerel'. CatuUus' first couo- let, and this nine years' incubation over a poem of a few hundred lines became proverl)ial : not only Quin- tilian, but also PhUargyrius and Sermiis on EcL ix 35, and Porphyrion and Pseudo-Acroa on the Ai's poet. 388 speak of this nine years travail: Philargyrius 1. 1. refers to Catullus and to Quintiiian, and adds that Horaces 'nonumque prematur in annum' is said to be an allusion to it. 3 : Of the ' Ha trianus' I will speak presently: my supplement must give the general sense, B'Dme decided antithesis to the first couplet. The 'milia quingenta' was proverbial perhaps for a large number; for Trimalchio in his laughable way talks of 'sublata in horreum ex area tritici milia medium quingenta' in a single day from his Cmnan estate. 5 is well explained by Haupt who shews from seve* ral ancient authorities that Satrachus was the name of a town and river in Cyprus, and Zmyrna or Myrrha belonged to Cyprus. Cinna's Zmyrna will get as far as the distant home of the heroine herself, i. e. will have a world-wide fame; and (G) will live through long ages. I have little doubt that 'cauas Satrachi undas' is taken from Cinna's poem, because Catullus imitates him in 6 as well For Cinna (Suet, de gramm. 11) says in like manner of Valerius Cato's Diana : Saecula per- maneat nostri Dictynna Catonis. Catullus' * saecula cana' for remote posterity seems a strange use of the phrase : ElUs remarks, what I had myself noted, that Martial uses it in its more natural sense of ages long gone by: X 19 16 he uses * saecula posterique' to ex- press what Catullus says here: yet Catullus' follower, the author of the Ciris, in v. 41 clearly imitates our verse : Nostra tuum senibus loqueretur pagina saeciis. They seem to have anticipated Bacon's philosophical remark : mundi enim senium et grandaeuitas pro anti- quitato uere habenda sunt ; quae temporibus nostris tribui debent, non iuniori aetati mundi, qualis apud antiques fuit. I now come to v, 7 : Haupt 1. 1., followed by the later commentatoi-s, rightly observes that, as Satrachus is a river, the antithesis requires that Padua shall be also a river: what river it is he proves by quotmg, after an older critic, Polyb. ii 1 6 d Se UaSo? cr yt^crai eU Svo i^ipTj Kara tov<; TTpoo-ayopevoiJLerovq 1 piya^okov^. tovtojv St TO jxkv erepoi/ crrop.a iTpo(Tovop.dtjE.Tai IlaSoa, to Se 14—2 f t 212 CATVLLI 1 CARM. 95 213 crcpoi^ ( Xai a : my reason for repeating all this, will appear presently. Polybius says that the two streams into which the Po divides below Ferrara, are named the IlaSoa and the "OXai/a, If we compare with liira Pliny HI 119 ull, it will appeal* that Smith's Diet, of Geogr. is wrong in identifying the TltSoa with the Padusa, mentioned in the Aeneid. The Padusa, Pliny tells II , was the name given to the mouth of the * Augusta fossa*, aii artificial cut, and that the older name of tfii- laouth was Messanicus. Then eniune- rating the iiiiFerent mouths, beginning with the most aoutherii, lie comes to *dein Yolane, quod ante Eolane uocabatur ; iidw whether ' Eolane' should or should not be ' Olane', we must connect this name with Polybius' ^Okava. Fliiij, Ktill ;iclvancin^ir rjArtliward, says the lar- gest and rnc .it northern branch was called at its mouth 'Septeii. Maria*, no doubt from the seven mouths look- ing liki } in 111) seas: omnia ea [ostia] fossa Flauia, qiiam }>niiii a Sagi I'ccero Tuisci, egesto amnis impetu per trail suersum in Atrianorum paludes quae Septem M.iiia appelJautui^, nobilifi.jrtu Djijaili 'i\ibcuruiu Atnae a quo Atnaticum mare ante a|>pellabatur quod nunc lladrlaticiijii. This 'foss^t ikuia' carried the super- tliumH water from the other movitlis northward into the 'Septem Maria'; and these were the mouths of tiie jionheni ur eluci branch oi tht^ Po, and were also called the ' AtThinoniin jaludes', from Atria, the only place of iriij.nrlaMe'..; aruoitg diese 'paludes*, already in Catullus' time greatly decayed, tho' it had once been a famous emporium of the Etniscans, before tlii' Gauls had l^roken their power in those parts; and 1 v the testimony of Greek and Eoman authors alike it liad gi\-rii name to the ASpta? or Hadriatic. It follows then that Polybius* HaSoa and Catullus' • V Padua was the larger and northern branch of the Po ; lor as^ Catullus wrote just midway in time between Polybius and Pliny, what was common to the Po in their time,^ must have existed in his : it follows too that Volusius, or Tanusius Geminus, Was born c r re^ sided near it; belonged therefore to Atria or its vieiuit^, the marshy, district between the Padus and the Athesis! The poet therefore says his annals will perish before they have been able to get across the Padua. As now the symmetry of the poem requires Volusius t/y be named in 3, I have ventured to write there Hatriaiius, 'the native of Hatria\; an admissible fonn I think, smce it gave name to the *Hadriaticmn mare'; which aiwavs had the aspirate in Catullus' time; though Atria is the usual name of the town : see Monunsen Insc r. L v p. 220. I may assume too that the a is short. ; for Pro- pertius writes 'H^driae mare', and 'HiidriaBUa' is the emperor's uaiiie, which he derived however from the Hadria or Atria of Picenum. We now come to the last two vss. : 'Be it for me to find enjoyment in the short works of my own Phalaecus: lor the people tu delight in iheix hniky Autunachus'. In these two vss. the antithesis is still maintained be- tween Cmna and Volusius. All comraentatorg adriiit that the 'bulky', or it may be 'turgid, long-winded, re» dundant', 'Antimachus' is Volusius: for the reasons why he should be so called see Ellis. To me it is equally clear that, to produce the due antithesis, we need a name, and the name of a Greek poet, in the imperfect 9 th verse. This has been seen by more than one critic, and 'Philetae' and 'Phanoclis' have botii been pro- posed: certaudy the 'sodalis' of most editors and the *Cinnae' of Baehrens are very pointless, i prefer my Thalaeci' to anything else: Cinna must, I should infer, 814 CATVLLI CARM. 95, 96, 102 215 V liave been somewhat older than Catulhis and CJalvus ; for he had just pubUshed his epyllion after nine years' elaboration. Now his very scanty fragments shew that, besides this epyUion and the 'Propempticon PoUionis* which must have been written many years later, he wrote Phalaecian hen decasyllabics, scazons and elegiac epigrams. Catullus had not 1 beheve at this time finished his own epyllion ; and, if he had, he could not have taken Cinna's, which was only just published, for a model. He had however written just in those other metres in which we know that Cinna too wrote. If Cinna then were their senior, it is more tlian probable that Catullus and Calvus looked up to him as one of their teachers in poetry. We leani from the equally scanty fragments of Phalaecus that he not only wrote and gave name to the Phalaecian hendecasyllable, but f Jso composed elegiac epigrams and verses which have much the halting effect of the scazon. There cau hardly be any doubt then that Phalaecus was a prime model for all the three friends. What more natural now than that Catullus should fondly call Cinna his own Pha- laecus ? Scholars have proved — for a good summary of the arguments see TeuffeFs Rom. Lit.