The Lesbia Love Lyrics Author(s): W. M. A. Grimaldi Reviewed work(s): Source: Classical Philology, Vol. 60, No. 2 (Apr.

, 1965), pp. 87-95 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/268281 . Accessed: 06/12/2011 09:01
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Classical Philology.

http://www.jstor.org

CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
VOLUME LX, NUMBER

April 1965

THE LESBIA LOVE LYRICS

W. M. A. GRIMALDI, S.J.

JT

HAS

become increasingly popular even to the elegists), I believe that it

can be shown that Catullan love poetry is the very antithesis of this kind of subjective involution. Far from being helplessly immersed in the play of his feelings the poet would appear rather to be in dominant control of his love poetry. Actually if Catullus is the eminent lyrist he has been called his work should evidence the levels of meaning which we find in all distinguished poetry with its use of irony and paradox, myth and symbol. Such poetry gives voice to a complete experience both unique and richly diverse. As a love poet Catullus is indeed intense, and yet his love poetry cannot be read in a monosemantic manner since it brings into play an exquisite sense of the ironic, a tension between reason and feeling which gives a deeper insight into the nature of his love for Lesbia. There is a continual play between intellect and feeling, form and matter, which gives clarity and increases the poignancy of his experience as a lover. His poetry has the builded quality common to classical poetry. It is not in any sense "the direct outcome of immediate personal emotion" nor born simply "d'une spontaneite affective." This structural quality of Catullan poetry has been too infrequently noted although K. Quinn called attention to one aspect of it commenting on the
87

to call the poetry of Catullus, particularly the love poetry to Lesbia, romantic and to make the poet an exponent of romanticism.' Admittedly "romantic" as a term is vague enough to mean anything. What is meant by those who use the word of Catullus is that his work is a vehicle of that kind of romanticism which is expressed in poetry that is a spontaneous, uncontrolled outburst of emotion, unreflective and immediate. The phrases used are apt and descriptive: "Le paroxysme des romantiques," "phenomene de jeunesse, spontane et maniere," "c'est la succession des sentiments, l'inspiration de l'instant"; the poet works in a kind of "dream world where love leads the way, a place midway between the unpoetic and the poetic world, between bourgeois morality and the higher law of the lover."2 Briefly we have in Catullus that type of romanticism which has been recently described as poetry which seeks its "principle of order... not in terms of the external world and an appeal to reason but in terms of the inner world of the individual, and an appeal to the imagination.' '3 Aside from the fact that this sets up a frame of reference for the poet which appears to be totally foreign to the poets of the Late Republic (and perhaps
[CLASSICALPHILOLOGY,LX, April, 1965 ]

88

W. M. A. GRIMALDI, J. S. set aside, indeed even to be replaced."8 Such practically exclusive concentration upon love and upon an idealized beloved9 which captured the attention of the elegists set a new worth upon a life expended upon the beloved: the vita iners, desidia.'0 A limited theme such as this tends to develop a strong subjective response to the real world which has often been identified with romanticism. This form of the romantic assertion of the lonely self expresses itself in poetry marked by individualism, melancholia, escapism, protest against reasoned order, and an emotional view of life which is both personal and partial. And it validates poetic experience quite simply as emotional response, e.g., "Catulle semble disponible a toute impression du un enfant.""1 This, moment-comme however, is not the Catullan lyric. Catullus' love poetry shows a luminous awareness which holds in the balance the conflict between reason and the turbulent emotions of the lover. There is neither the paralyzing introspection nor the exaltation of self often found in romantic poetry. Contrary to the conviction of Jacoby there is in one respect as large a chasm between the spirit and tone of the Catullan love lyric and that of the elegiac love poets as lies between their distich and the informal polymetrics in which Catullus chose to express his theme.'2 In the most forthright of his love poems there is a play of irony and wit which reveals that he has reserved to himself a part of himself untouched. In c. 76 he might plead for bona mens; it was the tragedy of his experience in love that throughout it he kept an understanding mind.13 This self-possession differentiates the Catullan lyric from the self-surrender of the romantic. It is overlooked because the passionate intensity and fullness of

