that last mentioned. The collector of the _Catalecta Virgilii_, has
attributed to Virgil a satire on Ventidius, (under the name of Sabinus,)
who, from a muleteer, became consul, in the reign of Augustus, and which
is parodied from Catullus—
“Sabinus ille quem videtis hospites,” &c.
Another parody is a Latin poem, entitled _Lycoris_, by Adrien Valois,
published at the end of the _Valesiana_, where a courtezan, retired from
the world, is introduced, boasting of the various intrigues of her former
life. Nicol Heinelius published not less than fifty parodies of this poem,
in a small book entitled “Phaselus Catulli, et ad eundem Parodiarum a
diversis auctoribus scriptarum decades quinque; ex Bibliotheca Nic.
Heinelii, Jurisconsulti, Lips. 1642.” Scaliger has also translated the
_Phaselus_ of Catullus into Greek iambics.
5. _Ad Lesbiam_—
“Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus,
Rumoresque senum severiorum
Omnes unius æstimemus assis.
Soles occidere et redire possunt:
Nobis, cum semel occidit brevis lux,
Nox est perpetua una dormienda.
Da mihi basia mille, deinde centum.”
This sentiment, representing either the pleasure of conviviality, or
delights of love, (and much more so as when here united,) in contrast with
the gloom of death, possesses something exquisitely tender and affecting.
The picture of joy, with Death in the distance, inspires a feeling of
pensive morality, adding a charm to the gayest scenes of life, as the
transientness of the rose enhances our sense of its beauty and fragrance;
and as the cloud, which throws a shade over the horizon, sometimes softens
and mellows the prospect. This opposition of images succeeds even in
painting; and the Arcadian landscape of Poussin, representing the rural
festivity of swains, would lose much of its charm if it wanted the
monument and inscription. An example had been set of such contrasted ideas
in many epigrams of the Greeks, and also in the Odes of Anacreon, who
constantly excites himself and fellow-passengers to unrestrained enjoyment
at every stage, by recalling to remembrance the irresistible speed with
which they are hurried to the conclusion of their journey—
“Ὁ δ’ Ερως, χιτωνα δησας
Ὑπερ αυχενος παπυρῳ,
Μεθυ μοι διηκονειτω.
Τροχος αρματος γαρ οῖα
Βιωτος τρεχει κυλισθεις.
Ὀλιγη δε κεισομεσθα
Κονις, ὀστεων λυθεντων.”
Od. IV.
“The ungodly,” says the _Wisdom of Solomon_, “reason with themselves, but
not aright. Our life is short—our time is a very shadow that passeth
away—and, after our end, there is no returning. Come on, therefore, let us
enjoy the good things that are present, and let us speedily use the
creatures like as in youth. Let us fill ourselves with costly wine and
ointments, and let no flower of the spring pass by us; let us crown
ourselves with rose-buds, before they be withered. Let none of us go
without his part of our voluptuousness; let us leave tokens of our
joyfulness in every place: For this is our portion, and our lot in
this(477).”
Among the Latin poets no specimen, perhaps, exists so perfect of this
voluptuous yet pensive morality or immorality, as the _Vivamus, mea
Lesbia_, of Catullus. It is a theme, too, in which he has been frequently
followed, if not imitated, by succeeding poets—by Horace, in particular,
who, amid all the delights of love and wine, seldom allows himself to
forget the closing scene of existence. Many of them too, like Catullus,
have employed the argument of the certainty and speediness of death for
the promotion of love and pleasure—
“Interea, dum fata sinunt, jungamus amores;
Jam veniet tenebris Mors adoperta caput(478).”
And, in like manner, Propertius—
“Dum nos fata sinunt, oculos satiemus amore;
Nox tibi longa venit nec reditura dies.”
There is not much of this in the amatory or convivial poetry of the
moderns. Waller has some traces of it; but a modern prose writer hath most
beautifully, and with greater boldness than any of his predecessors,
represented not merely the thoughts, but the actual image of mortality and
decay, as exciting to a more full and rapid grasp at tangible enjoyments.
