Parody and Personalities in Catullus1

C. W. Maleod

doi:10.1017/S000983880003679X

Parody and Personalities in Catullus1

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009

C. W. Maleod

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C. W. Maleod: Affiliation:
Christ Church, Oxford

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The reader of Catullus' fiftieth poem can hardly fail to be struck by the poet's use of erotic language to his friend Calvus. Sleeplessness and lack of appetiteare symptoms of love, and the threat of Nemesis is commonly used againsta haughty beloved; miserum (line 9), incensus (line 8), and indomitus furore (line 11) are words to describe a lover, and ocelle (line 19), as Kroll observes, is naturally addressed to a beloved. Even ut tecum loquerer simulque ut essem (line 13) suggests a lover's yearning, if we recall how Plato in erotic contexts stresses the desire to have company and conversation with the beloved (Symp. 211 d 6-8; Phdr. 255 b 2). It is strange then that Kroll should comment onpreces in line 18 that their content is not clear.

Type: Research Article
Information: The Classical Quarterly , Volume 23 , Issue 2 , December 1973 , pp. 294 - 303

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S000983880003679X [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Classical Association 1973

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^{page 294 note 2} Cf. Kinsey, , Latomus, XXV (1966), 106.Google Scholar

^{page 294 note 3} Cf. Kroll on lines 9 and 19, Quinn or, lines 10–13. For lovers' Nemesis, add A.P 12. 141. 6 (Meleager), 229 (Strato); Tib 1. 8. 72; for sleeplessness, Pease on Virg Aen. 4. 5.

^{page 294 note 4} Cf. Kroll ad loc. and Hor. Od. 3. 12. 1.

^{page 294 note 5} Cf. e.g. Cat. 64. 19, 253; 68. 129; Plaut Trin. 751.

^{page 294 note 6} See further Cat. 21. 5 and Kroll ad roc.

^{page 294 note 7} Dolorem (line 17) is equivalent tc amorem: see Shackleton Bailey on Prop 1. 10. 13 (Propertiana [Cambridge, 1956], p. 30). Here it has, as Kroll observes, the particular connotation of ‘yearning’.Google Scholar

^{page 294 note 8} Cf. Prop. 1. 1. 16; [Tib] 3. 4. 76; Ov. Am. 1. 6. 61, 2. 2. 66; A.A. I. 710, 715. What the substance of the prayers might be is indicated by Cat. 32, Prop. 2. 23. 15 f., or Ov. Am. I. II. 7 ff.

^{page 294 note 9} Cf. further Aristaen. Ep. 2. 2. For the sense of rogare, see Kroll on Cat. 8. 13.

^{page 294 note 10} Fordyce comments helpfully on this word. Note also that love-poetry may be described as deliciae (e.g. Ov. Tr. 2. 349; 5. I. 15).

^{page 294 note 11} Pucci, , Maia, xiii (1961), 249–56 heavily stresses the ‘programmatic’ aspect of the poem.Google Scholar

^{page 295 note 1} The sim of the Pèsaro codex must be an emendation. This manuscript has been studied by Zicari, M. in Studia Olivieriana, i (1953), 3–23Google Scholar; note ibid., p. 22: ‘Con tali affinity e tali caratteri l'Olivieriano non pub contribuire alcunchè di nuovo alla costituzione del testo catulliano.’

^{page 295 note 2} But in his supplementary notes he accepts, ‘not without misgivings’, nostri sis.

^{page 295 note 3} Cf. Barwick, , Hermes, lxiii (1928), 71.Google Scholar

^{page 295 note 4} Contrast, moreover, Prop. 2. 25. 29 f.; [Tib.] 4. 13. 7 f.; Ov. A.A. 2. 601 Catullus, as editors have observed, is reversing a locus communis for rhetorical purposes.

^{page 295 note 5} e.g. Tib. 1. 8. 69, 75; Prop. 1. 18. 5, 3. 25. 15; Ov. A.A. I. 715.

^{page 295 note 6} e.g. Tib. 1. 4. 15; Prop. 2. 14. 20, 3. 21.7; Ov. Am. 2. 59. 20, A.A. 1. 345.

^{page 295 note 7} Cf. Eur. Supp. 899 f.; Aristaen. Ep. 1. 10. 9–17 Mazal; Hor. Od. 1. 4. 19 f. and Nisbet-Hubbard ad loc. The emendation num should therefore be resisted.