"controlled lyricism" of c. 7: "Even in the poems of completest surrender to emotion we can have the feeling that Catullus is aware of the course the poem must take-if it is to remain the sort of poem this tension between intellect and emotion best produces.' '4 Here Quinn's primary emphasis is on form: so too is Barwick's in his analysis of the deliberate cyclic organization of cc. 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 11.5 Yet we must remember that the manner in which the poet gives voice is intimately related to what he is saying. Catullan love poetry possesses the intense immediacy of an experience as well as (and this is frequently overlooked) the critical awareness which is able to stand apart from and to view the experience with discrimination and objectivity. This quality, particularly in the love poetry, removes Catullan love lyric from the genre of Roman elegiac love poetry which might be more correctly called "romantic." The erotic Latin elegy has characteristics identifiable with a generally accepted understanding of romantic love poetry. But these are foreign to the genius of the Catullan love lyric. More readily admissible about the elegists than Catullus is the claim that they express a complete dedication to the goddess of love which qualifies the lover as irrational (nullo vivere consilio, Prop. 1. 1. 6), and his love as a violent passion.6 Love is a form of unreason (furor, amentia, rabies, insania, an idea not uncommon in ancient literature)7 which subverts the poet as a person and changes his values. We might well see the romantic transmutation of values in the elegists' attitude to love. For them love becomes a primary value, a value "which permits the traditional standards of private and public value scales (Lebens- und Wertordnung) to be

THE LESBIA LOVE LYRICS

89

his mind seeks expression in vivid language and imagery which will crystallize the experience of his love.14 What should not be overlooked, however, is the peculiar Catullan blend of passion and thought, of feeling and reason, which probes and investigates the experience (see cc. 8, 11, 70, 72, 75, 76, 85, 87, 92, 104).15This polarity between feeling and thought is the mark of distinguished poetry. It is the tension which reveals the vision the poet possesses of the conflict in the human substance and in the world. It is poetry more proper to the English metaphysical poets than to romanticism. Aside from the love poems themselves there are simply too many factors present in the poetry of Catullus which are directly opposed to accepted norms of romanticism. Catullus was keenly aware of his poetic tradition and he worked within it as far as we are able to judge. A study such as Hezel's demonstrates this, and we do have the more obvious probative instances such as cc. 51, 66.16 We would assess the literary work of Catullus more perceptively if we placed him in the same tradition as that in which Vergil's and Horace's work has been constantly located.17 Closely allied with his sense of tradition is Catullus' concern for literary matters, particularly literary criticism. His literary taste is highly developed and his comments in poems such as 36, 14, 44, 35, 17, 95, 16 (and even 22) clearly point to a person rather occupied with the whole process of the literary act.'8 Whether Catullus' literary criticism is his own or is an echo of Alexandrian sources is immaterial, for the point at issue is his interest in the writing of poetry. Certaihnly he is far from the romantic attitude that the poet "is no longer a craftsman: since he cannot state in advance what he is trying to do in

writing his poem," an attitude reflected in the exponents of Catullus the Romantic whose poetry is the spontaneous outpouring of a heart deeply moved.19 There is another nonromantic quality in the Catullan corpus which implies a habit of thinking about and looking at life that is more objective than subjective and personal, namely the poet's concern for Rome and for Roman values. It is to be found particularly in his political poetry. With what justification Herescu can be so certain that the poet's political comments, specifically his anti-Caesarianism, do not represent his conviction it is difficult to understand.20 There may well have been a certain youthful exuberance which delighted in opposition for opposition's sake. But youthful exuberance does not explain a poem like c. 29 wherein it has been said "the indignation of Republican Rome had... found a voice" (see also cc. 52; 64. 397-408). Whether it is sheer contrariness, however, or serious concern, Catullus' political comments show us a man of broad enough interests to give attention to the Roman state. But the most telling refutation of the theory of the "romantic" Catullus is the man himself, the character of much of his poetry, and his manner of describing his whole endeavor. Indeed if Barwick is correct in his analysis of the Lesbia cycle (2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 11) my contention about the poet as-a lover could be accepted as proved. For in this cycle, we have the poet setting down quite dispassionately and with almost ruthless deliberation a brief but complete account of his affair with Lesbia. This is certainly not the poet who has recently been described as caught in the "grip of the romantic passion which refused to see the truth."'2' Furthermore Barwick's thesis, whether right or wrong, is