— that, in spite of the exact coincidence of name and Plui arch's odd n? KtWa? woLTfTLKo^s dpTJp, the tribuuc C. Heluius Cinna who, as Val. Maximus, Suetonius, Appian, and Plutarch twice over, tell uS; was murdered by mistake at Caesars funeral, cannot have been our Cinna, who clearly lived beyond that time. Els^ the ^tear him for his bad verses, tear him for his bad verses' of tlie mob would have been a giimly humorous revenge for Catullus snecx at their love for their favourite Tanusius, who must at least Iiave been easier to understand than Cinna was. 96 Si quicquam muteis gi-atum acceptumque sepulcris accidere a nr;stro, Calue, dolore potest, quom desiderio ueteres renouamus amores atque olim amissas flemus amicitias, 5 certe non tanto juors inmaturo. dolorist Quintiliae, quantum gaudet amore tuo. 3 Quom Quarinus. Quo O, Que V. 4 olim amissas Statius. oHm missas V. 3 Quom: this I think a necessr.ry correction: we see once more in O and G tho perpetual confusion be- tween e and o: comp. too my note on 30 5, where I read Quom for Que of V. 4 I see no occasion for any of the more violent corrections that have been made in this vei^e: the simple correction of Statins puts all straight : mittere often has the meaning of omUtere, aa in Lucretius again and again ; and this is its sense in the passage which Ellis quotes from Seneca: but it never I believe has the force of amittere, which is what we want here. 5 and 6: See my note on 45 3 with respect to the some^vhat invx)Ived construction. Surely we need not feel any doubt that Quintilia is Calvus' wife. 102 Si quicquam tacit^ commissum est fido ab amico cuius sit penitus nota fides animi, meque esse inueniea iUorum, iure sacratum, Corneli, et factum me esse puta Hai^ocratem. 1 tacifco Aid. 1516. tacito V. 216 CATVLLI V gilt iiius been confided in Recrecy by a trusty friend whose sincerity of soul is thoroughly proved, you win find nie to belong to that order, consecrated with till] rigiit, iiid you may rest assurcdthat I have become ilie gud of silence incarnate*. 1 tacite: once more the never-ceasing interchange of e and o\ for I am convinced that this old correction is necessary, and I am surprised that it li.!s been rejected by all the modern editors. With tacito the construction is mtolerably harsh, as may be seen by looking at Ellis' forced interpretations ; who IS obli^i d to reiur both Cuius and illorum to tacito. I dt) not hesitate to affirm that this acceptance of e for o botli here and in so many other passages is virtually no depcirtiire iVoni the Mss. at all: thus I have no doubt we should read studiose in 116 1. 3 illonim has nuw a plain and simple meaning: my trusty friend UomeJius will find me as trusty as him- self, anci ijua uf his uwu order, regularly initiated in fhe guild: the phira! lias reference to the generic notion cuntamed in 'fide amico*, just as in 1 1 I Auhlena, uiro co^ifevfam uiuere solo Nuptammst laus e iaudibus exi- nuis; Bee inv note on 10 12 quibus. For Meque—Et euiiip. 7^; II ^fgwe—jE^ and my note there. 1 Hill here refer back to a not^ of Ellis on dd G uestrae: 'not = tuae, but of yon and others hke you, your boyish cruelty... t^e^^er is never « tuns in Catullus'. li uestrae is not for tuae here; if ucstTTie saeuitiae' is not the particular rage of l\i\una\\is alone at being kisse^l, without the least notion of any other h.v in the worh! having any share in this rage, then it seems to me imy tuus in the language niigLt lie made out to be reallv a uester. Again in 39 20 ^uester dens' is surely the tooth < FEgnatius alone of aU people in the world. lu V. 2 -J \\m 99th poem, Plant, true, ii 4 19 (Plir.) w CARM. 102, 107, no • 217 Compleetere. (Di.) Lubens. heia, hoc est melle dulci dulcius: would be even a closer parallel than the one Cited by Ellis. 107 1—6 Si quid cui cupldoque optantique obtigit umquam insperanti, hoc est gratum animo proprie. quare hoc est gratum nobis quoque — carius auro, quod te restituis, Lesbia, mi cupido. restituis cupido atque insperanti, ipsa refers te nobis, 1 qnid quoi Baehreru. quid quid 0, quicquid G. oupidoque liaXi, cupi»i ^ V. By a better punctuation I have preserved the Ms. reading in 3, and, if I am not mistaken, have augment- ed the emphasis: 'Wlierefore this is welcome to me— ay, dearer than gold': with the asyndeton I would compare my correction of 110 7 est furis— plus quam meretricis auarae. The various alterations which critics have made seem to me only to weaken the force of the expression, nobis — mi cupido— cupido— insperanti— nobis : comp. my notes on 68 68 and 147. To go back to 104 2 Ambobus mihi quae carior est oculis: he loves dearly this comparison; but the 'Am- bobus' adds to its pathos; as Apul. apoi. p. 402 Hoc mihi uos eritis quod duo sunt oculL *When these two things were desired, the Ambassador told us, 1 1 wo.s to ask his Master's two eyes, to ask both his eyes, asking ' these things of him' 0. Cromwell (Carlyle ii p. 422). 110 Aufilena, bonae semper laudantur amicae : accipiunt pretium, quae facere instituunt. Vi 218 TATVLLI CARM. 110 \ v tu, pronxisisti mihi quod raentita, inlmica es: quod nee dcis et fers saepe, facis facinus. 5 aut facere ingenuae est, aut non promisse pudioae, Aufilena, fuit: sed data compere fraudando est furis— plus quam meretricis auarae, quae sese toto corpore prostituit, 3 T u, promieisti mibi quod scripH. Tu quod promisifti milii qnod V. Tu quod promiati, milii quod uulgo, 4 et fers B, Quarinui. nee fers V. 7 est furis script' efficit V. This is not a poem which one would care to study rnuch except for purposes of criticism. But, on examin- ing it for such purposes, I seemed to myself, rightly or wrojigl}, tu see some points in it whieli liad escaped the editors and commentators. The following appears to l>i the plain and indisputable sequence of the argument: ^Atlfilena, honest and kind mistresses am ever praised: tbey receive the recompense of what they agree to do. Y >u, iii having made to me feigned engagements, are unfriendly and unfair: in not granting your favours and yet takiii^ir money hr tliera nixain and again, you are guilty of a crime. On the one hand to fulfil engage- ments is the course pursued by a candid woman ; on the other hand not to have made them at all would have been that of a modest woman : but to get hold of what is tendered by robbery and cheating is the conduct of a thief,— yes, worse than the behaviour of a grasping strumpet ^vlio yields to every form of degradation*. This seeiiis to me the simple exposition of a simple thought; which every edition, so far as I can see, more ur less obscures, some no doubt more than others. The last four lines are a comment on the first four: the first portion of these last lines being an elucidation of the first