CLAS 301B
February 4, 2025

"Still Life" from House of Julia Felix (Pompeii, 1st century CE)


Gaius Valerius Catullus of Verona (84-54 BCE): in Rome as adult, 116 poems in three parts (1-60 "nugatory" poems; 61-68 longer, "learned" poems; 69-116 shorter poems, mostly epigrams)

• Catullus influences subsequent Latin poets (elegiac poets, Vergil); poems disappear in Middle Ages, single manuscript (Verona codex) reappears (1300 CE)
  
  
• Neoterics/poetae novi/"new poets" (Cicero – cf. Catullus 49): radical departure in Roman poetry, adapt poetry associated with Greek Alexandria (Mouseion); Alexandrianism championed by poet Callimachus (3rd century BCE)
  
  Aetia (“Causes”) of Callimachus (prologue, poetic program)
  
  Often the Telchines grumble at my song—
  Fools who are not friends of the Muse! —
  because I haven’t written a single continuous song
  in thousands of verses on kings or
  heroes, but I tell my stories little by little just like a child . . .
  
  . . . judge poetic skill by art, not by the Persian chain.
  Don’t search for a huge noisy song to be born from me;
  it is not for me to do the thundering, that’s Zeus’ job!
  In fact the very first time I put the writing tablet
  on my knees, Lykian Apollo said to me:
  "poet, nurture your sacrificial victim to be as fat as possible,
  but your Muse, O good fellow, to be slender!
  One more thing: the paths that wagons don’t drive on,
  tread on those, don’t drive your chariot in the same tracks as the others,
  don’t take the broad street, take instead unworn paths
  even though you drive on a narrower road."
  
  
• Alexandrianism: learned poetry (mythical & geographical allusions, exotic ethnographical customs, etc.) vs. familiar subjects; emphasis on craft & art (intertextuality) in shorter pieces vs. well-trodden (esp. epic) poetry; values of refinement, erudition, taste, poetry for poetry's sake ("in-group"), "public" literature rejected, e.g. Catullus, Poem 4, geographically sophisticated description of Catullus' (fastest?) yacht's biography (journey to Italy from Bithynia's forests), now retired & poem dedicates it to Castor and Pollux
  
  
• Catullus & Neoterics adapt & Romanize Alexandrianism: artfulness, learning, wit combined with immediacy – direct representation of personal experiences, emotions, obscenity (radical "new" poets)
  
  
• Catullus' nugae, “foolish fluff” (1.4): short, light, playful, witty, personal ("I") pieces of poets of leisure (otium); elite circle of poets with shared tastes (50s BCE) disengaging with traditional elite male public life/careers
  
  
  
  Poem 1 (READER: Corina)
  I am making a gift of this smart little book
  just now polished to a shine with dry pumice.
  To whom? To you, Cornelius, because you [Cornelius Nepos, historian & biographer – patron?]
  always thought my foolish fluff was worth something,
  even when you dared, first of the Italians,
  to unravel every age of the world
  in three papyrus rolls—Gods! Elegant, elaborate! What hard work.
  So, take this book for yourself, whatever it's worth,
  and for what it is. And may it, O Virgin Muse, Patroness,
  last forever—or more than one lifetime.
  
  
• Other influences on Catullus: Greek lyric poetry, esp. Sappho of Lesbos (7th century BCE); “Lesbia” = Clodia, wife of Quintus Caecilius Metellus and Catullus’ mistress in real life?
  
  Poem 51 (early, close translation of Sappho 31)
  That man seems to me to be a match for a god
  —even, if it’s not sacrilege, to surpass gods—
  that man who sits by you, stealing glances at you
  again and again,

  and hanging on your sweet laugh. It tears me apart,
  ripping at all my senses. You see, Lesbia, when you
  come into view, nothing exists for me but you
  [ . . . ]
  

  My tongue’s numb. An exquisite tension sinks
  burning into my limbs. My ears ring,
  the noise building. My shining eyes grow dim,
  covered by dark night.

  Idle time . . . Catullus, it’s dangerous for you. [otium]
  Idle time . . . you revel in it, you take too much of it.
  Idle time . . . in the past it has brought to ruin
  kings and prosperous cities both.
  