^{page 295 note 8} Quaerere and the like, can have a distinct erotic sense: see Cat. 8. 13; Prop. 2. 22. 49; Hor. Od. 1. 33. 13 and Nisbet-Hubbard ad loc.

^{page 295 note 9} If these verses are taken to represent a poetic motif, the elaborately realistic interpretation proposed by West, M. L. in C.Q. N.S. xx (1970), pp. 209 f. becomes unnecessary. See also Theoc. 1. 82–5.Google Scholar

^{page 295 note 10} e.g. Theoc. 14. 35 ff.; Hor. Od. 1. 8 and Nisbet-Hubbard on that poem; Prop. 2. 30. 1 ff. and Cairns, C.Q. N.S. xxi (1971), 204 f.Google Scholar

^{page 295 note 11} Cf. Foster, , C.Q. N.s. xxi (1971), 186 f.CrossRef Google Scholar

^{page 296 note 1} With Barwick, art. cit., pp. 76–8.

^{page 296 note 2} For an attempt to explain the lines in the transmitted order, see Barwick, art. cit., PP. 73 f.

^{page 296 note 3} These are assembled in Fordyce's introduction to the poem (p. 232). As for his minor objections: the phrasing of line 4 is an elegantly compressed rendering of Iliad 10. 437 and the redundant mini in line 10 is like sibi in Chula frg. 18, p. 86 Morel. These features need by no means indicate ‘hasty writing’.

^{page 296 note 4} Cf. Ar. Vesp. 1202 ff.; Virg. Aen. 7. 806 ff.; and.

^{page 296 note 5} Lines 8–10 are the apodosis to two protases, both to lines 5–4 and to dicares, which also has a concessive force, in line 7. In other words they stand. If the connection with lines 1–4 is thereby loosened, that is no great matter, particularly since those lines are meant to be something of a red herring. Their tone, however, does prepare us for what is to come; cf. Arist. Rhet. 413^a30:. (Iliad 9. 385, 388–90).

^{page 296 note 6} Cf. Hor. Od. 5 and Nisbet-Hubbard's introduction to the poem; also e.g. Prop. 3. 24 and 25.

^{page 296 note 7} Cf. Prop. 3. 24. 17; Tib. 1. 2. 1–4; Aristaen. Ep. 2. 1. 22, 16. 11 (a courtesan writing to a lover who prefers another to her):. This last passage clearly indicates how the lover's ‘;tiring’ is the converse of his ‘seeking’.

^{page 296 note 8} Cf. A.P. 5.301. 5–4 (Paulus Silentiarius).

^{page 296 note 9} On the meaning of these lines, see Cairns, art. and loc. cit.

^{page 297 note 1} Cf. Comfort, A.J.P. Ivi (1935), 45–9.Google Scholar

^{page 297 note 2} Ferrero, Pace, Interpretazione di Catullo (Turin, 1955), P. 214.Google Scholar

^{page 297 note 3} With Zicàri, M., Studia Olivieriana, iii (1955), 58, n. 1.Google Scholar

^{page 297 note 4} For the arguments leading to this conclusion, see pp. 549 ff.

^{page 297 note 5} Studia Olivieriana, iii (1955), 58Google Scholar f. He documents the of the poor lover by reference to Piwonka, Puelma, Lucilius and Kallitnachos (Frankfurt am Main, 1949), PP. 248 ff. and A.P. 12. 42, 44, 212. Note also Philostratus, Epp. 7 and 23.Google Scholar

^{page 298 note 1} Cf. further Plaut. As. 504 ff.; Prop. 4. 5. 49 ff.; Ov. Am. 1. 8. 67 f.; Tib. 1. 5.47 f.

^{page 298 note 2} For this detail, cf., in reverse, Tib. 1. 8. 31 f.

^{page 298 note 3} Cf. particularly, Cic. Ad fam. 13. 50. 2, quoted by Kroll on line 5: ‘hoc mihi da et largire, ut M’. Curium, “sartum et tectum”, ut aiunt, ab omnique incommodo, detrimento, molestia sincerum integrumque conserves.’ Further, Ov. Tr. 3. 14. 15; Hor. Od. 3. 5–8; T.L.L. iii. 1840. 46 ff., s.v. commendo; L.S.J. s.v. 2.

^{page 298 note 4} e.g. Cic. Ad fam. 2. 6. 1, 5. 12. 2–3.

