Poetry of Catullus


The poetry of Gaius Valerius Catullus was written towards the end of the Roman Republic in the period between 62 and 54 BC.
The collection of approximately 113 poems includes a large number of shorter epigrams, lampoons, and occasional pieces, as well as nine long poems mostly concerned with marriage. Among the most famous poems are those in which Catullus expresses his love for the woman he calls Lesbia.

Dates of the poems

If Catullus's girlfriend Lesbia is, as is usually assumed, a pseudonym for Clodia, the wife of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer, it may be that he first met her in 62 BC, when her husband was governor of Cisalpine Gaul. In poem 83 Metellus is spoken of as being still alive. It is thought that the earliest poems were written in this period.
In 57 BC Catullus went abroad for a year as part of the entourage of the governor of Bithynia, Gaius Memmius. Poem 10 was evidently written after his return, as well as 28, in which he reports in obscene language how badly he was treated by Memmius.
Poem 113 mentions that Pompey has become consul for the second time, dating it to 55 BC. Poems 11 and 29, mentioning the potential invasion of Britain, are also thought to date to 55 BC. Poem 55 mentions the colonnade attached to Pompey's theatre. None of the poems can be dated later than this.
It is often thought that Catullus may have died not long after this. If so he would have been about 28. Suetonius reports that even after Catullus's death, Julius Caesar maintained his friendship with Catullus's father and continued to accept his hospitality.

Structure of the collection

Catullus's carmina can be divided into three formal parts: short poems in varying metres, called polymetra ; nine longer poems, of which the last five are in elegiac couplets; and forty-eight epigrams, all in elegiac couplets. Since a scroll usually contained between 800 and 1100 verses, these three parts – approximately 860, 1138, and 330 lines respectively – would not easily fit onto a single scroll.
Scholars disagree as to whether the collection of poems as it is now was arranged by Catullus himself and what Catullus means by the 'little book' which he says he is dedicating to Cornelius Nepos in poem 1. One theory is that Catullus published all the polymetric poems himself, and presented this to Cornelius Nepos, but that the others were put together in haphazard order by an editor after Catullus's death. According to another theory, the libellus consisted simply of poems 1–14 ; 14b would then start a second collection.
Helena Dettmer, on the other hand, assuming that the arrangement as it now stands is more or less as published by Catullus himself, sees the poems as divided into nine cycles or groups plus an epilogue of five poems. She argues that each of these cycles has its own internal structure, and that in several cases poems in the first half of a cycle are balanced chiastically by poems in the second half.
Thus in the first cycle poems 1 and 14 balance each other, since both describe the gift of a new book of poetry. Within this frame, poems 2 and 3, both describing Lesbia's pet bird, are balanced by the two dinner-party poems both mentioning a gift from or to Fabullus. Another balancing pair is 6 and 10, which contrast the mistresses of Flavius and Varus.
In some cases, Dettmer argues, two corresponding poems are linked not only thematically but also by verbal echoes. Thus in the first cycle poems 3 and 13 are linked by the phrases Veneres Cupidinesque 'Venuses and Cupids' and meae puellae 'of my girl'; in the 4th cycle, 38 and 40 are linked not only by the theme of anger, but by the phrase meos amores 'my love' in each. In the fifth cycle, the first and last poems, on the contrasting themes of love promised and love spurned, are linked by the mention of Libyan lions. In the same cycle, 47 is linked to 58 and 59 by the theme of cadging for dinner and the words for street corners.
In the eighth cycle, the famous odi et amo 'I hate and I love' epigram, even though thematically different from the Caesar epigram, is paired with it by the structural similarity: both poems contain an indirect question, a contrast of opposites, and the words nescio, nec scire 'I do not know' at the beginning of the second line of each. The two epigrams are also symmetrically positioned within the cycle, 8th from the beginning and 7th or 8th from the end of the cycle respectively.
The last of the elegiac poems is linked to the first elegiac poem by the phrase carmina Battiadae 'songs of Callimachus', which occurs only in these two poems. Both poems concern the sending of poems.
Dettmer also notes that the total length of the five long elegiac poems is almost exactly equal to the length of all the remaining fifty shorter elegiac poems. She believes this is not a coincidence.
Reviewing Dettmer's work on the polymetra, Phyllis Forsyth finds that the thematic links Dettmer finds between poems are sometimes strained and not firmly based; but adds "Patterns and parallels, however, do exist in the poems of Catullus, as many recent studies have shown".