three verses; the last portion explaining v. 4. Nor 2i9 do I think that my corrections are more violent than those made by others: but of these I will speak sepa- raf^ly. 2 fa^. instit.: Cicero pro CaeL 49 si quae non nupta muher...uirorum alienissimorum conuiuiis uti institue- rit: so that mstituo is here almost synon. with stfitvx) or constituo, 3 : my correction of this v. by the omifl- sion of the first quod is as simple as to read with all editors 'quod promisti'; for it is natural that a scribe should insert a quod in its more natural position before the verb; so 76 23 me ut. me ut me V: and my read- ing I think is necessary for the syntax of the sentence, as I cannot believe that Catullus would say 'quod raentita' for *quod mentita es*: the partic. mentitiis is as often passive as activa Elhs I think is right in saying that inimica is the opposite of bona arnica] but his text and his explanation of it I cannot comprehend : he will not even accept, what every other modem editor accepts, etfers for nee fers; and will not see that 4 is a rise upon, and the due climax to, 3. Thii Iia interprets: 'But you, in making me a promise, in dis- appointing me as only a false mistress can, in refusing either to give or take, are outraging me continually': das and/er5, he says, are correlative 'p^ive and take', as in Most, 'feram siquid datur*. This is to me all a riddle. If there is anything clear m this poem, it is that das has the sense which it so often has in Martial, of a woman granting her favours; and that fers must have the meaning of receiving money for granting or promising them; and saepe surely goes with what pre. cedes, not with what follows; and even so, how could the words mean 'you are continually outraging me'? To me 'saepe' has force; and 'facis facinus' is more em- phatic without an epitliet Buch as turpc: comp. Caes. \ 220 CATVLLI \f B. G. VI 20 2 falsis rumoribus teiTeri et ad facinus impelii; Uic. pro MU. 43 cruentis rnanibus scelus et faciuus prae se ferens et confitens. The making a promise and not fulfilling it is an offensive act; but to take money and then not give what was bargained for is an enormity. 6 fuit: see Madvig gramm. 348 anm. 6—8 is an amplification of 4. 7 est cannot be omitted ; aome place it at the end of the verse ; others wi.ere I have put it : the many many corrections which have beou made of this verse T will not mention, as tl'eiv seonis to me a hitch in them all: Haupt and MiiciK 1 -inij.lj leave it as corrupt. My est (e) furis f'T lijuMs. efficit is simpler than it looks': twice already, -^ ;" ^""1 ''-^ ! '".. the Mas. Lave/octo h^ jurta, and on r> li! i liave oiv^n many examples, from G or or I'oth, of tli.i! t for s. Of course Catullus can call the womau a 'fi!.-'. the word Jsaving no feminine, just as J'Jautus, ciuoted \n the lexicons, says to two women 'fures I'stis amiw;'. Ar.l .nrrlv the epigram requires at the close some such point as I have given to it: else what is the f...rce of the last line? The poet now says: J'H! art' a thirf-you are worse even than the strumpet who for gain submits to any degradation: she does not cheat you, she 'et dat et ferf, gives the service for which she took your money. The asyndeton seems here emphatic: est furis-[e3t, inquam,J plus quam cet. : comp. 107 :^ Quare hoc est gratum nobis quoque—cari us auro. For the force oi plus take tv„ passages, cited by Hand: Cic. phil. 2 31 coufiteor eos, nisi Hberat^res populi Romaiii conseruatoresque rei publicae sint, plus quam sicarios, plus quam homicidas, plus etiam quam parricidas esse, Livy x 28 4 primaque eorum proelia iui-^^ (juani uironmi, postrema minus quam feminarum esse. Ellis surely wrestles here in vain : what re&cm- CARM. 110, 114, 115 221 blance either in the artangement of words or in the force of the epithet between for example 'perfidia plus quam Punica' and 'plus quam meretricis auarae'? I could comprehend for instance 'meretrix plus quam quaestuaria'. And then the omission of est ? 114 Firmano saltu non falso Mentiila diues fertur, qui tot res in se habet egregias, aucupia omne genus, piscis, prata, arua ferasque. nequiquam: fructus sumptibus exuperat. 5 quare concedo sit diues, dum omnia desint: saltum laudemus, dum modo ipse egeat. 1 Firmano sfilta Amntlm. Krmanns salnia V. 3 Ancupia omne genus, Slatius. Anoupis G. An cupis 0. Anonpiom, omne genus uulgo. 6 mods ablatiiK. 115 Mentula habet instar trlginta iugera prati, quadraginta arui: cetera sunt nemoris. cur ncii diuitiis Croesum auperare potis sit, uno qui in saltu tot moda possideat, 5 prata, arua, ingentis siluas saltusque paludesque usque ad Hyperboreos et mare ad Oceanum? omnia magna haec sunt, tamen ipsest maximus, iit re non homo, sed uero mentula magna minax. 1 instar con-upt : perham tonsi. 2 nemoris scripn. maria V. 4 moda. bona AiLanliu^ : perhaps Tot qui in saliu nno commoda possideat. 7 maximus, ut ro scri^ri. maximus ultor V. ultro uulgo. These two strange poems were perhaps left by the poet in an unfinished state. I have printed them both together, because the one throws much light on the other: the point of both being the same. If the 222 CATVLH various editions and commentaries be examined, it will be seen how widely scholars differ in opinion about the text and the meaning. Much has hitherto been left unexplained : whether my comments will throw any new light upon them, let others decide. Mentula, it is agreed on all hands, is Caesar s friend Mamurra of whom so much has been said above. This offensive name must have been fixed upon him by the 'ista nostra diffututa mentula' of 29 13, where the word is already half a proper name. This and the 'mentula magna minax* of 115 8 make it doubtful to me whether Catullus would in our present poems have joined the word to an epithet that declared itself to be masculine : diues has the requisite ambiguity. For this and other reasons I avoid in v. 1 Firmanus, and at the beginning of 1 1 5 I do not accept noster. Firmum was a town of Picenum, fiir away from Formiae the 'urbs Mamurrarum'. ^Ve might fairly then iiiier i think that Mamurra got his 'Firraanus saltus' by the favour of Caesar. We find in the Gro- matici uet. (lib. col. i p. 22G Lach.) this statement: Ager Firmo Piceno limitibus triumuiralibus in centuriis est per iugera ducena adsignatus. If the trium\drs made this assignation, it is likely enough that Caesar may have intended to do something of the same kind ; and he may well have bestowed by special grace on the favoured Mamurra an 'ager uiritanus'; for the meanino- of w^hich see Marquardt ii p. 148. VaiTo, cited in the lexicons, tells us that 'saltus' was the technical name for an assignation of land of 800 iugera. Ellis only quotes the passage to say that this is not the sense which it bears here. I believe that it has some such meaning; else the two poems become even more ob- scure than they are at present, and the saltasque of CARM. 114, 115 AJ A_'0 115 5 looks like nonsense. Mamurra's extravagaui^ habits and the words of Catullus