90

W. M. A. GRIMALDI, J. S. itself the idea of facetiae, dicacitas, urbanitas: the cultivated, sophisticated appreciation of wit, intellect, and things of the mind-even a girl's beauty seems to reside less in her physical charms than in her wit and sophistication (c. 86). Formosus, lepidus, venustus, elegans, delicatus, sapiens, doctus are all Catullan words and indicative of an appreciation for the facile mind, lively fancy, apt and pointed expression. The work of such a poet will most likely be complex, selfcritical, ironic. In the lovely last strophe of c. 11 where Catullus compares his love for Lesbia to a flower fallen at the edge of the field, cut by the plowshare, there is what appears on the surface to be a touching literary reminiscence of Sappho Frag. 121 (Page). Yet it is equally possible, nor is it at all unCatullan, that Muretus is right when he comments that this is a reference to an old and well-known proverb in which Catullus tells us that his love died like a bean ("tam perisse quam extremam fabam"). And so we return to our initial problem: Is there any sign of this ironic self-detachment of which we have been speaking in the love poetry to Lesbia? If so, then not merely does Catullus the Romantic poet disappear but the account of the love affair which these poems have afforded to many commentators becomes suspect. First love, gradual disenchantment, final renunciation may be within the poems but it would be difficult to disengage them. For the presence of ironic tension implies that the Lesbia poems as written present an experience integral from beginning to end. They are, in other words, a series of love poems not a history of a love affair. Differing in quality and intensity they capture the variety and subtle changes of love. But from the beginning they are matked by the poet's

much more consonant with V. Buchheit's study of c. 36, or J. P. Elder's study of cc. 1, 6, 21, 23, 35, 44, 69, 76.22 In the logic of its structure and the insight of its expression Catullan poetry reflects a mind which understands both itself and its world. Herein Catullus is more akin to the poets of Greece, and time and again in his poetry one receives the impression that classical Greek poetry has influenced his general attitude and spirit.3 A recurrent pattern of structured form and thought in a poet's work is indicative of a logical and critical mind. Divorcing a poet from his inner self is a hazardous adventure; it is far more likely that the same person who gave voice to the political poetry, the literary criticism, and the poems to his friends was also the ultimate source of the love poetry. And if a spirit of critical discrimination is found operative in one or other sphere shall we not, in the absence of convincing evidence to the contrary, expect to find it operative in all ?24 When Catullus speaks of his poetry and describes his efforts as a poet he consistently does so in terms which denote irony, wit, and critical perspective. In his own words his poetry was saying more than might perhaps appear to the casual reader. In c. 1 he tells us that his poems may seem to be trifles but that they have been worked over thoroughly (expolitum) and the discerning mind (e.g., Cornelius Nepos) has seen them for what they are. With this program note in c. 1 Catullus announces a different kind of lyric poetry which will be written with wit and marked by ironic tension. He may call them nugae (c. 1) and ineptiae (c. 14a), follies as it were,25 but they are follies possessing lepos,26 a word which speaks much for the manner in which the poet

viewed his "trifles." For

lepos27

has in

THE LESBIALOVELYRICS critical insight into his situation: his love was never fully accepted and he knew it (sentio et excrucior, c. 85). The "romantic" Catullus then becomes a myth. Very few would deny the poet's insight into the reality of his situation for poems such as 11, 70, 72, 75, 76, 85, 109. But is it present also in 51, 2, 3, 5, 7 which have been viewed as expressing the strong, almost blind, affirmation of his love ? It would appear that it is present and that it creates ironic tension within the poems, a wry twist of the bittersweet. For it enables us to see the surge of a man wholly in love but at odds with his understanding. This polarity gives the poems more depth and intensity as love poems because they now capture for us an understanding of the experience. The quality of ironic tension in these poems achieves in its own way the same effect as the distich c. 85. Irony in poetry introduces a sense of indecision and irresolution. In a poem that is brilliantly organized this use of irony will not destroy the unity but rather point to the inner heart of the experience: the sense of frustration, indecision, irresolution consequent upon the conflict within the person. When we turn to c. 51 we are in the presence of this twofold level of intention. We are faced with the odd fact that this is, and is not, a translation of Sappho. The last strophe is the most striking instance of the break with the Greek poet. Why the change? And change it is, for few commentators reject the last strophe. Catullus is trying to say two things in the poem as a whole; and I stress the whole poem, for the last strophe works back over the whole and subtly changes the tone of the poem. Unwittingly Friedrich in his commentary expressed the effect most accurately when he wrote that the last