^{page 298 note 5} e.g. Cic., Ad fam. 13. 2; Hor. Ep. I. 9. 12.

^{page 298 note 6} The style of lines 14–19 is ridiculously grandiloquent; note the reduplications mala mens furorque vecors (14) and miserum malique fati (17), the alliteration in 18–19 and the -que/-que in 19, on whiclt, see Ed. Fraenkel, , Elementi Plautini in Plauto (Florence, 1960), pp. 199–201Google Scholar = Plautinisches in Plautus (Berlin, 1922), pp. 209–11.Google Scholar

^{page 298 note 7} Here Catullus, so far from offering a simple dinner (cf. Hor. Od. 1. 20 and Nisbet-Hubbard, p. 245) offers none at all; and the perfume which is all he can supply shows him to be licentious as well as penniless.

^{page 299 note 1} Cf. Alciphron, Ep. Parasit., passim; Plautus, Most. 888, Stichus 155 ff., etc. The point of mocking someone's hunger is commonly to stigmatize him as a parasite (cf. Ar. Ach. 855 ff., Vesp. 1265 ff.).

^{page 299 note 2} Cf. Ar. Av. 1451 f.; [Theoc.] 27. 42 ff.; Plaut. Persa 53ff.; Hor. Od. 1. 16.1 and Nisbet-Hubbard ad loc.

^{page 299 note 3} Parasites have some contact with love in Alciphron, Ep. Parasit. 28 and 31. In 28 the writer hopes to ransom and marry his young master's girl, but only after the young man has himself married an heiress and only because she has co-operated with him in schemes of his; in 31 the writer has fallen in love with a girl he saw in a procession, but the whole letter brings out the impropriety of this infatuation, and particularly the words.

^{page 299 note 4} To call someone a parasite may be simply friendly banter: see Theoc. 7. 24: (That this is parasitic behaviour emerges from Alciphron, Ep. Parasit. 30:.) And when Catullus says of Veranius and Fabullus quaerunt is trivio vocations (47. 7), he is pathetically and comically exaggerating their plight;they are no less his friends.

^{page 299 note 5} For sex as a punishment, see Cat. 16. 37. 8, 56. 7; Ar. Ach. 271 ff.; Theoc. 5. 1s6 f.; and the Priapea constantly: e.g.6, 11, 13, 22, 74. There is usually a note of fantastic comedy in the idea; it is only real in a rustic context.

^{page 299 note 6} On this mode of expression see Nisbet-Hubbard on Hor. Od. 1. 13. 57, Rossi, L. E., Maia xxiii (1971), 19–21, and the literature cited there. Particularly relevant in relation to Catullus 23 is the type of which has a fixed place in the latter parts of Aristophanic comedies (Ach. 836 ff., 1008 ff.; Vesp. 1450 ff.; Pax 715 ff., 856 ff., etc.), since these are commonly concerned with the pleasures of the table. Catullus' poem is the exact reverse.Google Scholar

^{page 299 note 7} The reading of the manuscripts is defended by Ed. Fraenkel, Mus. Helv. xxiii (1966), 114–17.Google Scholar

^{page 299 note 8} Cf. Arist. E.N. 1155^a11, f.; Dio Chrys. 3. 100, Cic. Lael. 26; Liban. Or. 8. 5 ff. this also underlies Cat. 89 (see appendix).

^{page 299 note 9} Lignea (line 6) is a parody of the idealized toughness of the rustic wife; cf. Hor. Epod. 2. 41 f. It has the same implications as in Ar. Plut. 561, since, as Kroll observes, it means ‘lean’; but here it is alsc an insult (cf. p. 303, n. 1 below).

^{page 300 note 1} Also Hor. Sat. 2. 2. 70 ff.; Ar. Plut 559 ff.; Musonius Rufus 18b, p. 118. 35 ff Lutz.

^{page 300 note 2} For the virtues of ‘dryness’, see Kroll on line 12. Catullus may be parodying the species of medical theoreticians called or: cf. Dio Chrys. 33. 6; Philo, Quod det. 43 and Festugière, Hermétisme et mystique païenne (Paris, 1967), p. 156, n. 57.Google Scholar

^{page 300 note 3} See Nisbet-Hubbard on Hor. Od. 1.5 5.

^{page 300 note 4} Poem 26, if vestra is the right reading in line I, is plainly good-hunoured enough, as its close relative Furius Bibaculus frg. 2 (p. 81 Morel).