make it probable that this saltus was used for sport rather than for profit ; and I can see no point in the hyperbole of the 2nd poem, unless we assume that Mamurra had got in ad- dition to his saltus of 800 iugera or so a large tract of uncultivated hill- and forest-land, on which no *uectiga- lia' could be raised and which would therefore be of little or no value to the state or to a private cultivator. Cicero's bitter taunt, ad Att. vii 7 6 Et Labieni diui- tiae et Mamurrae placent : might suggest that this saltus too came from Caesar. I will now shew what my conception is of the whole : the one poem illustrates the other : 114 : 'Mentula with truth is accounted rich in his Firman saltus, which contains so many choice things, winged game of every sort, fish of every kind, meadow- land, ploughland and wild animals. All in vain : he exceeds hiB profits by his expenses. Therefore I am ready to grant he is rich, if only at the same time all things are wanting : I am willing we should praise his saltus (and its proportion), if at the same time he him- self lack all due measure and proportion'. 115: ' Men - tula has thirty iugera of meadow, forty of arable land : all the rest consists in forest. Why should he not exceed Croesus in riches, since in a single saltus he possesses so many commodities, meadow, ploughland, vast forests and lawns and pools reaching to the Hy- perboreans and the Ocean ? All these are great ; yet he himself is greatest of all, being as he is in fact no man, but — '. 114 3 (and 115 5) : here we have, besides an^a and prata, the ' aucupium piscatus uenatio * mentioned by Cicero and Celsus, quoted by Ellis : the ferae would \ 224 CATVLLI be chiefly ' boars ' and ' deer ', Virgil'fe ' pingi.iis ferina '. But tbe prata and arua mentioned in both p'^ema, more particularly in the 2nd, seam to shew he cannot be using salt us in the non-technical sense of the word: comp. Gallus Aelius ap. Fest. p. 302 saltus est, ubi siluae et pastiones sunt, quorum causa casae quoque : siqua particula in eo saltu pastorum aut cu3toduin causa aratur, ea res non peremit nomen saltus. Bufc here ' eae res ' make up a most essential portion of the saltus. Comp. with both poems the Digest, quoted by Marquardt 1. 1. : forma censuaH cauetur ut agri sic in censum referantur : notnen fundi cuiusque : et in qua ciuitcUe et in quo pago sit:...et aruum, quod in decern annos proximos sectum erit, quot iugerum sit:...p'a^M//i, quod intra decem annos proximos sectwn erit, quot iu- gerum: pascua, quot iugerum esse uideantur: item siluae caeduae,,, locus quoque piscatorios cet. : Hyginus too (Gromat. p. 205 Lach.) speaks of ' ai-ui prinii, ami secundi, praii, siluae gla/idiferae, siluae uulgans pas- cuae\ The poet refers with a kind of pedantry to the things printed in Italics, as if he w^ere speaking of some formal estate. In the 'siluae glandiierae' boars would be fed, in those 'uulgaris pascuae' deer and other animals. 114 3 *omne genus', indeclinable as so often in Lu- cretius, refers I think to botli 'Aucupia* and 'piscis'. 5 and G must be compared with 7 and 8 of 115: du7n has the limiting force so common in Latin: oderint, dum metuant: you may call him rich in name, if you allow that his extravagance leaves him without a penny. 6 rnodo, the adverb, would suit neither sense nor metre: I take the point of the verse to lie in the double sense of modus : the Gromatici, or agri mensores, often speak of the modus or measure of land which differed in CARM. 114, 115 225 different places ; and Varro de R R. i ii observes: in m^odo luiidi non animaduerso lapsi sunt muiti, quod alii uillam minus magnam fecerunt quam modus pos- tulauit, alii maiorem. cum utrumque sit contra rem familiarem ac fructum. maiora enim tecta et aedifica- mus pluris et.tuemur iumptu maiore, and so on. Well, Mamurra's saltus has a fine enough modus : it is he him- self lacks a due modusy i.e. a modus in the metapb. sense of 'ratio', 'moderatio': Cie. pro Marc. 1 tantuin in sumnia potestate reruni omnium modum, tarn denique incredibilem sapient iam ac paene diuinam tacitus prae- terire nuUo modo possum; pro Cluent. 191 quibuB finem aliquando non mulieris modus, sed amicorum auc- toritas fecit; de fin. ii 27 ergo et auarus erit, sed finite, et adulter, uerum habebit modum; Hor. sat. ii 3 265 o ere, quae res Nee modum habet neque consilium ratione modoqne Tractari non uult: Cicero and Horace almo£t play on the word, as Catullus does. This line then ex- presses much what 115 8 does: Mamurrahas no modus, no standard of moderation ; he is in fact not a human being, but, as his name implies, a big menacing 'meu- tula'. m/)dd I think may be shortened without elision in Catullus like 'uale ualS inquit' and other like cases: in 10 27 *man6 inquio' is not improbably right; but modd unelided must not be fathered on Catullus. 115 1 habet instar: is this metre possible in Catullus? again I do not comprehend the syntax of the sentence : in the passage of Velleius, quoted by Ellis, itistar is followed by a genitive, and of course scores of like ex- aiiiples might be given: but 'instar iugera'? iuxta may be right; tonsi, as a ^ precedes and a tri follows, is not a violent diplomatic alteration: the 'pratum quod... sectum erit', i. e. the best meadow-land, cut by the scythe, suggested the word to me. 2 sunt nemoris: if M. C. 15 286 CATVLLI 115 CATVLLVB AND HOBAGB 227 tie ne wire aV>Rorbed in sunt (comp. G8 56 Cessare ne for Cessarcnt)y the moris might easily pass into maria : mmv'a I 1 >elieve to be quite untenable , nor can I grasp E!li> < elucidations. Pliny's *septem maria' refer to the sea-Hki: iiKuths of the Po ; and Catullus is now speaking of an upland country. The *cetera* must contain siluae and saltus and all kinds of game, birds and beasts, as well as pascua : now the 'sunt nemorLs/ will include all this: comp. the 'uariae uolucres nemora auia peruoli- tantes' the *ad satiatem terra ferarum* Nunc etiam scatit et trepido terrore repleta est Per nemora ac montes magnos siluasque profundas ' of Lucretius ; the famous 'Nemus Dianae' of Aricia; the * Te nemus Angi- tiae, uitrea te Fucinus unda, Te liquidi fleuere lacus*. 4 *totmoda' is generally declared to be barbarous: Auantius ' tot bona ' may be right ; yet as com is often expressed by a short symbol, 'commoda' might easily become *moda', and occasion Hot* and 'uno' to change places : Tot qui in saltu uno commoda possideat, gives a good sense and a good verse. 5 : The poet may perhaps have meant 'saltusque' to have some point, as one only of the things contained *uno in saltu'; the 'cetera sunt nemoris' comprising the 'ingentis siluas saltusque paludesque', which contain tlie birds, beasts and fish respectively. But tlie frecise point of the huge hyperbole in the 6th verse 1 cannot say I catch. 