91

strophe "fallt uber das Gedicht wie ein Eimer eiskalten Wassers." In c. 51 Catullus is saying that his love for Lesbia was as intense and as complete an experience as that expressed by Sappho, but also that it was a self-destroying and futile love. This last comes forth clearly in the last strophe when with remarkable clarity he assays the experience for what it is and passes judgment upon it as idle, meaningless reverie on his part, daydreaming which enervates and destroys.28 The passer poems (cc. 2, 3) have two levels of meaning and reveal the same ambivalence in Catullus. The passer is denotative but can also connote Catullus, the lover of Lesbia, and not only his passionate love for her but also its sheer folly (quicurn ludere, in sinu tenere, acris solet incitare morsus). The referential meaning has always been taken for granted.29 Yet should we not ask why Catullus chose to write about this pet? While it does seem a senseless question to put to a poet, yet in a poem words must be read in context and the overtones of the context here suggest that the poet had more than the pet in mind. In the first place the word passer was a term of affection and endearment among lovers.30 Secondly the word pipiabat, which we find used of the sparrow in c. 3. 10, is not the sound of a sparrow but rather the sound of a human being, specifically a child.31 The phrases used within the poems as well as the imagery are the language used of human lovers.32 Finally, if Hezel, is correct, poems on living animals are r-are.33The poem of Meleager (Anth. Pal. 7. 207) which Hezel suggests as a possible influence on the passer poems is a grave epigram in which it is interesting to note that the dead animal, a young hare, is personified and speaks as a human being.

92

W. M. A. GRIMALDI, J. S. request for Lesbia's love. All agree, however, that poems 5 and 7 are to be read together and in 7 there are more obvious instances of ironic tension which reveal the poet's awareness of the folly of his love. Lesbia's attitude is obviously passive or at the most one of dmused tolerance (quaeris ?; basiationes tuae; te basia. .. basiare). Again while sands and stars (c. 7. 3, 7) have a rich literary tradition which might signify nothing in particular we are justified in asking about the specifications. For the idea that the lyric poet is writing descriptive geography is somewhat unfair.35 The sands as we know from the context are those of the Libyan desert, a barren, lifeless place which suggest the fruitlessness of his love. And the stars look down upon the furtivos hominum amores. Strangely enough in the two poems in the Anthology in which the stars are mentioned they are invoked as witnesses of the beloved's infidelity. Even the other specifying words make one wonder about their connotations. Lasarpicium was a medicine and a purge; the oraculum Iovis was the temple of Zeus Ammon whose statue at Cyrene stood beside that of Asclepius, the god of healing; and Battus we are told was cured after founding Cyrene.36 Here we have specifying details which are related to the idea of sickness and cure. And then we find Catullus speaking of himself as one who is sick and needs healing. He is vesano (10) and his plea in the poem, as Friedrich notes, is sana me vesanum: cure me by returning my love. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that in poems 5 and 7 Catullus surely knows that his love is not returned. In an effort to be fair to Romanticism and the Romantic movement and not to condemn indiscriminately, Romanticism as it has been used of Catul-

We have, then, at the referential level two poems on Lesbia's pet sparrow. Beneath this level there are the poems of reflective, ironic comment by the poet on himself and his love affair. In this latter meaning Catullus who would like to see himself as his Lesbia's true love, deliciae meae puellae (the foolish daydreaming in which he indulges, c. 51), understands that he and his love are nothing but a plaything for Lesbia. His ineffectual wish, repeated in other contexts (e.g., c. 75. 3-4), is that he could but take the same carefree attitude to his love as Lesbia does. Could he do so he would thrust from himself the pain (c. 2. 9-10). Indeed if a parallel is to be drawn with Meleager's poem it will be: As Phanion killed the young hare so Lesbia killed Catullus' love not by overaffection but by toying with it (cf. cc. 70 and 72. 1-2). C. 2. 2-6 lends new meaning to c. 3. The presence of this rather bitter comment in these poems is further strengthened by the fact that even at the referential level their tone was very likely openly parodic as a comparison with Anth. Pal. 7. 199, 203 might indicate.34 To have carried the irony further is not at all improbable in a poet who made much of facetiae. The basia poems (cc. 5, 7) are superbly direct and unaffected love lyrics beneath whose surface lies the poet's sense of chagrin and frustration over his realization that his love is neither understood nor returned. At the very center of these basia poems there is an ambiguity which is unresolved and appears to have been left there deliberately. It changes the tone of the poems. Do we have here songs of the joyous abandon shared with his beloved, or a covert but sharply ironic acknowledgment that his love is not returned? There is no marked play of irony in c. 5 unless we see it (and it is there to be seen) in his

