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85

90

vester onyx, casto petitis quae iura cubili.
sed quae se inpuro dedit adulterio,
illius ah mala dona levis bibat inrita pulvis:
namque ego ab indignis praemia nulla peto.
sed magis, o nuptae, semper concordia vestras,
semper amor sedes incolat adsiduus.

tu vero, regina, tuens cum sidera divam
placabis festis luminibus Venerem,
unguinis expertem non siris esse tuam me,

sed potius largis adfice muneribus.
sidera corruerint utinam! coma regia fiam:
proximus hydrochoi fulgeret Oarion.

91. unguinis Bentley sanguinis V. non siris Lachmann ne siveris Scaliger non vestris V. tuam Avantius tuum V.

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83. vester emphatic, only yours,' and containing the implied antecedent of quae. — iura : i.e. those of a iustum matrimonium.

87. sed magis: 'but rather,' i.e. than experience in any unholy union the shame and disappointments just referred to. For this essentially adversative use of magis cf. 68, 30. Cf. also v. 92.

91. unguinis unguenti, a comparatively rare equivalent. - expertem here in the passive sense, 'lacking in.' non cf. v. 80; Ovid, A. A. 1, 389: aut non temptaris aut perfice. - siris

= siveris.

tuam: cf. Hor. Car. 1, 25, 7: me tuo longas pereunte noctes, Lydia, dormis.

93. Throwing off the grand tone of the previous verses, the lock bursts forth once more at the close with an ejaculation of its real feelings.

94. In the illogical petulance of youth it forgets that it has just wished the destruction of the whole stellar system, and gayly imagines a complete confusion of the established order in the sky. - proximus though the distance between the two constellations Aquarius and Orion is now at least 90°. hydrochoi: dat. Oarion: the Greek form 'Napíwv was not only the sign of the doctus poeta, but was preferred here, as undoubtedly in the original, for metrical reasons.

68

Quod mihi fortuna casuque oppressus acerbo conscriptum hoc lacrimis mittis epistolium,

68. Title Ad Mallium RM Ad Mallium, Malium, Manlium w.

68

Many editors have believed this elegy made up of two or more separate poems, and it appears accordingly in various editions as 68a (vv. 1-40), 68" (41-160), or 68" (41-148), and 68° (149-160). The arguments for such mutilation are shrewdly stated by Riese in his annotated edition of 1884, and by Merrill (1893). For the defense of the poem's unity, however, see Magnus, in Bursian's JB., Vol. 87 (1887), pp. 151 sqq., and Vol. 126 (1906), pp. 139 sqq., and Jahrbücher f Phil. u. Päd., Vol. 3 (1875), pp. 849 sqq.; Kiessling, Analecta Catulliana (Greifswald Program, 1877); Harnecker, Das 68 Gedicht des Catullus (Friedeberg Program, 1881); Friedrich (who, however, puts the worst construction upon it); Schanz, and his bibliography; etc. The difficulties of interpretation do not seem to be removed, but rather enhanced, by the proposed division; and the elegy is best considered as one, a carefully evolved and acutely involved product of the poet's Alexandrian period.

The hopeless confusion, in the Mss., of the name of the person

to whom the elegy is addressed may be most simply explained by adopting Lachmann's conjecture that he was M'. Allius. It is then very easy to see how the title Ad Mallium, and the various readings in vv. 11, 30, 41, 66, arose. For an acute discussion of the origin of these variants, cf. Friedrich, pp. 44 sqq. No editor has ventured to follow the Mss. implicitly in this matter. In the main part of the elegy (vv. 41-148) Allius is spoken of in the third person as the subject of the eulogy which is pronounced upon him for his friendly services; in the introduction (vv. 1-40) it is not unnatural, but in harmony with the direct (second personal) address of the epistolary style employed, that the more familiar praenomen Manius should be used. But in v. 150 of the epilogistic close (vv. 148-160) the same name would naturally be employed as that to which reference is made in the same sentence by the word nomen (v. 151).

From the passage beginning at v. 27 it is seen that Catullus was at Verona, while Allius was doubtless at Rome, as was also Lesbia. It can scarcely be doubted that the poet expected, nay, probably in

naufragum ut eiectum spumantibus aequoris undis sublevem et a mortis limine restituam,

5 quem neque sancta Venus molli requiescere somno

tended, the elegy to come to the attention of his mistress ; and it should be read with this in mind.

Briefly, the argument of the poem is developed as follows: 1-10: You write that you have neither love nor poetry which soothes your sorrowing heart, and ask for both these sources of comfort from me; 11-32: but you do not know that my brother's death has plunged me into such grief that I am in no mood to write of love's dalliance, and my sadness is enhanced by what you write of my mistress's faithlessness; 33-40: neither can I send you any other poems, for they are all at Rome; you must not blame me then for not doing what I cannot. 41-69: I must not, however, let the opportunity pass to hand down to eternal fame the name of such a friend as Allius, and his kind offices in opening to Lesbia and me a home for our lover's meetings; 70-130: thither came my mistress, aflame with a love like that of Laodamia for her bridegroom when that short-lived home was established upon which the Fates had already caused to fall the blighting spell of Troy, accursed Troy, which has taken from me too all joy, as it did from her, whose love was deeper than the storied abyss by Pheneus,

more joyous than the grandsire's on the birth of his anxiously awaited heir, fonder than a dove's for her mate; 131-148: thus came Lesbia; and if sometimes she has wavered in her devotion, I will bear it as Juno does the fickleness of Jove, and will remember the wondrous joys of those golden days. 149-160: Such is the gift of poetic praise which I could offer, my friend; may the gods bless thee too, and thine, and mine, who is still the light of my life!'