7 : I do not see the meaning of ultro which so many t ditions have at the end of this verse. Ellis says Varro joins ultro with ipse. But it by no means follows that, vvlii rt ipse is in place, ultro should also be so. Again I 1 hi ilk maximus should stand alone and not be joined Willi / / //M) ; for he is maximus just because he is not homo. W 111 u we reflect how very very often o and c are interchanged in our Mss., my ut re will not seem a violent, I correction, and offers, if I am not mistaken, a most ap- propriate meaning, iind indeed the sed uero of 8, for which Ellis most aptly cites Lucr. iv 986 Non homines solum, sed uero animalia cuncta, requires 1 tlniik some- thing like re to precede it. The first line of the next and last poem seems to furnish another example of this confusion of o and 6: Saepe tibi studiose f B. Guariniis: studioso V] animo uenante requirens Cannina uti pos- sem mittere Battiadae: fur hv this change alone does the sentence gain proper symmetry. Martial in i 100 seems to imitate 115 6 and 8: Mammas at que tat as habet Afra, sed ipsa tatarum Dici et mammarum maxima mamma potest. This qualifying use of ut, 'seeing that he is', is common enough: Cic. epist. xv 3 2 mihi, ut in eiusmodi re tantoque bello, maximae curae e^t ut (|i]ae cet With the last v. comp. Marius Plotius p. 4G2 1 Keil : non est homo sed ropio (?). CATVLLVS AND HORACE Ten years ago my much-honoured friend the late Professor Conington published a lecture on the style of Lucretius and Catullus as compared with tluit of the Augustan poets', since reprinted among his niisoellane- ous writings. Thk lecture, composed tbroughoiit in the kind and courteous language which liis candiJ and generous temper irriperiously dictated to liim, is a criti- cism of certain remiirks of mine wliich occupy less than a page m the second edition r^f my Lucretiua. My remarks on Catullus and Horace are contained in about a dozen lines : hiB criticism of these lines extends over five or six pages. Obviously a dozen lines admitted of 15—2 228 CATVLLVS no more than a most hurried and allusive reference to the points in dispute, my main topic being of course Lucretiu>i, T thought then, and still think, that the critic of my criticism had sought to join issue on far too limited a subject-matter. I wa^ waiting for a suitable opportunity to tell him so ; when his lamented death witliiii two years of the publication of his lecture stop- ped fni a season even the desire to speak out; until the ti?ne fur speaking at all seemed to have passed away for ever. The subject had thus dropped altogether out of my thonglitB, when the present occasion induced me to take it ii[) once more. To prevent the controversy running uselessly off into the aireipop, 1 \s ill endeavour n% TTiiirh af? possible to confine myself to the points Avha li he has raised; but in justice to myself and to I'atulhis 1 iisubt be allowed here and there a greater freedom of range. I Will begin by quoting in full the few sentences of mine to whicli T refer, as they are not to be found in thu last edition of my Lucretius: 'For Lucretius' sake I am not sorry to find Catullus put by his side and de- clared to be as much below Horace as Lucretius is below Virgil. Though Catullus heroic poem was I believe one of his latest, I do not look on it or his elegiacs as the happiest specimens of his genius; but his lyrics tu my taste are perfect gems, unequalled in Latin, un- surpassed ill Crreek poetry. Horace, when he wrote hiH epodes and earlier odes, was probably older than Catulhts wi\.< when he died. Yet in the metres com- mon to them both, in the iambic for instance and the glyconic, who will say that the fonner with all his labour and care has obtained the same mastery over tlieiu which Catullus displays, who would seem to have thrown them ofi* at once without effort according as the AND HORACE 22^ / i odi or the amo constrained him at the moment to write? His language is as undefiled a well of Latin as that of Plautus, and is withal the very quintessence of poetry'. Though I do not repudiate one single syllable of what 1 have said here, 1 should not Iiave wished that these few allusive sentences should have been made the whole battle-ground in a comparison Isetween the uierits of Catullus and Horace. Not only ha.s CoiiiiigtAin done this, taking up as he had a right to do hia own position and point of observation; but he h;is still fiirt,her nar™ rowed the ground by assuming that I wished to exclude virtually from the comparison things wHch I look upon as quite essential to its completeness: much of Catullus* highest poetry is contained m ins hexameters and ele- giacs ; tho' from the nature of the case the ftill }>erfeo- tion of form and substance ii^ seen only in what are generally termed his lyrics. Agnin when I mentioned *the iambic /)r instance and the glyconic', I meant to pit Catullus* three glyconic poems, one of which m more than 200 lines in length, against all the gijconics jind asclepiads of every kind whatever in Horace; and the scazons and pure iambics of the former against all the latter s epodes and some of his odes as well. Nay fur- ther, developing my 'for instance', I sought to compare Catullus' hendecasyllables, scazons, glyconics and sap- phics with the whole of TTorace's lyrical productions, and to maintain their immense superioiitj, — immense I mean of course according to my taste and jiidgmeijt. But Conington has stUl further restricted tlio main controversy to an elaborate comparison between a stanza or so of Catullus* translation of Sappho and a couple of lines in a sapphic stanza of Horace. On this ground too T will essay to meet him; but I must first be allowed to take a somewhat wider and ampler view of the case. \ *^ \J \J CATVLLV8 Another fundamental point of (lifference between Conington and me is this:' he reasons on the assumption that in even- ]'ch preceded that age was immature and imperfect, all that followed it overripened or rotten. I cannot express too strongly how widely T disse^nt from him in this. None can admire more ardently than I fancy that I do what is great in the Augustan age, the consummate perfection for example of Virgil's language and rhythm. Nay, I believe I go farther than Coning- ton himself went, in thinking that Livy's style is on the whole }^erhaps the greatest prose style that has ever been written in any. age or language. At the same time I do not hesitate to express my firm behef that Terence, who died at the age of 26 it would seem, nearly a century before Virgil was bom, has attained to an excellence of style and rhythm in his verse which hanj never been surpassed in Latin or perhaps in any other language, and that it would be the very extreme of bigotiy and injustice to maintain that Horace's iambics can abide a moment's comparison with those of Terence. Look on the other hand at what Martial did, notwith- standing the manifold disadvantages of his position. If we take the epigram in the Latin and modem sense of the term, do all the epigram-mongers of the whole world put together display a tithe of his exuberant wit and 1i nriiir, his fancy, his perfection t)f form and style? It is only natural that Latin should observe in these