THE LESBiA LOVE LYRICS

93

lan poetry has been carefully described and determined. Furthermore the burden of the preceding remarks is not concerned with value statements about Romanticism. Rather a form of it (and to anyone acquainted with the concept it is this form which represents Romantic poetry for many informed people) has been rejected as a possible explanation of the love lyric of Catullus. There may well be other ways in which Catullus can rightly be called a Romantic poet; but to describe his poetry as Romantic, in the sense in which his critics have done, destroys both the poetry and the poet. When we find a poet who is superbly direct and yet highly complex, spontaneous and ingenuous yet self-critical and perceptive, intense and yet ironic, serious and yet unpretentious, why must we reduce the truth of his poetry to a stream-of-consciousness technique, a flood of images which mirror a psychological, indeed a pathological, state rather than a penetrating vision of the

human condition? Catullan love poetry is not "proved upon the pulses" if for no other reason than that it has always tested out in the most critical area of all: the heart and mind of the understanding man, the same man who sees the poet's vision in the compassion of "si quicquam mutis gratum acceptumve sepulcris" as well as in the plea "vivamus mea Lesbia atque amemus." In our attempts to understand the ancient poets let us not impose on them what may well be in a specific instance our own limitations. Intrinsic to the ancient artist's view of his whole effort was the idea that his muse was the child of Love, Love who works with Wisdom as the artificer of every kind of excellence: the ancient artist's work was the harmony of the passions and the understanding, a gift from the whole man: ra Eopt6 7rapeBpouq 7m?7WLV
EpwcxC, /7VTaTLX
CXpe'?Ti

iuvepyoV

(Eur.

Med. 844-45).
FORDHAM UNIVERSITY

NOTES 1. See the late N. I. Herescu, "Catulle et le Romantisme," Latomus, XVI (1957), 433-45. For him Catullus is "le premier romantique" (p. 445); his proof of this by way of verse technique is rather dangerous insofar as the qualities he would call "romantique par la technique" (p. 438) are those which Grierson would find in one of the more metaphysical of the poets, John Donne (The Background of English Literature [New York, 1926], p. 128). As ordinarily understood romanticism is primarily an attitude of mind, a way of looking at reality, as Herescu would also admit. The rather capricious character of the concept is somewhat revealed in the essay of A. 0. Lovejoy "On the Discrimination of Romanticisms" in English Romantic Poets, ed. M. Abrams (Oxford, 1960). 2. Herescu, op. cit. p. 439; J. Bayet, "L'influence grecque sur la po6sie latine de Catulle a Ovide" in Fondation Hardt, II (Vandoeuvres [Geneva], 1956), 3, 30, 32. Wilamowitz in Hellenistische Dichtung in der Zeit des Kallimachos, II (Berlin, 1924), calls the poems of Catullus mostly "Kinder des Momentes." A. Guillemin, "L'element humain dans l'6l1gie latine," REL, XVIII (1940) includes Catullus in her comments on the elegiac poets (p. 96), as does J. Sullivan, "Roman Love Elegy," TAPA, XCII (1961), 530. Cf. Fr. Klingner, Romische Geisteswelt(Wiesbaden, 1952), p. 141. L. Ferrero, however, writes more critically in Un' Introduzione a Catullo (Turin, 1955), p. 50: "E nella critica della poesia catulliana la spontaneita preromantica dello scrittore, forse sottolineata con eccessivo entusiasmo dai romantici moderni, mise in ombra iI concetto stesso che del 'lepos', della bellezza poetica ebbe ad esprimere iI poeta stesso." 3. E. A. Foakes, The Romantic Assertion (London, 1958), p. 42. 4. K. Quinn, The Catullan Revolution (London and New York, 1959), p. 54. In the Catullan lyric there is a large element of that objectivity brought in by a strong play of the intellect which Jacoby finds in the old Ionian elegy but misses in Roman elegy which for him is "der Ausdruck einer augenblicklichen ganz subjektiven Stimmung..." ("Zur Entstehung der romischen Elegie," RhM, LX [1905], 99). Elder calls attention to the influence of classical Greek poetry on Catullus in "Notes on Some Conscious and Unconscious Elements in Catullus' Poetry," HSCP, LX (1951), 125. On the other hand to say of the Catullan love poems "L'accent d'une sincerite nue y est partout present" (Bayet, op. cit., p. 32) appears to be an oversimplification. 5. K. Barwick, "Zyklen bei Martial und in den kleinen Gedichten des Catull," Philol., CII (1958), 284-318. Of these poems Barwick remarks: ".... they form a cycle and were certainly considered to be such by Catullus as well: The cycle was intended to illustrate the poet's love from its first beginnings (2-3) to its happy zenith (5-7) and its final conclusion (8-11)" (p. 314). See also the analysis of c. 36 by V. Buchheit, "Catulls Dichterkritik in c. 36," Hermes, LXXXVII (1959), 309ff., 322ff.