Anastasius, while journeying amid the tombs of Scutari, breathing the damp
deadly effluvia, and treading on a swelling soil, ready to burst with its
festering contents, asks himself,—“Shall I, creature of clay like those
here buried—I, who travel through life as I do on this road, with the
remains of past generations strewed around me—I, who, whether my journey
last a few hours, more or less, must still, like those here deposited, in
a short time rejoin the silent tenants of a cluster of tombs—be stretched
out by the side of some already sleeping corpse—and be left to rest, for
the remainder of time, with all my hopes and fears, all my faculties and
prospects, consigned to a cold couch of clammy earth—Shall I leave the
rose to blush along my path unheeded—the purple grape to wither unculled
over my head * * *? Far from my thoughts be such folly! Whatever tempts,
let me take—whatever bears the name of enjoyment henceforth, let me, while
I can, make my own(479).”—The French writers, like Chaulieu and Gresset,
who paint themselves as finding in philosophy and the Muses sufficient
compensation for the dissatisfaction attending worldly pleasures,
frequently urge the shortness of life, not as an argument for indulging in
wantonness or wine, but for enjoying, to the utmost, the innocent delights
of rural tranquillity—
“Fontenay, lieu délicieux,
Ou je vis d’abord la lumiere,
Bientôt au bout de ma carriere
Chez toi je joindrai mes ayeux.
“Muses, qui dans ce lieu champêtre
Avec soin me fites nourrir—
Beaux arbres qui m’avez vu naître
Bientôt vous me verrez mourir:
“Cependant du frais de votre ombre
Il faut sagement profiter,
Sans regret pret a vous quitter
Pour ce Manoir terrible et sombre.”—_Chaulieu._
The united sentiment of enjoying the delights of love, and beauties of
nature, as suggested by the shortness of the period allotted for their
possession, has been happily expressed by Mallet, in his celebrated song
to the Scotch tune, _The Birks of Invermay_:
“Let us, Amanda, timely wise,
Like _them_ improve the hour that flies;
For soon the winter of the year,
And Age, life’s winter, will appear.
At this thy living bloom must fade,
As that will strip the verdant shade:
Our taste of pleasure then is o’er—
The feathered songsters love no more:
And when they droop, and we decay,
Adieu, the shades of Invermay!”
It will not fail, however, to be remarked, that in the ode of Catullus,
which has recalled these verses to our recollection, there is a double
contrast, from comparing the long, dark, and everlasting sleep—the μακρον,
ατερμονα, νηγρετον ὑπνον, with the quick and constant succession of suns,
by which we are daily enlightened—
“Soles occidere et redire possunt:
Nobis, cum semel occidit brevis lux,
Nox est perpetua una dormienda.”
Poets, in all ages, have been fond of contrasting the destined course of
human life with the reparation of the sun and moon, and with the revival
of nature, produced by the succession of seasons. The image drawn from the
sun, and here employed by Catullus, is one of the most natural and
frequent. It has been beautifully attempted by several modern Latin poets.
Thus by Lotichius—
“Ergo ubi permensus cœlum sol occidit, idem
Purpureo vestit lumine rursus humum:
Nos ubi decidimus, defuncti munere vitæ,
Urget perpetua lumina nocte sopor.”
And still more successfully by Jortin—
“Hei mihi lege ratà sol occidit atque resurgit.
* * * *
Nos domini rerum—nos magna et pulchra minati,
Cum breve ver vitæ robustaque transiit ætas,
Deficimus; neque nos ordo revolubilis auras
Reddit in ætherias, tumuli nec claustra resolvit.”
Other modern Latin poets have chosen this ode as a sort of theme or text,
which they have dilated into long poems. Of these, perhaps the most
agreeable is a youthful production of Muretus—
“Ludamus, mea Margari, et jocemur,” &c.
The most ancient French imitator is the old poet Baif, in a sort of
Madrigal. He was followed by Ronsard, Bellay, Pellisson, La Monnoye, and
Dorat. The best imitation, I think, is that by Simon, which I shall give
at full length, once for all as a fair specimen of the French mode of
imitating the lighter poems of Catullus—
“Vivens, O ma Julie!
Jurons d’aimer toujours:
Le printemps de la vie
Est fait pour les amours.
Si l’austère vieillesse
Condamne nos desirs,
Laissons lui sa sagesse,
Et gardons nos plaisirs.
“L’Astre dont la lumiere
Nous dispense les jours,
Au bout de sa carriere
Recommence son cours.
Quand le temps, dans sa rage,
A fletti les appas,
Les roses du bel âge
Ne refleurissent pas.
“D’une pudeur farouche
Fuis les deguisemens;
Viens donner à ma bouche
Cent baisers ravissans—
Mille autres—Pose encore
Sur mes lèvres de feu
Tes lèvres que j’adore—
Mourons à ce doux jeu.
“De nos baisers sans nombre
Le feu rapide et doux
S’échappe comme l’ombre,
Et passe loin de nous:
Mais le sentiment tendre
D’un heureux souvenir,
Dans mon cœur vient reprendre,
La place du plaisir.”