respects the law which prevails in all culti- vated languages. One might very well hold the opi- nion that the rhymed verse of Dryden or of Pope was superior to that of half a century or a century before tliem, without being bound to maintain that the dull AND HORACE 231 \ and coloui-less blank verse of Thomson or Young was superior or even equal to that of Shakespeare or Mar- lowe. Tho' I have said what I have said of Livy, I do not shut my eyes to the equal perfection uf Caesar's prose, or of Cicero's many styles as exhibited ui his ora- tions, treatises, and above all in his letters to Atticiis, the very counterpart in style of CatuUus' more familiir manner. In times of transition, when a mighty move- ment is going on in any literature, and great poets are pushing on their art in different directions and forging the instruments suited for the various forms of that art, it will always happen that inventive minds will advance farther in some kinds than in other. Catullus tlitii 1 say has reached perfection in his lyrics; from tlie force of circumstances he has fallen short of it in his hexame- ters and elegiacs, tho' in some of the latter, such as the 76th poem and portions of the second part of the 68 th, he has sounded depths and reached heights of inspira- tion, which Propertius himself has failed to attain. Horace I believe to have been a thoroughly modest man, and to have meant what he said, when he de- scribes himself as laboriously gathjering honey like the Matinian bee ; declining that is to set himself up as a rival of the Greek masters, while he is piecing together his elaborate and more or less successful mosaics. Tn match the perennial charm of the Catulliaii lyric we must abandon the soil of Latium and betake ourselves to Alcaeus or Sappho, ay and join with him or her the Muse of Archilochus as well; or else jump over the ages and come at once to Burns and Goethe. With Catullus there is no putting together of pieces of mo- saic: with him the completed thought follows at once upon the emotion, and the consummate form and ex- pression msh to embody this thought for ever. In V 232 CATVLLVS obsen-iiig tlK.t • iforace, when he wrote his epodes and earlier o.Ies, was probably older than Catullus was when he liied', ! did not wish to grudge Horace his longer and matured life: I meant to say that his colder genius ripened slowly, while inspired and impa-ssJoncd natures, like Catullus, seem to leap at once to perfection in con- ff»I)tiun and exprtmii.n alike. Row mnrh ol' uU that is heM ifi the lyrics of Goethe was thought and written before he was tiiuty, even if it di-i not appear iu its final shape until a much later period of his life; and Shakespeare'H lyrical genius can never have been greater than at thr time when he conceived his Romeo and Juliet. _ 1 could confirm my estimate of Catullus by the tes- timony both of ancient and modern times. That oxv i , ,g to temporary and social causes Homce had a certain jealousy of Catullus, there can be no doubt, tho' he is at the same time hi^ (Vvquent imitatn,-. Virgil had «tudied him much, as is shewn alike in his veri- earhest poems and in his Aeneid; whUe Ov^d, tne most candid and unenvious of men, set no boimds to his admiration. Ihat m the age which foUowed the Augustan Horace had the cry', we might perhaps infer fro,,, the constant mutation of his language which we meet with in the benecan tragedies ; perhaps too from what QuintHian says tho' vdien he is speaking of Horace, he is not thmkmg of CatuUus as a lyric poet at all. With Mar- tial on the other hand, who belonged ahnost to the last age m which Roman Uterary judgment was of much value, Catullus was supreme. Martial, obeying the n-reversible verdict of his countrymen, freely acknow- ledged \ iigil as sovereign of Latin poetry ; yet he seems to worship him at a distance, and his first and second loves, his DeUa and his Nemesis, are Catullus > ; AND HORACE 233 and Ovid: Tantum magna suo gaadet Verona Catullo, Quantum parua suo Mantua VergiHo. And yet there inust have been much in Catullus' somewhat archaic rhythms and prosody to displease Martial with his mo- dem tastes, 80 antipathetical to all that was obsolete. From more recent times one might select a myriad of witnesses for Catullus: T will content myyeJf witi, a very few. Fdnelon is not one whom we should exixict, to find among the chief admirers of our poet ; and yet he can speak of him in the following terns, selecting in support of them a poem ot two lines whi'di a common observer might easUy pass over : Catulle, qu'on ne peut nommer sans avoir horreur de ses obsc^nit^s, est au comble de la perfection pour une simplicity passionn^e : Odi et amo. quare id faciam fortasse requiris : nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior. Comblen Ovide et Martial, avec leurs traits ingdnieux et fa9onnds, sont ils au dessoux de ces paroles ndghgdes, oil le coeur saisi parle seule dans une esp^ce de ddses- poir. Coleridge near the beginning of his Biographia tells us of the inestimable advantage which he owed to his old master who habituated him to compare Lucretius, Terence, and above all the chaster poems of Catullus, not only with the Roman poets of the silver and brazen ages, but with even those of the Augustan era, and on grounds of plain sense and univej-sa! logic to see and assert the superiority of the fonnor m the truth and nativeness both of their thoughts and diction. There are few who have loved the great Greek and Roman writers more than Macaulay: it is thus he speaks of Catullus (Life ii p. 448): 'I have pretty nearly learned all that I like best in Catullus, He grows on me with intimacy. One thing he has— I do V 234 CATVLLVS nofc know whether It belongs to him or to something in myself — but there are some chords of my mind which he touches as nobody else does. The first lines of Miser Catulle; the lines to Cornificius, written evidently from a sick bed ; anxl part of the poem beginning ' Si qua recordanti* affect me more than I can explain ; they always move me to tears'. And again (i p. 468) : 'Finished Catullus August 3, 1835. An admirable poet. No Latin writer is so Greek. The simpUcity, the pathos, the perfect grace, which I find in the great Athenian models, are all in Catullus, and in him alone of the Romans'. It would have been better to put * Greek' in the place of 'Athenian'. I have cited above some words of an eloquent writer in the North British Review ; here are a few more : * Of what he has written, almost everything that is valuable appeals to feelings that survive all changes of times and circumstances and are common to civilised men'; they *are as intelli- gible and moving now, as they were to the Romans who heoi'i them first': *some of these poems have been so often imitated that we are a little apt to forget ill reading them, how much freshness and originality and force of thought they really display': 'no love poems yet written are more exquisite' : — ^none so exqui- site to my mind. But I am running off into that anetpop which I sought to eschew. Conington begins by criticising the epithalamium of ManUus Torquatus and VijOia Aurun- culeia. 