  L: Julius Caesar; R: Pompey ("the Great")

• historical backdrop of Catullus' poetry: political rivalries & Roman revolution vs. Neoteric self-representation of irreverent individuals withdrawing (pursuit of poetry)
  
  
• poems' reflection of political figures: Poem 29, invective (abuse poetry) against Mamurra, plundering lieutenant of Caesar & Pompey ("father-in-law and son-in-law . . . have you utterly wrecked us all?", 29.23-4,"Romulus [Pompey] , you ass-wriggler, will you watch and allow it?", 29.5); Poem 57 (Mamurra & Caesar, "They're the perfect pair, the immoral ass-wrigglers [cinaedi]")
  
  
  
  
• Catullus' (unsuccessful?) public career: staff of Gaius Memmius (57-56 BCE), colonialist governor of Bithynia, Poem 10 (encounter with friend Varus’ lover, "the governor liked to / fuck you in the mouth", 10.12-13; lover's 8 litter-bearers query?, ". . . his name is Gaius Cinna . . . he's the one who bought them", 10.30)
  
  Poem 11 (speaker's surprising personal turn in poem's public context)
  Furius and Aurelius, companions of Catullus
  if he travels to . . . [travelogue of empire follows]
  
  . . . announce these few words to my sweetheart
  (they're not nice):
  
  Let her live and be happy with her gigilos,
  wrapped around three hundred of them at the same time,
  loving none truly, but wearing out their balls
  over and over and over again.
  
  And let her not look to return to my love, as before,
  a love that has been cut down by her failings
  just as a flower, in bloom on the edge of a field,
  is grazed and falls as the plow passes by.
  
  
  

• Lesbia love poetry (Poems 5, 7, 58; cf. puella in Poems 2, 3, 8, 11) > roots of Latin love-elegy = amatory poems (elegiac meter) charting lover's passionate devotion to mistress, ups & downs of tempestuous relationship & complaints
  
  
  Poem 5 (READER: Molly)
  Lesbia, sweetheart, let's live and love—
  and let's tally up grumpy old men's
  mutterings to be worth just one cent.
  Suns are able to fall and then rise again:
  for us, as soon as our brief sun sets,
  night is one everlasting sleep.
  Kiss me a thousand times, then a hundred,
  then a second thousand, then a second hundred,
  then another full thousand, and a hundred more.
  then, when we've made out that many thousands of times,
  let's jumble up the accounting, so we won't keep track
  or so no one despicable can give us the evil eye
  when he learns how much we kiss. [cf. Roman Censor]
  .
  Portrait of stink-eyed 1st century BCE man who has lost count of kisses
  
  Poem 7 (emotional immediacy vs. Alexandrian learnedness)
  You want to know how many times
  kissing you, Lesbia, is enough and more than enough?
  As many as there are grains of sand
  lying in Libyan Cyrene, where silphium grows,
  between the oracle of scorching-hot Jupiter [Jupiter Ammon]
  and the holy burial place of ancient Battus. [founder of Cyrene & name of Callimachus' father]
  Or as many as there are stars in the still of the night
  that look down on people secretly making love.
  That we would kiss so many times
  is enough, and more than enough for your horny Catullus.
  Nosy people can't add up such a number,
  and wicked tongues can't begrudge it.
  
  
• sexually aggressive language (Roman hyper-masculinity & performance vs. poetic sensitivity & vulnerability)
  
  Poem 16 (READER: Alexandria)
  I am going to fuck you up the ass and then in the mouth,
  Aurelius, you pathicus, and Furius, you cinaedus.
  You think you know me from my poems,
  because they are a little sexy, too little chaste.
  Is it proper for a pious poet to be chaste
  himself—it's not necessary for his poems:
  in the end, my poems have some wit and charm
  when they are a little sexy, too little chaste,
  and because they can get a rise where there's an itch—
  I don't mean for boys, but for those hairy old men
  who can't get it up . . . and you,
  because you have read all about my making out
  thousands of times, do you really think I can't be a real man?
  I am going to fuck you up the ass and then in the mouth.
  
  
• lover's complex emotions: rejection, despair, aggression, vulnerability, etc.
  
  Poem 8
  You pitiful man, Catullus—stop being an idiot
  and put in the losses column what you know is lost . . .
  
  . . . But you'll be sorry, when you don't get asked, you nobody.
  Screw you! What kind of life will you have?
  Who'll chase after you, now, eh? Who'll think you're pretty?
  Whom will you love?
  
  . . . Stop it, Catullus, your mind's made up! Toughen up!
  
  
• other occasional pieces (nugae, "foolish fluff"):
  
  Poem 6: spoofing poetry's immortalizing powers – to secretive Flavius and his "talking bed" ("I want to proclaim you and your love / to the heavens above with a clever poem", 6.16-17)
  
  Poem 12: public-shaming for restitution, calling out friend over a stolen napkin ("be on the lookout for three hundred / hendecasyllables", 12.10-11)
  Poem 15: threat to Aurelius, "take good care around my boyfriend, as is proper . . . It's you I worry about, you and your hostile / cock . . . I'll shove radishes and mullets up your ass" (15.5ff.)
  Poem 69: invective against Marcus Caelius Rufus ("a vicious goat lives in your armpits", 69.6)