Catullus

“ Catullus, although dependent on the Alexandrian masters and standing in the midst of the fashionable and clique poetry of that age, was yet not merely a good scholar among many mediocre and bad ones, but himself as much superior to his masters as the burgess of a free Italian community was superior to the cosmopolitan Hellenic man of letters. Eminent creative vigour indeed and high poetic intentions we may not look for in him; he is a richly gifted and graceful but not a great poet, and his poems are, as he himself calls them, nothing but "pleasantries and trifles." ”

“ Damsel, adieu! Catullus obdurate grown
Nor seeks thee, neither asks of thine unwill;
Yet shalt thou sorrow when none woos thee more;
15
Reprobate! Woe to thee! What life remains?
Who now shall love thee? Who'll think thee fair?
Whom now shalt ever love? Whose wilt be called?
To whom shalt kisses give? whose liplets nip?
But thou (Catullus!) destiny-doomed obdure.
Unhappy Catullus, cease thy trifling and what thou seest lost know to be lost. Once bright days used to shine on thee when thou wert wont to haste whither thy girl didst lead thee, loved by us as never girl will e'er be loved. ”

“ When he uses the elegiac verse to express his own feeling, as in the attacks on political or personal enemies, it has the same direct lucidity (as of an extraordinarily gifted child) which is the essential charm of his lyrics.
It is just this quality, this clear and almost terrible simplicity, that puts Catullus in a place by himself among the Latin poets. Where others labour in the ore of thought and gradually forge it out into sustained expression, he sees with a single glance, and does not strike a second time. His imperious lucidity is perfectly unhesitating in its action ”

“ Laugh, as much as you love Catullus, Cato.
The thing is too absurd and funny.
I just found a young boy having sex with a girl:
May it please Diona, I attacked him
with my rigid thing, using it as a spear. ”

“ If Lucretius carries the heaviest metal of Latin poets, Catullus has by far the lightest touch. He writes with an ease which makes Horace seem laboured, and with a simplicity which makes Propertius and even Ovid look like pedants, though Catullus himself, like all Romans, thought fit occasionally to adopt the classical pose, and fill his verses with learned allusions. If it were not for the influence of the schoolroom, to which most of Catullus’s work is for the best of reasons unknown, he would be recognised as possessing far more of the vital spark of poetry than Horace. ”

“ Gratian.—Don’t talk of golden pippins, or I shall mount my hobby, and go through the genealogy of my whole orchard, and good-bye to Catullus.
Curate.—If you give way to your imagination, you may invent a thousand meanings to the passage; but taking it as I find it, I would attach only this meaning to it,—that Catullus would say, “Lesbia’s favourite sparrow” would be as attractive to me as was the golden apple which was thrown in her way when she was racing, to Atalanta. She was to be married to the first youth who could outrun her, so that literally she was very much run after. ”

“ Catullus spent his hours of relaxation at his villa in the suburbs of the Latian town of Ti’bur, or at his favorite Sirmio on a lovely lake in northern Italy, the subject of one of his most graceful odes. Toward the close of his life, in the hope [Pg 353] of refilling a purse which his extravagance had depleted, he went to Bithynia in Asia Minor as a staff-officer of the prætor Memmius, to whom Lucretius inscribed his poem. But in consequence of the selfishness of his superior, Catullus came back with wallet still lighter. ”

“ It has, however, been remarked, that while to Lucretius, to Horace, even to Virgil, the sea is a thing of dread rather than of admiration, from which they shrank as a treacherous creature, Catullus felt the grandeur of its immensity, and rejoiced in the laughter of the waves in calm, and in their changing colors beneath the storm.
Germans have written learned books, some to maintain, others to deny, that the ancient Greeks and Romans had any feeling for Nature, or, as the phrase goes, were inspired by the sentiment of Nature. ”

“ The most attractive feature in the character of Catullus is the warmth of his affection. No ancient poet has left so pleasant a record of the genial intercourse of friends, or has given such proof of his own dependence on human attachment and of his readiness to meet all the claims which others have on such attachment. ”