1. Quod . . . mittis: this prosaic epistolary form occurs thrice in this part of the poem, appearing again in vv. 27 and 33.- casu... acerbo speculation has been rife as to its nature, whether political or domestic: cf. v. 6, n.

2. lacrimis instrumental. The hyperbole may be considered as quoted from the letter of Allius to Catullus. - epistolium: this Gk. diminutive occurs nowhere else in Lat. before Apuleius.

3. naufragum: shipwreck as a figure of ruined fortunes is a literary commonplace.

4. Cf. Plin. N. H. 7, 44, 143: a limine ipso mortis revocatus; Culex, 224: restitui superis leti iam limine ab ipso.

5-8. These verses evidently are the reasons given by Allius for his request.

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desertum in lecto caelibe perpetitur,
nec veterum dulci scriptorum carmine musae
oblectant, cum mens anxia pervigilat,

id gratum est mihi, me quoniam tibi dicis amicum,
muneraque et musarum hinc petis et Veneris :
sed tibi ne mea sint ignota incommoda, Mani,

neu me odisse putes hospitis officium,
accipe, quis merser fortunae fluctibus ipse,
ne amplius a misero dona beata petas.

tempore quo primum vestis mihi tradita purast,

iucundum cum aetas florida ver ageret,

multa satis lusi: non est dea nescia nostri

11. incommoda Do commoda VM comoda R. Mani Lachmann mali VRM al' mauli sec. man. in M margin of R mauli or malli Dw.

6. desertum in lecto caelibe: of the various theories advanced to explain the sadness of Allius, e.g. that he had quarreled with his wife or with his mistress, that one or the other of them was seriously ill, or separated from him suddenly for some other reason, or had recently died, only the last is irreconcilable with v. 155. A reminiscence of the phrase is found in Ovid's Laodamia epistle (Her. 13, 107).

7. veterum ... scriptorum: either Greek or Roman.

8. cum temporal.

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in vv. 11-32; the first one, last, in vv. 33-36.

12. hospitis officium: i.e. gratitude. Allius had indeed proved himself a genuine old Roman hospes, as is evidenced by vv. 67– 72, and 156. If, however, hospitis ='host,' we must suppose that Allius means by munera . . . Veneris (v. 10) that Catullus should open his house as a lover's rendezvous.

13. quis: abl.
14. dona beata =

dona beati. 15. tempore: abl. of source. vestis

.

pura toga pura, toga libera, toga virilis, the assumption of which marked the beginning of young manhood.

16. The conditions under which erotic poetry thrives.

17. lusi: i.e. especially in writing love poems. Cf. 50, 2: multum

20

25

quae dulcem curis miscet amaritiem:

sed totum hoc studium luctu fraterna mihi mors abstulit. o misero frater adempte mihi, tu mea tu moriens fregisti commoda, frater, tecum una tota est nostra sepulta domus, omnia tecum una perierunt gaudia nostra, quae tuus in vita dulcis alebat amor. cuius ego interitu tota de mente fugavi

haec studia atque omnis delicias animi. quare, quod scribis Veronae turpe Catullo

27. Catullo Do Catulle VR.

lusimus; 61, 232: lusimus satis; Hor. Car. 1, 32, 1: Si quid vacui sub umbra lusimus tecum. - dea: Venus.

18. dulcem . . . amaritiem: an oxymoron familiar to all literature, as to all human experience; cf. 64,95: sancte puer, curis hominum qui gaudia misces; Sappho, Frag. 40: γλυκύπικρον ἀμάχανον ὄρπετον; Plaut. Cist. I, 1, 69: ecastor amor et melle et fellest fecundissumus : gustu dat dulce, amarum ad satietatem usque oggerit ; Ben Jonson, Sad Shepherd, 1, 2: "I have known some few, And read of more, who have had their dose, and deep, Of these sharp bitter-sweets." This parallel archaic form of the noun (amaritiem), though of a common type, occurs nowhere else.

19. totum hoc studium: i.e. both love's dalliance and the poetry that accompanies it, including both ideas expressed in v. 26.-fraterna. mors: cf. 65, 5, n.; 101.

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21. moriens: instrumental.

22. tota... sepulta domus : to be understood in no literal sense, but as the natural extravagant expression of poignant grief. The next verse repeats the thought in different form.

26. haec studia: the writing of love poetry. - omnis delicias animi: the joys of love itself. This phrase reminds Catullus of a remark in the letter of Allius, to which he replies parenthetically in vv. 27-30, resuming the main argument in v. 31.

27. Veronae: the quotation from the letter of Allius begins here and includes the next two verses, quoting, as is common in literature, not the whole sentence of Allius, but the important part, something like est, or credo esse, evidently being omitted. Catullus after his brother's death is tarrying at his old home in Verona, while (so Allius writes) Lesbia's lovers are taking advantage of him in his absence from Rome.

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