7. _Ad Lesbiam_. His mistress had asked Catullus how many kisses would
satisfy him, and he answers that they must be as numerous as the sands of
the sea—
“Aut quam sidera multa, cum tacet nox,
Furtivos hominum vident amores.”
These two lines seem to have been in the view of Ariosto, in the 14th
canto of the _Orlando_—
“E per quanti occhi il ciel le furtive opre
Degli amatori, a mezza notte, scopre.”
Martial likewise imitates, and refers to this and to the 5th poem of
Catullus, in the 34th epigram of the 6th book—
“Basia da nobis, Diadumene, pressa: quot? inquis—
Oceani fluctus me numerare jubes;
Et maris Ægæi sparsas per littora conchas,
Et quæ Cecropio monte vagantur apes.
Nolo quot arguto dedit exorata Catullo
Lesbia: pauca cupit, qui numerare potest.”
The verses of Catullus have been also imitated in Latin by Sannazzarius,
by Joannes Secundus, of course, in his _Basia_, and by almost all the
ancient amatory poets of France.
8. _Ad Seipsum_. This is quite in the Greek taste: About a third of the
Odes of Anacreon are addressed Εις σεαυτον. Catullus here playfully, yet
feelingly, remonstrates with himself, for still pursuing his inconstant
Lesbia, by whom he had been forsaken.
9. _Ad Verannium_. This is one of the most pleasing of the shorter poems.
Catullus congratulates his friend Verannius on his return from Spain, and
expresses his joy in terms more touching and natural than anything in the
12th Satire of Juvenal, or the 36th Ode of the 1st Book of Horace, which
were both written on similar occasions.
10. _De Varri Scorto_. Catullus gives an account of a visit which he paid
at the house of a courtezan, along with his friend Varrus, and relates, in
a lively manner, the conversation which he had with the lady on the
subject of the acquisitions made by him in Bithynia, from which he had
lately returned. There seems here a hit to have been intended against
Cæsar, of whose conduct in that country some scandalous anecdotes were
afloat. The epigram, however, appears chiefly directed against those
cross-examiners, who are not to be put off with indefinite answers, and in
whose company one must be constantly on guard. In fact, the lady detects
Catullus making an unfounded boast of his Bithynian acquisitions, and he
accordingly exclaims,
“Sed tu insulsa male, et molesta vivis,
Per quam non licet esse negligentem.”
11. _Ad Furium et Aurelium_. This ode commences in a higher tone of poetry
than any of the preceding. Catullus addresses his friends, Furius and
Aurelius, who, he is confident, would be ready to accompany him to the
most remote and barbarous quarters of the globe—
“Furi et Aureli, comites Catulli,
Sive in extremos penetrabit Indos,
Littus ut longe resonante Eoà
Tunditur undâ.”
This verse was no doubt in the view of Horace, in the sixth Ode of the
second Book, where he addresses his friend Septimius, and adopts the
elegant and melodious Sapphic stanza employed by Catullus—
“Septimi, Gades aditure mecum, et
Cantabrum indoctum juga ferre nostra, et
Barbaras Syrtes, ubi Maura semper
Æstuat unda.”
Horace, however, has closed his ode with a few lines, perhaps the most
beautiful and tender in the whole circle of Latin poetry, and which strike
us the more, as pathos is not that poet’s peculiar excellence—
“Ille te mecum locus et beati,” &c.
Catullus, on the other hand, after preserving an elevated strain of poetry
for four stanzas, concludes with requesting his friends to deliver a
ridiculous message to his mistress, who
“Nec meum respectet, ut ante, amorem,
Qui illius culpa cecidit; velut prati
Ultimi flos, prætereunte postquam
Tactus aratro est.”
This last most beautiful image has been imitated by various poets. Virgil
has not disdained to transfer it to his Æneid—
“Purpureus veluti cum flos succisus aratro
Languescit moriens(480).”
Fracastoro has employed the same metaphor with hardly less elegance in his
consolatory epistle to Turri, on the loss of his child—
—— “Jacet ille velut succisus aratro
Flos tener, et frustra non audit tanta gementem;”
and Ariosto has introduced it in the eighteenth canto of the Orlando—
“Come purpureo fior languendo muore
Che ’l vomere al passar tagliato lassa.”
13. _Ad Fabullum_. Our poet invites Fabullus to supper, on condition that
he will bring his provisions along with him—
—— “Nam tui Catulli
Plenus sacculus est aranearum.”