“ These epigrams of Catullus are chiefly curious and valuable, when considered as occasional or extemporary productions, which paint the manners, as well as echo the tone of thought and feeling, which at the time prevailed in fashionable society at Rome. What chiefly obtrudes itself on our attention, is the gross personal invective, and indecency of these compositions, so foreign from anything that would be tolerated in modern times. ”

“ Some go to the contrary extreme and not only do not require such conclusions but even scorn them. These are for the most part the outrageous lovers of Catullus who, as long as they finish off some limp little dirge in hendecasyllabics, feel that they are marvellously charming and polished, although there is nothing more empty than such verses or nothing easier to do if a man has acquired a little practice in Latin.
How little effort, for instance, shall we imagine the conclusion of this epigram cost Borbonius, fashioned as it is according to the model of Catullus? ”

“ Salve, O venusta Sirmio, atque hero gaude.” These lines show that the most refined and tender feelings were as familiar to the bosom of Catullus as the grossest. Nothing can be more delicate than his description of the emotions of one, who, after many wanderings and vicissitudes of fortune, returns to his home, and to the scenes beloved in youth or infancy: Nothing can be more beautiful than his invocation to the peninsula—his fond request that the delightful promontory, and the waters by which it was surrounded, should join in welcoming him home ”

“ It is from poetry that the elegies of Catullus derive almost all their tenderness—his amorous verses all their delicacy, playfulness, or voluptuousness—and his epigrams all their sting.
That indefatigable translator of the Latin poets, the Abbé Marolles, was the first person who traduced Catullus in French. He was an author, of all others, the worst qualified to succeed in the task which he had undertaken, as his heavy and leaden pen was ill adapted to express the elegant light graces of his original. His prose translation was printed in 1653. ”

“ Two other poems of Catullus I must mention. The first of these he had much on his mind, for he was just then in the mood for experiments on metre, and the famous poem “Boädicea” was, I think, the first of these, [59] echoing the galliambics of Catullus in the “Attis”:
Super alta vectus Attis celeri rate maria.
How far his own metre corresponds to Catullus’ is a question for experts like Bridges, Mayor, R. C. Trevelyan, etc., to determine, but I heard him more than once read first the Attis poem and then his “Boädicea,” and I thought at the time there was an extraordinary resemblance in rhythm. ”

“ Unwillingness to associate the graceful verse of Catullus with a theme so unworthy has perhaps led the critics to question without reason the identity. But the portrait drawn by the poet when at length his eyes were opened, answers but too truly to that of the orator. Few things in all literature are sadder than the spectacle of this trusting and generous spirit withered by the unkindness, as it had been soiled by the favours, of this evil beauty. [113] The life which began in rapturous devotion ends in hopeless gloom. ”

“ The perfection attained by Catullus in his best lyrical poetry, and the power displayed in his longer pieces, are so high and genuine that we are hardly surprised at the enthusiasm of those who have ranked him, in respect both of art and genius, foremost among Roman poets. ”

“ A smile, both bitter and wistful, came upon Catullus's lips as he remembered a letter he had had yesterday from Lucretius, bidding him listen to the voice of Nature who would bring him peace. "What is so bitter," his friend had urged, "if it comes in the end to sleep? The wretched cannot want more of life, and the happy men, men like Valerius, go unreluctantly, like well-fed guests from a banquet, to enter upon untroubled rest. Nor is his death outside of law. From all eternity life and death have been at war with each other. ”

“ O brother, taken from my unhappy self; thou by thy dying hast broken my ease, O brother; all our house is buried with thee; with thee have perished the whole of our joys, which thy sweet love nourished in thy lifetime. Thou lost, I have dismissed wholly from mind these studies and every delight of mind. Wherefore, as to what thou writest, "'Tis shameful for Catullus to be at Verona, for there anyone of utmost note must chafe his frigid limbs on a desolate couch;" ”

“ Thou askest, how many kisses of thine, Lesbia, may be enough and to spare for me. As the countless Libyan sands which strew the spicy strand of Cyrene 'twixt the oracle of swelt'ring Jove and the sacred sepulchre of ancient Battus, or as the thronging stars which in the hush of darkness witness the furtive loves of mortals, to kiss thee with kisses of so great a number is enough and to spare for passion-driven Catullus: so many that prying eyes may not avail to number, nor ill tongues to ensorcel. ”