94

W. M. A. GRIMALDI, J. S.
behind the quiet form the strong thrust of powerful passion the more the work is classic. 15. See Copley, op. cit., p. 24; Braga, op. cit., p. 141; and even Bayet, op. cit., p. 34, sees this "comme bravoure de Catulle a voir plus clair en soi." 16. 0. Hezel, Catull und das griechische Epigramrn (Stuttgart, 1932). One occasionally finds a line which has an interesting parallel in Catullus, for example cf. Euphorion Frag. 122 (Pow.) and c. 64. 30. Further, with respect to his work on translation we might conclude from cc. 65. 15f. and 116 that translating was not uncommon for him. Indeed, if Hortensius who received the results of Catullus' efforts is any indication, we might reason that Catullus, certain of the distinction and quality of his translations, did not hesitate to send them on to this man of refined literary taste. 17. It does seem that Catullus merits with them the title doctus poeta in the sense that he was acquainted with the poetic tradition. And without necessarily interpreting lines such as c. 68. 33-36 as Riese, Baihrens, or recently Fordyce (i.e., he does not have with him his "exemplaria Graeca") we should ask ourselves about their meaning, for they appear to reveal his general attitude. 18. Buchheit, op. cit.; speaking of Catullus' role as a critic of poets and literature Buchheit remarks (p. 313): "This is an aspect which as yet does not appear to have been considered sufficiently in antecedent critical examination of Catullus. Yet it clearly presents us with an insight into an essential part of the poet in Catullus." Buchheit's comments would seem to confirm Copley's interpretation in "Catullus, 35," AJP, LXXIV (1953), 149-60. See also E. Fraenkel, "Catulls Trostgedicht fur Calvus," WS, LXIX (1956), who interprets c. 14 as literary criticism (p. 281). This concern of Catullus extended even to the character of the spoken language as the Romans acknowledged, e.g., Quint. 1. 5. 19f. 19. See E. Lerner, The Truest Poetry (London, 1960), chap. ii. If U. Knoche, "Erlebnis und dichterischer Ausdruck in der lateinischen Poesie" Gymn., LXV (1958) is correct in his interpretation of c. 16 (pp. 154-55) Catullus tells us quite explicitly that his small poems are not of necessity directly confessional or dependent upon the emotional inspiration of the moment but are written rather "unter dem kiinstlerischen Gesetz, das fur diese Kleinpoesie gilt, und allein davon ist sein tatsiachlicher Wert als Gedicht abhangig... " He goes on to argue that one must not consider all of Catullus' small poems as spontaneous confession poetry, particularly the love poems (excepting cc. 8, 52, 76, 79, 51). He attempts to prove this (pp. 155f.) by Catullus' use of the words nugae and ineptiae when speaking of his poetry. Knoche's general argument certainly lends strength to the theory of a non-Romantic Catullus: of a poet able to stand apart from the experience embodied in his poem. 20. Herescu, op. cit., pp. 442-43. 21. E. M. Blaiklock, The Romanticism of Catullus (University of Auckland Bull., No. 53. Cl. Series No. 1 [1959]) 14; Herescu, op. cit., p. 433, calls him: "pere de tous les romantiques A venir." 22. Buchheit, op. cit., p. 326, concludes: "The art of composition in Catullus is more than formal art, it is the expression of an inner sense of form (einer inneren Form)"; see also Elder, op.cit., pp. 124 ff., Klingner, op. cit., p. 140. 23. The following does seem a valid judgment: "Thus Catullus displays much of the quick but reflective tone of such an elegist as Callinus, and this pattern of statement, cause, and conclusion is merely a mechanism for the expression of the same elements of reason, logic, and persuasion that characterize the best writers of Greek elegiac, lyric, and even melic poetry" (Elder, op. cit., p. 125). 24. While I cannot accept all of Copley's conclusions (loc. cit. in n. 9 above), especially those about Catullus'