Themes

Polymetra and epigrams

The polymetra and the epigrams can be divided into four major thematic groups :
  • poems to and about his friends.
  • erotic poems: some of them indicate homosexual penchants, but most are about women, especially about one he calls "Lesbia". Catullus displays a wide range of highly emotional and seemingly contradictory responses to Lesbia, ranging from tender love poems to sadness, disappointment, and bitter sarcasm.
  • invectives: some of these often rude and sometimes downright obscene poems are targeted at friends-turned-traitors and other lovers of Lesbia, but many well-known poets, politicians and orators, including Cicero, are thrashed as well. However, many of these poems are humorous and craftily veil the sting of the attack. For example, in poem 84 Catullus makes fun of the pronunciation of a less well educated man who adds "h" to words which shouldn't have it.
  • condolences: some poems of Catullus are serious in nature. One poem, 96, comforts a friend for the death of his wife, while several others, most famously 101, lament the death of his brother.

    Long poems

The longer poems differ from the polymetra not only in length but also in their subjects and their metre: they include two wedding songs and one mini-epic, or epyllion, the most highly prized form for the "new poets". Although they differ in style from each other, there is a common theme to most of them, namely marriage. Even the Attis poem has been interpreted by some scholars as reflecting Catullus's relationship with Lesbia.
  • Poem 61 is a marriage song of 235 short lines organised in five-line stanzas. It celebrates the marriage of a certain Manlius Torquatus, almost certainly Lucius Manlius Torquatus, who appears as one of the characters in Cicero's philosophical work De finibus bonorum et malorum, championing Epicureanism. The poet first calls on Hymenaeus, the god of weddings, to come, dressed in yellow like a bride. Then he addresses the bride as she approaches in a procession, and he bids the master's favourite slave-boy to throw nuts, and the bridegroom to abstain from such pleasures in future. He orders the attendants to escort the bride to the bridal chamber and her husband to join her. He wishes the pair countless joys and predicts the birth of a little Torquatus. He ends by telling the girls to close the doors.
  • Poem 62 is another marriage song, but in a different style, this time in hexameters, with a chorus of young men competing with a chorus of young women while they await the arrival of a bride. The young men are outside, watching out for the appearance of Hesperus, the Evening Star, while the girls sit inside. The young men encourage the girls to do their duty to their parents to get married, while the girls feign their reluctance.
  • Poem 63, in the rare and excitable Galliambic metre, is about a young Greek man called Attis who travels to Phrygia and castrates himself out of devotion for the goddess Cybele. He later repents what he has done; but in the end Cybele drives him to a frenzy once again.
  • Poem 64, at 408 hexameter lines by far the longest poem in the book, is a description of the meeting and mythical wedding of King Peleus and the sea-goddess Thetis. Inserted in this is another myth, the tragic story of Ariadne after she was abandoned on the island of Dia by her lover Theseus. This inner story in turn includes the story of Theseus and the Minotaur, as well as the speech by King Aegeus to Theseus before he set off, and Theseus' tragic return. The poem then moves back to the wedding. Once the crowds of humans have drifted away, the gods appear. When they are seated the three Parcae spin their thread and predict the heroism and death of Peleus' son Achilles, and the sacrifice of Priam's daughter Polyxena over his tomb. The poem ends by describing how the age when the gods used to visit the earth gave way to an age where justice is absent.
  • Poem 65 is a short epistle to the orator Quintus Hortensius Hortalus introducing poem 66. In the epistle Catullus mentions his sadness at the death of his brother, who was buried at Rhoeteum near Troy.
  • Poem 66 is a translation of a famous poem by Callimachus, describing how the newly wedded Queen Berenice II of Egypt vowed to cut off a lock of her hair if her husband returned safely from a campaign; the lock disappeared and was discovered by the court astronomer among the stars. The story is told by the lock itself, who complains of its distress at being cut off from its mistress's head and prays for gifts of scented oil from Berenice and other faithful brides.
  • Poem 67 is a comic conversation between an interrogator and a house door in Verona. He asks why the door was disloyal to its previous master. The door, in the manner of a gossipy servant, claims that the wife was no virgin when she arrived. In a previous marriage, as the town of Brixia bears witness, although her husband was impotent, she had been raped by her father-in-law, and she had also had three lovers. The door had heard all about it by eavesdropping on conversations between the wife and her maids.
  • Poem 68a, like 65, is a short epistle, apparently introducing the poem which follows, even though the name of the addressee, Mallius, does not seem to match that of 68b. In the epistle Catullus again mentions the death of his brother, and excuses himself from writing a learned poem since he is in Verona and does not have his library with him.
  • Poem 68b is written for a certain Allius, who had apparently helped Catullus in his affair with Lesbia by providing them with a house to meet in. The poem contains the myth of the newly married Laodamia and Protesilaus. Inserted in this story is a lament for the death of Catullus's brother, who, like Protesilaus, was buried on the shore near Troy. At the end he again thanks Allius for his services and wishes well to the house and the mistress who is so dear to him.