'The fault of Catullus' says Conington, 'as I conceive it, like that of Lucretius, is ^ certain redun- dancy, now tending to luxurious ornamentation now to rustic simplicity ; but in a poem like the epithalamium these qualities happen to be exactly in place. It is written throughout in a' style of which the diminutives AND HORACE 235 which abound in it (a characteristic feature these of Catullus' diction) are a type and sample : there is a vein of vrroKopio-fioSy as the Greeks called it, ninriing through the piece, a petthig, affectionate tone, which as little bears to be criticised by ordinary rules as the '* Little Language" of Swift's letters to Stella'. It is only the halo thrown over this * Little language' by the love of the man now in years for the blooming woman evoking the remembrance of the love of that man in his youth for the half-articulate prattle of that woman in her infancy, which saves this 'Language' from being denounced as pure idiocy. The epithalamium of Ca- tullus contains some of the best and sweetest poetry which this world has produced, clothed in language of unfading charm ^ So at least I think: and yet Conington can find nothing better, to extenuate the 'fault' of Catullus who is as fresh and modern to us as he was to Calvus and Cinna, than the obsolete cmnks and wliimsies of the poetaster Heiiick. I hold it to be one of the most grievous defects of the literary diction established in the Augustan age, that it almost banished from the language of poetry those diminutives which are a characteristic, not only of Catullus* diction, but of the letters to Atticus, and of the verse of Plautus and Terence : it made the lyric of the heart impossible. The same has happened in the English of hterature; and the true lyric seems to have vanished from English * Torquatus uolo paruulus Matris e gremio sufie Porrigene tenerae manua Pulce ridcat ad patrem Semiiiante labello : this, and much else like it, then as little beara to be criticised as: And bo Deed rnollah, Little soUah, and that is for the rhyme ; or, I assure oo it ira Tely rate now: but zis goes tomorrow, and I must have time to converse witli own deerichar MD. Nite dee deer soUahs I : or, Kold, dlunken enit, diink Pdfr's heAlth ten times in a mommg! You are a whetter. Faith, I sup MD'e filtocu times erly niolniug in milk porridge. Lele's fol oo now, and Iclo's fol \i Battle, and evly kind oi sing. 236 CATVLLVS too since tlie seyenteentli centuiy. Some Indeed would persuade us that the metallic resonance of that drink- ing-song, tho' * Twas at the royal feast for Persia won', the ' Happy, Iiappy, happy pair ! None but the brave, None but the brave, None but the brave deserves the fair' Iki^ till* genuine ring of the lyric, and is to be pre- ferred U) t!i Hi divine stanzas which make immortal the three peaBanis who get drunk over tlirir ide : *0 Willie brewed a peck o' maut'; or to that other lyric no lc36 ili'vuH' which sheds an undying lustre over that fuddled old barbarian tht King of Thula These two songs have much of the 'petting affectionate tone', whieh VIMiilipR warlike son' disdains to bestow on * lovely lliaia' by his side. Ooiiiiigtnii ill his plea for Horace versus Catullus selects, as he has a right to do, for the luaiter ul' Lis mail arguiiteiit, one of the only two Sapphic odes which appeid In: cireani that 'sighing like furnace' would give him the heat too of a furnace, fired perchance by the inspiration of some ^woful ballad made to his mistress' ' — laugh? but then the torrid equatorial suns? Horace never really conceived the situation : he was simply trying to outdo what he remembered in his Catullus : Acmen Septimius sues amores tenens in gremio, 'mea' inquit 'Acme, ni te perdite amo atque amare porro omnes sum assidue paratus annos quantum qui pote plurimum perire, solus in Libya Tndiaque tosta caesio ueniam obuius leoni'. Read the whole of this transcending 45th poem: it will be felt and known to have come in one gush from the mind of its creator. Note the perfect unity and har- numj of the thouglit, tiu magnificent motion of the rhytliiiL But turn more especially to the lines just quoted: thoro you have truth and reality, beptimius, made immortal by his love, cannot conceive even of change in himself or in her; feels that his bliss will never end; and so to enhance, if he may, this bliss, he pictures to himself what of Lurrible he can, and oflPers, ]f Ids love should ever end, to go and encounter a lion on the torrid plains of India or Africa, knowing right well tha/t tlil.-^ can never be. But this is not the only part of the poem that Ho- mce has been thinking of Tiiere is a neat enough iiiosaic of his, very much better than the ode quoted abovt', the \l)onec gratus eram', in winch ihr {X)et and Lydia outbid one another; tho' there too 1 miss all AND HORACE 239 lyrical passion and sweetness. Horace, when he was a favoured lover, was happier than the king of Persia; Lydia, ere Chloe was preferred to her, was more famous than Roman Ilia. But what is there in the dull cold splendour and isolation of a Persian king to attract a real lover? And the fame of Roman Ilia! what's Ilia to her or she to Ilia, that Lydia should think her fame worth pitting against true love? But hear now Catul- lus: Nunc ab auspicio bono profecti mutuis animis amant amantur. unam Septimius misellus Acmen mauult quam Syrias Britannia sque: imo in Septimio fidelis Acme facit deUcias hbidinesque. Here again yuu have the ring of tine passion. At the moment when the poem waa written Caesar wa^ mvad- ing Britam, and Crassus was off, 'partantpourlaSyrie', to annihilate the Parthians. The youth of Rome were flocking West and East, some to share in the conquest and pillage of the new America; others to saek the gold and jewels of Asia. Septunius lieeds it not : his is not the self-conscious and therefore mireal passion which can affect postures and efrimaces and fine-drawn senti- ments: 'I could rif.l love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not honour more*. What is gain and glory- to hmi, when Acme is on Iub liosom? Then the true poet can conceive of nothing higher for Acme, tlian to dote f3r ever on lier c^wn Septimius, Roman lUa indeed ' 1 he whole of this exquisite poem well illustrates the fine observation of Hermogenes: ij Sc yKvKVTr]<; oIol- K>J,kkos rt' T^« d(f>ek€La^ lari. Sweetness is the never-absent chiirni i which Catullus throws over the simple beautv of those ^ J a/ poems, m which sweetness can have place. 