On his own part, he promises only a hearty welcome, and the most exquisite
ointments. In the poetry of social kindness and friendship, Catullus is
eminently happy; and we regret to find that this tone, which has so much
prevailed in the preceding odes, subsequently changes into bitter and
gross invective.
The thirteen following poems are chiefly occupied with vehement and
indelicate abuse of those friends of the poet, Furius and Aurelius, who
were men of some quality and distinction, but had wasted their fortunes by
extravagance and debauchery. In a former ode, we have seen him confident
that they would readily accompany him to the wildest or remotest quarters
of the globe: But he had subsequently quarrelled with them, partly because
they had stigmatized his verses as soft and effeminate; and, in revenge
for this affront, he upbraids them with their poverty and vices. Of these
thirteen poems, the last, addressed to Furius, is a striking picture of
the sheltered situation of a villa. In the common editions, the
description refers to the villa of Catullus himself, but Muretus thinks,
it was rather meant to be applied to that of Furius:
“Furi, villula vostra non ad Austri,” &c.
27. _Ad Pocillatorem puerum_. This address, in which Catullus calls on his
cupbearer to pour out for him copious and unmixed libations of Falernian,
is quite in the spirit of Anacreon: it breathes all his easy and joyous
gaiety, and the enthusiasm inspired by the grape.
28. _Ad Verannium et Fabullum_—
“Pisonis comites cohors inanis,” &c.
Catullus condoles with these friends on account of the little advantage
they had reaped from accompanying the Prætor Piso to his
province—comparing their situation to the similar circumstances in which
he had himself been placed with Memmius in Bithynia.
There is a parody on this piece of Catullus by the celebrated Huet, Bishop
of Avranches—
“Bocharti comites cohors inanis.” &c.
In his youth, Huet had accompanied Bochart to Sweden, on the invitation of
Queen Christina, and appears to have been as little gratified by his
northern expedition, as Catullus by his voyage to Bithynia.
29. _In Cæsarem_. Julius Cæsar, while yet but the general of the Roman
republic, had been accustomed, during his stay in the north of Italy, to
lodge at the house of the father of Catullus in Verona. Notwithstanding
the intimacy which in consequence subsisted between Cæsar and his father,
Catullus lampooned the former on more than one occasion. In the present
epigram, he pours on him an unmeasured abuse, chiefly for having bestowed
the plunder of Britain and Gaul on his favourite, the infamous Mamurra,
who appropriated the public money, and the spoils of whole nations, to
support his boundless extravagance. There is a story which has become very
common on the authority of Suetonius, that Cæsar invited Catullus to
supper on the day on which he first read some satirical verses of the poet
against himself and Mamurra, and that he continued to lodge with his
father as before(481). It appears that on one occasion, when some
scurrilous verses by Catullus were shown to him, he supped with Cicero at
his villa near Puteoli. On the 19th, he staid at the house of Philippus
till one in the afternoon, but saw nobody; he then walked on the shore
across to Cicero’s villa—bathed after two o’clock, and heard the verses on
Mamurra read, at which he never changed countenance(482). Now, this was in
the year 708, after the civil war had been ended, by the defeat and death
of the younger Pompey in Spain. It is most likely that this 29th epigram
was the one which was read to him at Cicero’s villa; and the 57th epigram,
also directed against Cæsar and Mamurra, is probably that concerning which
the above anecdote is related by Suetonius. Though it stands last of the
two in the works of Catullus, it was evidently written before the 29th. He
talks in it of Cæsar and Mamurra, as of persons who were still on a
footing of equality—in the other, he speaks of their dividing the spoils
of the provinces, Gaul, Britain, Pontus, and Spain. The coolness and
indifference which Cæsar showed with regard to the first epigram written
against him, and the forgiveness he extended to its author, encouraged
Cicero, who was a gossip and newsmonger, or those who attended him, to
read to him another of the same description while bathing at the Puteolan
Villa.
31. _Ad Sirmionem Peninsulam_. This heart-soothing invocation, which is
perhaps the most pleasing of all the productions of Catullus, is addressed
to the peninsula of Sirmio, in the territory of Verona, on which the
principal and favourite villa of our poet was situated. Sirmio was a
peninsular promontory, of about two miles circumference, projecting into
the Benacus, now the Lago di Garda—a lake celebrated by Virgil as one of
the noblest ornaments of Italy, and the praises of which have been loudly
re-echoed by the modern Latin poets of that country, particularly by
Fracastoro, who dwelt in its vicinity, and who, while lamenting the
untimely death of his poetical friend, Marc Antonio del Torri, beautifully
represents the shade of Catullus, as still nightly wandering amidst these
favourite scenes—
“Te ripæ flevere Athesis; te voce vocare
Auditæ per noctem umbræ, manesque Catulli,
Et patrios mulcere novâ dulcedine lucos(483).”
