Catullus 11
Catullus '11' is a poem by Roman poet Gaius Valerius Catullus, in which Catullus asks his two friends, Furius and Aurelius, to deliver a message to an unspecified girl who is understood to be Lesbia. This message tells Lesbia that Catullus no longer wants to be with her.
Poem 11 is one of the two poems that Catullus writes in the Sapphic meter. The other, poem 51, is Catullus' version of one of Sappho's poems.
Text
Analysis
Scholars are divided on the interpretation of how Catullus addresses Furius and Aurelius in this poem. In other poems, they are usually addressed by Catullus in a condescending manner, but in this poem, he addresses them in a very serious manner. Some think that he is being serious and truly holds Furius and Aurelius as some of his closest friends that he will have until he dies. Others believe that Catullus has more of an ironic tone. In the first three stanzas, Catullus implies that he will go with Furius and Aurelius to several different places around the world, trying to express how good of friends they are, but the tone switches drastically in the second half of the poem as he asks them to walk across the street and break up with his girlfriend without him.Furius is also mentioned in poems 16, 23, and 26. Aurelius is also mentioned in poems 15, 16, 21.
Another unusual thing Catullus does in this poem is that he compliments Caesar in line 10, which is uncharacteristic of Catullus compared to his other poems.