240 CATVLLVS Before I return to Catullus* translation of Sappho, I would just direct attention to the short ode (i 21) *Diaii im tenerae dicite uirgines' in whirl i Horace imi- tates the 34th poem of Catullus 'Dianae sumus in fide': the whole of the two odes should of coiirse be read to- gether ; but take one stanza as a sample of each ; and first Catullus : Montium domina ut fores siluarumque uirentium saltuumque reconditorum amniumque sonantum. And now take a stanza of Horace : Vos laetara fluuiis et nemorum coma, quaecumque aut gelido prominet Algido, riigris aut Erymanthi siluis aut uiridis Cragi. If Catullus does not surpass Horace here alike in the simple vigour of the thought and in the majestic march of the rhythm, then I confess myself to be no judge uf Latin or iin) other poetry. I now come back to the Sapphic ode which Coning- ton has selected to join the main issue on, to the manifest disadvantage of Catullus. This translation l^ears on its face the stamp of being one of the very earliest of his compositions ; of having been written at a time when he could only adore his Lesbia at a distance. It is the translation too of a very difiicult original, which would lose all its point by paraphrase and dilution. And yet surely tins version has much merit ; and other judges have thought better of it than Conington does. ' No- thing' say 8 J.andor, cited by Th. Mar tin, 'can surpass the graces of this'. However that may be, Catullus seems to have decided that the sapphic was not suited AND HORACE 241 to the genius of the Latin language, or at all events not to hifl own genius, and to have abandoned it alto- gether in favour of the phalaecian hendecasy liable which he made his own once and for ever. The lith poem, his only other sapphic ode, was written late in his life and with direct and meditated reference to the 51st; and but for that earlier poem would never have been written at all. Horace took up the sapphic which Catullus had allowed to drop from his hands, cultivated it with the diligence of the Matinian bee, made it one of his most favoured metres and gave to it that easy and monotonous flow which it retained ever after. Whoever examines the too scanty remains of Sappho, will I think agree with me that Horace in liia elabora- . tion of the metre has entirely changed its character, i Sappho's is a grand and mighty rhythm : TioiKiKodpov audvar * A(l>poSLTa, Hai Ato?, SoXoirXoKCy Xiorcro/iai --re : Sappho meant to unite the stately march of the trochee with the majestic sweep of the dactyl; while the Greek Alcaic has, together with the dactyl, a large admixture of the more prosaic iambus. Whether Horace has or has not obtained an altogether enviable success in his transformation of the Sapphic, I vdil not presume to decide : manifestly he was not quite satisfied himself; and in his fourth book and his * carmen saeculare' he has sought to introduce more variety by a greater ad- mixture of the weak caesura ; tho' he has only suc- ceeded in increasing the stifihess without lessening the monotony of his metre. But, if we grant him any amount of credit for his elaboration of the Latin Sap- phic, I afiirm that, when this facility has once been gained, a very mediocre poet might chance upon the two verses, selected by Conington for praise : Dulce n- den tern Lalagen amabo, Dulce loquentem. M. c. IG CATVLLV8 And I fnr one find much more than Conington does in the sterner and more stately version of Catnllus : ^.}ni sedens arlnersus identldem te Spectat et audit Didce ridentem. He by no means shirks altogether the * speaking' : the love-intoxicated stripling has before him his * ox-eyed* Juno; spectat, sees an Olympian smile steah'ng over her face ; audit, hears accents worthy of a goddess falling from her parted lips. The identldem of the 3rd hne may have occurred to Catullus for reasons such as Conington hints at ; and 1 would remark that its repetition in the other sapphic has a calculated reference to our ode, and is meant to point at Lesbia in her degradation, as it marks her here in her splendour. It is a grand enough word, and its rejection by the Augustan poets is quite conventional. Accius has a noble style ; and his ' Scindens dolore identldem intons^im comara' is worth a good many lines of some Augustan poets^. 1 Whether 'Lin^nia &ed torppf is 'commonplace' or not, I dQv.t know; hut it is ft literal translation of '\b<.at the name number of words in Sappho, this pi*rt of whose ode consists of short isolated clauses; for which a cornpHlent translator must provide something of the same nature. "Wliefher these words b« or bo not inferior to *Cur facunda parum decoro Inter uerba cadii lingua silentio', Bnch a sentence would ha ridieulouKly out of place in Catullus' version or any version of Sappho. I scarcely know how to take Conington 's • argumentum ad inuidiam' about eiu.o, 133, 140, 171, 172, 182, 227 ; bis genius 109, 230 ; bis love of CatuUas 232, 233 membranae 52—55 Memmins, propraetor, 45, 46 ; attacks Caesar 8S meto huio 101, 110 mens stupor 49 miUa quingenta 211 minutas 65 mitto 215 modo witli paulum, and with imper. 84 modus 224, 225 ; modO miolided 225 Muj-cia 63 mutari talento 40, 41 nam in transitions 175 nec = non 114, 148 nemus 226 Nicaea 14, 15, 21 nos for ego 184, 192, 217 noster and uester confused 65, 66 nota, de meliorc, 172, 174 nomssime, cum, 17 nuilus = onmino non 29 obstitit 204 omnia perdidistis 103 oratio obliqua in questions 31, 32 Ortalne (Q. Hortonsius ?) 154, 209 OS ooulosque 29 Ovid imitates Catullus 10, 12, 13 19 20,22,141,142,1-16,165,171,207;' his banishment 185 Padua 210—213 parentheses 126 nater esnritionum 49 patrona uirgo 2, 3 perditiQs 119 peregiino labore 115 perire = amare 122 personahties in Greece and Eome 73 —79 Petroniug amended 117 Phalaecus 213, 314 phasellus 20, 21 piissimus 102, 103 Pife'o 44—46 Phny 84. 96, 106, 107, 151, 152, 212 plumbo dorecta 53 plural referring to indef. sing. 32, 216 plus quam 220, 221 Pollio and his family 39,40; his age 42, 43, 46 Pompey 82, 85—87, 89, 90 pote 120 iViscian cites Catullus 67 proper names corrupted 27 Propertius' name 170 puerperium /alsum 165, 166 pumice aequata 53—55 pusiones 117 qaalecumque 1 — 5 quassa of sound 28 quo comes 3rd in a clause 133, 207, 208; que— et 208, 210 quicquid hoc libelli 1—5 quod manticae 57 quod conj. denotes effect 35, 175 rufulus 134 rufus, term of reproach, 134 Bufus (? M. Caelius) 46, 47, 198, 199, 202—204 rupes 183 sacer hircus 203 saecula cana 211 saltus 222—226 Satrachus 210, 211 flcurra 57 Sempronia 200, 201 Seneca trag. imitates Catullus 00 145 150, 155 si non omnia 125, 126, 129 sibi esse facta 16, 23 socer gencrque 81, 102, 112 sopionibus 116, 117 Btatius (?) imitates Catullus 5 Btruo insidias 50 tacitus partic. 26 taetre 189 tamen 189, 190, 192 tempore, non iongo, 18S tersior, tertior 56, 57, 58 toUe 191 tonsi prati 225 totldejn mea 208 totmodA 226 totus adverbial 47, 48 tremulus 191 trirustice 127 t\-pum Cybelies 142, 143 uel te sio = uel sic te 130 Veram'us and Fabullus 43—45 Hester = tuus 216 uicarius 61—63 Virgil imitates Catullus 146, 148, 156 niuidae lacus undae 115, 116 ulIas=omnino 29 umbilicus 52 nnicus imperator 91, 92, 128 nnum beatiorem 33; unus caprimulgus 56 uscaret aura 9, 17, 18, 23 Volusius (Tanusius) 203—214 ut re 227 Zmyrna 209—211 CAMUKiVan: raiNTBD BT C. J.'cLAY, M.A. at tab UyiVJtKSITT IRZSS. V y /^