Vestiges of the magnificent house supposed to have belonged to Catullus,
are yet shown on this peninsula. Its ruins, which lie near the borders of
the lake, still give the idea of an extensive palace. There are even now,
as we are informed by travellers(484), sufficient remains of mason-work,
pilasters, vaults, walls, and subterraneous passages, to assist the
imagination in representing to itself what the building was when entire,
at least in point of extent and situation. The length of the whole
construction, from north to south, is about 700 feet, and the breadth
upwards of 300. The ground on which it stood does not appear to have been
level, and the fall to the west was supplied by rows of vaults, placed on
each other, the top of which formed a terrace. On the east, the structure
had been raised on those steep and solid rocks which lined the shore; on
the front, which was to the north, and commanded a magnificent view of the
lake, an immense portico seems to have projected from the building: under
the ruins, there are a number of subterraneous vaults, one of which ran
through the middle of the edifice, and along its whole length(485).
The peninsula on which the villa of Catullus was situated, is not
surpassed in beauty or fertility by any spot in Italy. “Sirmione,” says
Eustace(486), “appears as an island, so low and so narrow is the bank that
unites it to the mainland. The promontory spreads behind the town, and
rises into a hill entirely covered with olives. Catullus,” he continues,
“undoubtedly inhabited this spot, and certainly he could not have chosen a
more delightful retreat. In the centre of a magnificent lake, surrounded
with scenery of the greatest variety and majesty, secluded from the world,
yet beholding from his garden the villas of his Veronese friends, he might
have enjoyed alternately the pleasures of retirement, and society; and
daily, without the sacrifice of his connexions, which Horace seemed
inclined to make in a moment of despondency, he might have contemplated
the grandeur and agitation of the ocean, without its terrors and
immensity. Besides, the soil is fertile, and its surface varied; sometimes
shelving in a gentle declivity, at other times breaking in craggy
magnificence, and thus furnishing every requisite for delightful walks and
luxurious baths; while the views vary at every step, presenting rich
coasts or barren mountains, sometimes confined to the cultivated scenes of
the neighbouring shore, and at other times bewildered and lost in the
windings of the lake, or in the recesses of the Alps. In short, more
convenience and more beauty are seldom united(487).” No wonder, then, that
Catullus, jaded and disappointed by his expedition to Bithynia, should, on
his return, have exclaimed with transport, that the spot was not to be
matched in the wide range of the world of waters; or that he should have
unloaded his mind of its cares, in language so perfect, yet simple, that
it could only have flowed from a real and exquisite feeling. No poem in
the Latin language expresses tender feelings more tenderly, and home
feelings more naturally, than the Invocation to Sirmio, in which the
verses soothe and refresh us somewhat in the manner we suppose Catullus
himself to have been, by the trees that shaded the promontory, and by the
waters of the lake below—
“Quam te libenter, quamque lætus inviso!
Vix me ipse credens Thyniam, atque Bithynos
Liquisse campos, et videre te in tuto.
O quid solutis est beatius curis?
Cum mens onus reponit, ac peregrino
Labore fessi venimus larem ad nostrum,
Desideratoque acquiescimus lecto.
Hoc est, quod unum est pro laboribus tantis.
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; and, above all, his heartfelt expression of delight at
the prospect of again reclining on his accustomed couch.
It appears to me, however, that the beauty and the pathos of the poem is
in some degree injured by the last verse,—
“Ridete quicquid est domi cachinnorum,”
which introduces the idea of obstreperous mirth, instead of that tone of
tenderness which pervades the preceding lines of the ode. One would almost
suppose, as probably has happened in some other cases, that a verse had
been subjoined to this which properly belonged to a different ode, where
mirth, and not tenderness, prevailed.
The modern Latin poets of Italy frequently apostrophize their favourite
villas, in imitation of the address to Sirmio. Flaminius, in a poem, _Ad
Agellum suum_, has described his attachment to his farm and home, and the
first lines of it rival the tender and pleasing invocation of Catullus.
Some of the subsequent lines are written in close imitation of the Roman
poet—
—— “Jam libebit in cubiculo
Molles inire somnulos.
Gaudete, fontes rivulique limpidi.”
As also the whole of his address to the same villa, commencing—
“Umbræ frigidulæ, arborum susurri.”