6. See A. W. Allen, "Elegy and the Classical Attitude to Love," YCS, XI (1950). Both Leo (Gdttingische gelehrte Anzeigen, CLX [1898], 725f.) and Jacoby (op. cit., pp. 65f.) note that the elegist dedicates his work to the beloved and centers the burden of his poetry about this theme. 7. Allen, op. cit., p. 261. 8. E. Burck, "R6mische Wesenziugeder Augusteischen Liebeselegie," Hermes, LXXX (1952), 167: Love becomes the directing principle of life; see also p. 180. Burck would include Catullus in this group but in a qualified sense: "Sicherlich hat Catull in der Liebe nicht die einzig bestimmende Macht fur die Gestaltung seines Leben erblickt" (p. 167). Cf. Ov. Am. 2. 9b. 1-2: "'vive' deus 'posito' siquis mihi dicat 'amore,' / deprecer. usque adeo dulce puella malum est." The elegists devoted themselves to that love which made of the lover a helpless victim (see Allen, op. cit., p. 259 on Propertius). It cannot be shown that Catullus ever did that. 9. Ov. Trist. 4. 10. 45-46 implies that the substance of Propertius' poetry is love; and Prop. 2. 1. 4 announces: "ingenium nobis ipsa puella facit." It is of interest to see the indifference of Catullus to the physical beauty of Lesbia, as Copley also noted ("Emotional Conflict and Its Significance in the Lesbia Poems of Catullus," AJP, LXX [1949], 23). Like unconcern is also found in Donne who lays smiall stress, for a lover, on personal beauty (see H. J. Grierson, Verse Translation [London, 1948], p. 9). 10. See Am. 1. 15. 1-2; Prop. 1. 12. 1; Tib. 1. 1. 5, 57-58. The elegists identify this life with nequitia (Am. 2. 1. 1-2; Prop. 1. 6. 25-26) of which we read in Enk's commentary on Propertius: "'Nequitia' inquit K. P. Schulze 'das dem Muissiggang geweihte Leben eines Verliebten, von massloser, unerlaubter Liebe"'; see also Burck, op. cit., p. 172. 11. Bayet, op. cit., p. 30. One might add here that the Romans (notwithstanding Prop. 2. 34. 87-88) did not include Catullus among the elegists, e.g., Ov. Trist. 4. 10. 51-54, Quint. 10. 1. 93; to say that Quintilian omitted him because he "did not fit in with the logical pattern of the critic" seems somewhat arbitrary (J. Ferguson, "Catullus and Propertius," The Proceedings of the African Classical Associations, I [1958], 59). 12. Jacoby, op. cit., p. 84, who expresses the more common viewpoint that while Catullus wrote no subjective erotic elegy to Lesbia (i.e., in the elegiac form) still there is great correspondence between him and the elegists in theme and content and that the only difference between them is in the technical handling of these themes. 13. C. 75 is a distillation of the whole experience. D. Braga, Catullo e i poeti greci (Messina, 1950), p. 141, spots the tension but would restrict the struggle "del cuore in dissidio con la mente" to a few poems: 8, 76, 107, 85. 14. There is not, for example, the same sense of aesthetic distance that we find in the love poetry of Horace. Yet in the last analysis the posture of Horace and Catullus in their love poetry seems to coincide. Thus while I agree with E. Burck's comments in his recent study ("Drei Liebesgedichte des Horaz," Gymn. LXVII [19601, 163) I believe that he and others have missed the Catullan irony: "Whoever comes from Catullus and the elegists knows that these praise the joy and fulfilment of their love just as passionately as they exhaust themselves in the description of the disappointments and humiliations of the unhappy lover. In Horace both aspects appear more subdued and restrained... ." For myself a remark Gide made somewhere on a work of art sums up the Catullan love lyric: a work of art is far more beautiful when we experience a strong interior tension in it, an element of violence and confusion which is controlled, constrained, and disciplined; and the more we sense

