... etiam saxo corpus laniauit acuto... Voxque fuit' merui A! pereant partes quae nocuere mihi': 'A! pereant' dicebat adhuc: onus inguinis aufert, Nullaque sunt subito signa relicta uiri. II 9 'tubam' carries no sense with it to my mind, either in its literal meaning, or, as Ellis takes it, in a metaphorical: again it is not very obvious how ‘tuom, Cybelle' would pass into 'tubam Cybelles'. 'Typanum ac typum Cybelles' has occurred to me from seeing how often the two words are joined together: Dionys. Antig. I 19 ώσπερ αὐτοῖς ἔθος, τύπους τε περικείμενοι τοῖς στήθεσι...καὶ τύμπανα κροτοῦντες: see too Polybius cited by Suidas s. u. Γάλλοι: παρὰ ̓́Αττιδος καὶ Βαττάκου τῶν ἐκ Πεσσινοῦντος ἱερέων τῆς Μητρὸς τῶν θεῶν, ἔχοντες προστηθίδια καὶ τύπους : ibid. ἀπέστειλε νεανίσκους, διασκευάσας εἰς Γάλλους, μετ ̓ αὐλητῶν ἐν γυναικείαις στολαῖς ἔχοντας τύμπανα καὶ τύπους: comp. too the very odd story told of Anacharsis by Herodotus τι θ: τὴν ὀρτὴν πᾶσαν ἐπετέλει τῇ θεῷ, τύμπανά τε ἔχων καὶ ἐκδησάμενος ἀγάλματα, and the imitation by Clemens Alex. quoted by Wesseling. The plural τύποι is used of the Galli; and I infer that the τύποι were chiefly medallions of Cybele and Attis. Now Attis naturally would wear only a medallion of Cybele, which he would hang round his neck or perhaps on his left wrist: comp. Suet. Domit. 4 certamini praesedit . . . capite gestans coronam auream cum effigie Iouis ac Iunonis Mineruaeque, adsidentibus Diali sacerdote et collegio Flauialium pari habitu, nisi quod illorum coronis inerat et ipsius imago. typos is found in Cic. ad Att. I 10 3, written 67 B.C.: the strange typum or tupum would naturally be corrupted into a Latin word: thus in Cic. 1. 1. M has lypos, which Ienson's edition turns into lippos ; and in Pliny xxxv 151 the Bamb. has tyrum for typum. Suidas s. u. τυπαῖς has ἔχοντα τύμπανα καὶ τυπάς: I had something to say on this; but shall refrain. The 'typanum ac typum' suits 'tua initia' better than ‘typanum' by itself. 63 18 Hilarate erocitatis [O, crocitatis G] erroribus animum. Many corrections have been made of this verse: the following would be a simple one, the substitution of a P for the ambiguous E or C: Hilarate procitatis cet.: 'gladden the heart with flights of eager emulation'. Phil. Gloss. Procitat, πрoɛккadɛтai: Paul. Fest. p. 225, 7 Procitant, prouocitant. citare enim uocitare est. The word therefore signifies certatim citatis,' 'prouocatis.' ib. 74-77 Roseis ut hic labellis sonitus citus adiit laeuumque pecoris hostem stimulans ita loquitur. 74 hic. hinc V. citus addidit Bergk. sonus editus Froelich, Schwabe. perhaps sonus excitus. 75 deae tam ad scripsi. deorum ad V. 77 pecoris uetus correctio. pectoris V. In 74 perhaps Bergk's citus is the simplest diplomatic correction, tho' I am not certain that Catullus would have used citus as a partic. But Froelich's sonus editus is also an easy correction; as well as my sonus excitus, and Catullus elsewhere uses excitus no less than three times. In 75 not a few violent corrections have been made, which may be seen in the notes of various editions. I feel confident that Geminas comes from the poet himself: my dee tam for deorum is certainly not a violent change, when we bear in mind, what I have so often insisted upon, the almost chronic way in which our Mss. interchange o and e, t and r: When these sounds, uttered from his rosy lips, came bringing with them to the two ears of the goddess tidings so strange and novel'. With deae-Cybele' comp. 3 deae, 9 Cybelles. geminas auris is very idiomatic: 51 10 sonitu suopte Tintinant aures geminae1: Ovid has 'Auribus e geminis', and 'geminas manus'; the Culex, which often imitates Catullus, 148 'geminas aures'; Virgil 'Temporibus geminis': Martial 'geminas manus'. 