^{page 300 note 5} e.g. Prop. 1. 7. 19, 2. 1. 2, 34. 42; Ov. Tr. 2. 307, 349.

^{page 300 note 6} e.g. Cat. 25. 1; see further Kinsey, , Latomus, XXV (1966), 103.Google Scholar

^{page 300 note 7} Cf. T.L.L. vii (1) 711. 37, s.v. impudicus.

^{page 300 note 8} For the ‘lasciviousness’ of love-poetry, see e.g. Ov. Am. 2. I. 2; A.A. 3. 331; Tr. 2. 313, 345, 427. The love-poet's character is that of his verses: cf. e.g. Prop. 2. 34. 55–60 and Woodman, , Latomus, xxv (1966), 222–4. And this is the image of himself Catullus presents in poem 5, the piece which is supposed to give rise to Furius' and Aurelius' criticisms.Google Scholar

^{page 301 note 1} They are potent par excellence because they induce potency in others; cf. Plato, Ep. 7 (344 a 1):.

^{page 301 note 2} Cf. Prop. 3. 2. 10, 3. 3. 20; Ov. Am. 3. 1. 27, A.A. 2. 745. Catullus' pueri correspond in this homosexual context to Propertius' and Ovid's puellae. Curiously parallel to Catullus' claim is Philostratus, Ep. 68.

^{page 301 note 3} On ‘erotic teaching’, see Wheeler, C.P. v (1910), 28–40 and 440–50, vi (1911), 56–77.

^{page 301 note 4} Propertius is fond of puns on mollis and durus, though of a less brutal kind: e.g. 1. 7, 2. 34. 41 ff. Catullus likewise plays on the word tener in 35. 1, which denotes both the young or immature (cf. Sen. Ep. 50. 6) and the erotic poet (cf. Ov. A.A. 3. 333) or his verses (cf. Hor. A.P. 246).

^{page 301 note 5} For this idea, see Kroll ad loc. and in his Studien zum Verständnis der römischen Literatur (Stuttgart, 1924), pp. 30 ff.; West on Hes. Theog. 100.Google Scholar

^{page 301 note 6} Though the assertion that his verses have salem et leporem is a claim to some refinement: cf. I. 1,6. 17; Hor. A.P. 273, and Brink ad loc.

^{page 301 note 7} For actual imitation of Archilochus in Catullus, see Kroll on 40. 1, 56. 2.

^{page 301 note 8} So also Kinsey, art. cit., p. 105, n. 1.

^{page 301 note 9} So notably Wilamowitz, , Hellenistische Dichtung (Berlin, 1924), ii. 307.Google Scholar

^{page 301 note 10} See Fordyce's note on line I for echoes in Horace and Propertius.

^{page 302 note 1} Cf. Theoc. 14. 55; Prop. 2. 5. 9–19 3. 21.

^{page 302 note 2} Cf. Kinsey, , Latotnus xxiv (1965), 539.Google Scholar

^{page 302 note 3} A reference should be made here to th article of Richardson, L., Jr., in C.P. lvi (1963), 93–106,Google Scholar which deals with the Pura': Aurelius, and Juventius poems. This con tains some valuable remarks, notably on: poem 99 (pp. 95 f.), but the author's ar proach to the question as a whole is too different from that of this paper for polemic to be profitable. Here I may simply expre; some scepticism about his arrangement of the poems in a quasi-biographical sequence. See on this piece the excellent article of Zicari, M. in Studia Olivieriana, iii (1955), 57–69. He in fact concludes (and I am inclined to agree): ‘Tuttavia… della mésalliance di Giovenzio col pesarese é suggerito soltanto l'aspetto ridicolo. Essa resta un delitto mondano, suscitatore non di gelosia, ma di uno scandalo tanto meno da prendere sul serio, quanto più pateticamente espresso’ (pp. 68 f.).Google Scholar

^{page 303 note 1} For jokes on leanness, see Brecht, , Philol. Supp. xxii, Heft 2 (1935), pp. 91–3.Google Scholar

^{page 303 note 2} Also, ibid. 640, 744, 754f. In this scene there is the same double entendre as in Catullus' poem.

^{page 303 note 3} For cur +subj. in ‘deprecating censure’, see Lewis and Short, s.v. cur II B, I, c; cf. T.L.L. iv. 1440. 11–34, S.V. cur.

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