THELESBIA LovE LYRICs

sense of guilt, he does demonstrate the reflective and analytical aspect of Catullus' mind even in the midst of his love affair. 25. ineptiae when applied to love connotes stultitia, "foolishness": Plaut. Cist. 1. 1. 64; Most. 5. 2. 35; Trin. 2. 4. 108; when we extend this characterization to his love poetry as Catullus himself did is it possible to overlook the deliberate and bitter irony ? 26. See cc. 1. 1; 16. 7; 6. 17. 27. See TLL s.v. "facetiae," "facetus"; present also is the idea which was related to urbanitas, i.e., dicacitas: wit and mockery; "notione irridendi" says TLL s.v. "dicax." On this last see also Cic. De orat. 2. 218 where we read that dicacitas is of the genus facetiae (also Orat.87); and on urbanitas see De orat. 2. 231, De oil. 1. 29. 104. 28. molestum as "harmful" can be seen in Plaut. Most. 891, a meaning strengthened by perdidit; for further comment on this final strophe see I. Borzgak, "Otium Catullianum," Acta antiqua, IV (1956), 217f. It is of interest to note that a number of commentators on c. 51 have discerned the poet's ambivalence: Friedrich (last strophe added to poem after his disappointment in love), Kroll, Borzgak (a presentiment of his later sorrow), Birt, Lafaye, Braga (a dialogue between Catullus and his genius). In the interpretation of the Lesbia poetry offered in these pages, c. 51 expresses in its way the same understanding that c. 11, the only other poem in the Sapphic meter, gives voice to. It is an interesting theory, but only a theory, that coming to the disappointing end of his affair with Lesbia Catullus returned to the metrical mode in which he first announced its beginning and so concluded the experience (R. Kati6id, "Die letzte Strophe in Catulls Carm. LI," iiva Antika, VIII [1958], 27-32). I am inclined, however, to think that the evidence of all the Lesbia poems favors Borzgak's comment on this poem (op. cit., p. 218). He is not of course concerned with the problem of this paper: "Der Dichter... verdichtet jetzt in ein einziges Gedicht sein Gltick und Ungluick, die

95

Widersprtiche in ihm selbst und um sich herum, die Problematik seiner Liebes-Lyrik, ja seines ganzen Daseins. Denn man ftndet in diesem einzigen Gedicht ebenso alles zusammen ... vereint sind. In der Otium-Strophe spukt schon die unnachahmliche Gegensaitzlichkeit des odi et amo." 29. E.g., Juv. 6. 7-8; Mart. 11. 6. 30. Plaut. Asin. 666, 693-94; Cas. 138. 31. See Th. Birt, "Zu Catulls Carmina Minora," Philo?., LXIII (1904), 431. 32. in sinu tenere, lubet iocari, mellitus, suamque norat, gremio, and see Ellis' commentary on c. 3. 6. Oddly enough this double level of meaning seems also to be reflected in the structure of c. 2 with the image of the excited and harassed sparrow and the calm, almost impersonal observation of the scene by the poet. Whether or not c. 3. 8-9 is echoed in c. 8. 4-5 poem 8 takes on a fuller meaning when read in the light of the passer poems as they have been interpreted here. 33. Op. cit., 3ff.; he knows of only two: Anth. Pal. 7. 195, 196. 34. Hezel, op. cit., p. 6, believes that the parody was recognizable by Catullus' readers. 35. Hezel, op. cit., p. 15: "Der libysche Sand ..wird noch ausdruicklich geographisch festgelegt, ein an sich genau so gut roinisches wie hellenistisches Beddrfnis." On such grounds a generalization like that of c. 61. 206-10, or Verg. Georg. 2. 105-6 would suffice. 36. Theophr. Hist. pl. 6. 3. 1-2; A. B. Cook, Zeus, I (Cambridge, 1914), 360f.; 0. Gruppe, Griecchische Mythologie und Religionsgeschichte, II (Munich, 1906), 1558; J. Zingerle, "Heilinschrift von Lebena," MDAI (A), XXI (1906), 79f.; furthermore the Ammonion was a spot well known at the time for the contradictory character of its hot and cold spring, e.g., Lucr. 6. 848; the story of Battus was common, e.g., Hdt. 4. 155ff, Paus. 10. 15. 7, and cf. Pind. Pyth. 5. 57ff and scholion to Callim. Hymn. 2. 65.