64 1-28 Peliaco quondam prognatae uertice pinus cum lecti iuuenes, Argiuae robora pubis, 5 auratam optantes Colchis auertere pellem ausi sunt uada salsa cita decurrere puppi, caerula uerrentes abiegnis aequora palmis. diua quibus retinens in summis urbibus arces ipsa leui fecit uolitantem flamine currum, 10 pinea coniungens inflexae texta carinae. illa rudem cursu prima imbuit Amphitriten. quae simul ac rostro uentosum proscidit aequor, tortaque remigio spumis incanduit unda, emersere freti candenti e gurgite uultus 15 aequoreae monstrum Nereides admirantes. illac (quaque alia?) uiderunt luce marinas mortales oculis nudato corpore Nymphas nutricum tenus extantes e gurgite cano. 1 I cannot enough wonder at Ellis' continued retention of the absurd gemina, and all to save the change of an a to an e in our Mss. tum Thetidis Peleus incensus fertur amore, 20 tum Thetis humanos non despexit hymenaeos, tum Thetidi pater ipse iugandum Pelea sensit. o nimis optato saeclorum tempore nati heroes, saluete, deum gens, o bona matrum 23b progenies, saluete iterumque iterumque, bonarum: uos ego saepe meo uos carmine compellabo, 25 teque adeo eximie taedis felicibus aucte Thessaliae columen Peleu, cui Iuppiter ipse, ipse suos diuum genitor concessit amores. tene Thetis tenuit pulcherrima Nereine? 11 primam G. praeram: in marg. proram O. 13 Tortaque Itali. Totaque V. 14 freti Schrader. feri V. 16 Illac (quaque alia?) scripsi. Illa atque alia V. uidere V. 23 gens schol. Veron. genus V, uulgo. matrum schol. Veron. mater: al. matre superscr. G. mater O. 23 b om. V. Progenies saluete iter schol. Veron. 28 Nereine Haupt. nectine V. I have printed and will discuss only a few lines of this the longest and most elaborate poem of Catullus. His study of the Alexandrine poets would seem to have persuaded him that an epyllion was needed to make a body of poems complete; and he has therefore composed this poem which I have given reasons elsewhere for believing to be one of his very latest. Led no doubt by similar motives, his friend Gaius Helvius Cinna, who, as I have argued in my dissection of the 95th poem, was probably somewhat older than Catullus, wrote and published his laboured Zmyrna; and his intimate associate Gaius Licinius Calvus composed his epyllion Io. 1 and 15 are both imitated by Ovid am. II 11 1 Prima malas docuit, mirantibus aequoris undis, Peliaco pinus uertice caesa uias. 11: I am convinced that the proram of O is a mere delusion, designed or undesigned, of the scribe, which presented itself to his thoughts and pen in connexion with a ship: to my taste L it destroys the beauty of the line and leaves Illa wholly without meaning. Can there be a doubt that Seneca, who has more than once as we have seen had Catullus before him in his tragedies, was thinking of this line when he wrote in Troad. 215 Inhospitali Telephus regno inpotens... Rudem cruore regio dextram inbuit? the very construction of Catullus, which Martial, cited by Ellis, also has: so too Val. Flacc. 1 69 ignaras Cereris qui uomere terras Imbuit; who also imitates the syntax of Catullus, and was probably thinking of him, as the ignaras has the exact force of rudem: 'She first handselled by this run the maiden and untried Amphitrite'. Ov. met. I 14 probably got his Amphitrite from Catullus. 13 Tortaque remigio, and 7 Caerula uerrentes abiegnis aequora palmis: comp. Aen. III 207 remis insurgimus: haud mora nautae Adnixi torquent spumas et caerula uerrunt: the 2nd v. is repeated in IV 583: if there is one certain correction in Catullus, Torta for Tota must be right. 13 incanduit unda, 14 candenti e gurgite, 18 e gurgite cano: Lucr. 11 764 Cur ea... Marmoreo fieri possint candore repente, 767 canos candenti marmore fluctus, 771 Continuo id fieri ut candens uideatur et album: the repetitions in the two poets are very much alike: Ciris 320 candentes canos. 14 freti for feri seems to me the simplest correction of this verse, which surely needs correction; for feri cannot stand and uultus must be an accus.; not a nom. in appos. with Nereides. To be sure, tho' emersus and emergere se are indisputable, 'emergere uultus' is not so certainly admissible. Yet I cannot help thinking that the author of the Dirae in 56 and 57 is imitating Catullus and that corpora must, like uultus here, be the accus. not the nomin. which would be very bald: Monstra repentinis |