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A note on Catullus 63.51

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Bruno Currie
Bruno Currie
Affiliation:
Balliol College, Oxford
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Extract

At Catullus 63.5, OGR read:

deuoluit iletas acuto sibi pondere silices. The gist of this (‘he rolled down from (?) himself flints with sharp mass’) is improbable, and in particular the form iletas is a non-existent word and two syllables too long for the metre.

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 46 , Issue 2 , December 1996 , pp. 579 - 581
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1996

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References

2 So Ellis, R., Catulli Veronensis liber 2 (London, 1878).Google Scholar

3 There are only two doubtful occurrences of ile in Latin literature, (i) Servius says of Virgil's practice ad A. 7.499 and Ecl. 7.26: ‘hoc He’ et ‘haec ilia’facit; but the singular form does not in fact occur in Virgil (A. 7.499 and Ecl. 7.26 both have ilia), (ii) It is the conjecture of Garrod, H.W. (P. Papini Stati Thebais et Achilleis [Oxford, 1906]) at Statius, Theb. 9.766 figitur 〈ile〉Lamus, flet saucius inguina Lygdus. The manuscript P reads ilia, most editors follow the vulgate in reading ora.Google Scholar

4 Latin does have a number of metaplasts. But for ilia a second declension form is attested only once: iliis (dative) at Celsus, Med. 4.1.12.illis (ablative) is a conjecture at Seneca, Dial. 7.7.1 (MSS illis). Perhaps ilibus should be read in both these places? The only place where a form of ilia occurs which is both second declension and singular is Servius, A. 7.499 ab ilio; this, however, is a pun on ab Ilio (‘from Troy / from the groin’), cited from the mimographus Marullus. Servius himself condemns the form: ‘ab ili’debuit dicere (cf. Servius, Ecl. 7.26:est autem hoc dictum per amaritudinem rusticam).

5 Cf.Adams, J.N.The Latin Sexual Vocabulary (London, 1982), 71.Google Scholar

6 With Catullus 63.5 acuto…silice cf. Ovid, Fast. 4.237 saxo…acuto and with Catullus 63.6 itaque ut relicta sensit sibi membra sine viro cf. Ovid, Fast. 4.242 nullaque sunt subito signa relictaviri

7 Followed by Nisbet, R.G.M., Collected Papers on Latin Literature (S.J., Harrison [ed.], Oxford, 1959), 99 ═PCPS 24 (1978), 112.Google Scholar

8 The same conjecture was also arrived at independently by Dr S. J. Harrison.

9 Gildersleeve, B.L. &Lodge, G., Latin Grammar (London, 1895), §311, R.2.Google Scholar

10 Read thus by Ellis, Thomson and Goold. OGR have istinc teque reducis.

11 Particularly if the -que of itaque were written compendiously (as my representation below supposes).

12 For the parablepsy, cf. Catullus 95.5, where the reading of OGR, Zinirna canas, is probably influenced by Zinirna cana in the line below, and cf. Nisbet (op. cit. n. 7), 98 ad loc.: ‘canas has clearly jumped from the line below, and in such circumstances palaeographical considerations should not be given undue weight.’