“ The epitaphs composed for themselves by Naevius, Plautus, Ennius, and Pacuvius, and the assertion of their own originality and of their hopes of fame, which occurs in the poetry of Lucretius, Virgil, and Horace, were dictated by a strong sense of their own personality, and of the importance of the task on which they were engaged. Catullus, although he is much preoccupied with, and most frank in communicating his feelings and pursuits, has much less of the consciousness of genius, is much more humble in his aspirations, and more modest in his estimate of himself. ”

“ Matters were little better in the days of Catullus. At the time he flourished, everything was made subservient to political advancement; and what we should consider as the most inexpiable offences, were forgotten, or at least forgiven, as soon as the interests of ambition required. Accordingly, no person seems to have blamed the bitter invectives of Catullus ”

“ In a poet of modern times a similar collocation might be supposed indicative of a cynical bitterness of spirit—of a mind mocking its own purest impulses. But Catullus is too genuine and sincere a man, too natural in his enjoyments, and too healthy in all his moods, to be taken as an example of this distempered type of genius. ”

“ No man tills his field, the necks of cattle grow soft,
The low vine is not cleansed by curved hoe,
The bull does not heave up turf with leaning-forward ploughshare,
The scythe of the pruners does not diminish the shade of the tree,
Dirty rust is spread on deserted plows.
But the home of (Peleus) himself, as far back as royal opulence went back,
They shone with gleaming gold and silver.
The ivory of the chairs gleamed white, the cups of the table shine,
The whole house rejoices with glittering royal treasure.
The pulvinar of the goddess was placed in the middle of the palace ”

“ Whatever may have been its origin, it is the finest specimen we possess, in either Greek or Latin literature, of that kind of short poem more common in modern than ancient times, in which some situation or passion entirely alien to the writer, and to his own age, is realized with dramatic intensity. But the genius of Catullus is, perhaps, even happier in the direct expression of personal feeling than in artistic creation, or the reproduction of tales and situations from mythology. The warmth, intensity and sincerity of his own nature are the sources of the inspiration in these poems. ”

“ It was in the youth of Catullus that the power of Greek studies was first felt by the impressionable race, half-Italian, half-Celtic, of Cisalpine Gaul, which still remained outside of Italy, and is called by him 'Provincia.' Among the men of letters belonging to the last age of the Republic, Cornelius Nepos, Quintilius Varus, Furius Bibaculus, Cornificius, and Caecilius, most of whom were among the intimate friends of Catullus, came from, or resided in, the North of Italy. ”

“ Oh most eloquent of the descendants of Romulus,
however many there are and have been, Marcus Tullius,
and as many as there will be later in other years,
Catullus, the worst poet of them all,
shows his highest appreciation,
[he who is] just as much the worst poet of them all,
as you are the greatest patron of them all. ”

“ There is then nothing to prove that Catullus lived beyond the month of August 54 B.C. Some of the poems (as xxxvii. and lii.) may have been written during his last illness. If he died in 54 B.C. or early in 53 B.C., Catullus must either have been born later than 87 B.C., or have lived to a greater age than thirty. Catullus is described by Ovid as “hedera iuvenalia cinctus Tempora” (Amor. iii. 9. 61) ,—a description somewhat more suitable to a man who dies in his thirtieth year than to one who dies three or four years later. ”

“ In my township a citizen lives: Catullus adjures thee
Headlong into the mire below topsy-turvy to drown him.
10 Only, where the superfluent lake, the spongy putrescence,
Sinks most murkily flushed, descends most profoundly the bottom.
Such a ninny, a fool is he; witless even as any
Two years' urchin, across papa's elbow drowsily swaying.
2.
For though wed to a maiden in spring-tide youthfully budding,
15 Maiden crisp as a petulant kid, as airily wanton,
Sweets more privy to guard than e'er grape-bunch shadowy-purpling;
He, he leaves her alone to romp idly, cares not a fouter. ”