Autant et plus que sa vie
Phyllis aime un passereau;
Ainsi la jeune Lesbie
Jadis aima son moineau.
Mais de celui de Catulle
Se laissant aussi charmer,
Dans sa cage, sans scrupule,
Elle eut soin de l' enfermer.
Héguin de Guerle however sees nothing to justify this opinion, remarking
that Catullus was not the man to use a veil of allegory in saying an
indecency. "He preferred the bare, and even coarse, word; and he is too
rich in this style of writing to need the loan of equivocal passages."
v. 12. The story of the race between Hippomenes and Atalanta, and how the
crafty lover tricked the damsel into defeat by the three golden apples is
well known. Cf. Ovid. Metam. lib. x. v. 560, et seq. According to Vossius
the gift of an apple was equivalent to a promise of the last favour. The
Emperor Theodosius caused Paulinus to be murdered for receiving an apple
from his Empress. As to this, cf. the "Tale of the Three Apples," in _The
Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night_ (Sir Richard Burton's Translation,
Benares, 1885-8, 16 volumes), vol. i. p. 191. Cf. also note to C. lxv. v.
19.
v. 13. Virgins wore a girdle, generally of wool, for wool by the ancients
was supposed to excite love, which the bridegroom the first night unbound
in bed. Both in Greek and in Latin the phrase _to undo the zone_ was used
to signify the loss of virginity.
C. vi. v. 8. Some say this is the spikenard, and the same with the Syrian
_malobathrum_. But any rich odour was termed Syrian, by the Romans, who
were extravagantly fond of perfumes; and used them, according to Vulpius,
as provocatives to venery.
v. 9. _Pulvinus_, not _pulvinar_. Cf. carmen lxiiii. v. 47, post.
C. vii. v. 6. Battus (in Libyan) Bahatus, a chief, a ruler.--Halevy Essai,
p. 164.--_R. F. B._
C. viii. v. 18. Plautus speaks of Teneris labellis molles morsiunculae.
Thus too Horace:
Sive puer furens
Impressit memorem dente labris notam.
Or on thy lips the fierce fond boy
Marks with his teeth the furious joy. _Francis_.
Plutarch tells us that Flora, the mistress of Cn. Pompey, used to say in
commendation of her lover, that she could never quit his arms without
giving him a bite.
C. xi. v. 5. In the Classics, Arabs always appear as a soft effeminate
race; under primitive Christianity as heretics; and after the seventh
century as conquerors, men of letters, philosophers, mediciners, magicians
and alchemists.--_R. F. B._
v. 20. _Ilia rumpens_. More exactly rendered by Biacca:
E sol di tutti
Tenta l'iniqua ad isnervar i fianchi.
Guarini says of a coquette, that she likes to do with lovers as with gowns,
have plenty of them, use one after another, and change them often.
C. xiii. v. 9. I understand this, "Thou shalt depart after supper carrying
with thee all our hearts."--_R. F. B._
C. xiiii. v. 15. Whence our Christmas-day, the Winter Solstice connected
with Christianity. There are only four universal festivals--"Holy
days,"--and they are all of solar origin--The Solstices and the
Equinoxes.--_R. F. B._
C. xv. v. 7. The Etymology of "platea" shows it to be a street widening
into a kind of _place_, as we often find in the old country towns of
Southern Europe.--_R. F. B._
v. 18. _Patente porta_. This may be read "Your house door being open so
that each passer may see your punishment," or it may be interpreted as
referring to the punishment itself, _i.e._, through the opened buttocks.
v. 19. This mode of punishing adulterers was first instituted amongst the
Athenians. The victim being securely tied, a mullet was thrust up his
fundament and withdrawn, the sharp gills of the fish causing excruciating
torment to the sufferer during the process of its withdrawal, and
grievously lacerating the bowels. Sometimes an enormous radish was
substituted for the mullet. According to an epigram quoted by Vossius from
the Anthologia, Alcaeus, the comic writer, died under this very punishment.
Lo here Alcaeus sleeps; whom earth's green child,
The broad-leaved radish, lust's avenger, kill'd.
C. xvi. v. 1. _Paedicabo et irrumabo._ These detestable words are used here
only as coarse forms of threatening, with no very definite meaning. It is
certain that they were very commonly employed in this way, with no more
distinct reference to their original import than the corresponding phrases
of the modern Italians, _T' ho in culo_ and _becco fottuto_, or certain
brutal exclamations common in the mouths of the English vulgar.
v. 5. Ovid has a distich to the same effect:
Crede mihi, distant mores a carmine nostri;
Vita verecunda est, musa jocosa mihi.
"Believe me there is a vast difference between my morals and my song; my
life is decorous, my muse is wanton." And Martial says:
Lasciva est nobis pagina, vita proba est.
Which is thus translated by Maynard:
Si ma plume est une putain,
Ma vie est une sainte.
Pliny quotes this poem of Catullus to excuse the wantonness of his own
verses, which he is sending to his friend Paternus; and Apuleius cites the
passage in his Apology for the same purpose. "Whoever," says Lambe, "would
see the subject fully discussed, should turn to the Essay on the Literary
Character by Mr. Disraeli." He enumerates as instances of free writers who
have led pure lives, La Motte le Vayer, Bayle, la Fontaine, Smollet, and
Cowley. "The imagination," he adds, "may be a volcano, while the heart is
an Alp of ice." It would, however, be difficult to enlarge this list, while
on the other hand, the catalogue of those who really practised the
licentiousness they celebrated, would be very numerous. One period alone,
the reign of Charles the Second, would furnish more than enough to
outnumber the above small phalanx of purity. Muretus, whose poems clearly
gave him every right to knowledge on the subject, but whose known
debauchery would certainly have forbidden any credit to accrue to himself
from establishing the general purity of lascivious poets, at once rejects
the probability of such a contrast, saying:
Quisquis versibus exprimit Catullum
Raro moribus exprimit Catonem.
"One who is a Catullus in verse, is rarely a Cato in morals."
C. xviii. This and the two following poems are found in the Catalecta of
Vergilius, but they are assigned to Catullus by many of the best critics,
chiefly on the authority of Terentianus Maurus.
v. 2. Cf. _Auct. Priapeiorum_, Eps. lv. v. 6, and lxxvii. v. 15.
v. 3. _Ostreosior_. This Epithet, peculiarly Catullian, is appropriate to
the coasts most favoured by Priapus; oysters being an incentive to lust.
C. xx. v. 19. The traveller mocks at Priapus' threat of sodomy, regarding
it as a pleasure instead of as a punishment. The god, in anger, retorts
that if that punishment has no fears for him, a fustigation by the farmer
with the self-same mentule used as a cudgel may have a more deterrent
effect. Cf. _Auct. Priap._ Ep. li. v. 27, 28:
Nimirum apertam convolatis ad poenam:
Et vos hoc ipsum, quod minamur, invitat.
Without doubt, ye flock to the open punishment [so called because the
natural parts of Priapus were always exposed to view], and the very thing
with which I threaten, allures you.
And also Ep. lxiv.,
Quidam mollior anseris medulla,
Furatum venit hoc amor poenae.
Furetur licet usque non videbo.
One than a goose's marrow softer far,
Comes hither stealing for it's penalty sake;
Steal he as please him: I will see him not.
C. xxiii. v. 6. Dry and meagre as wood; like the woman of whom Scarron
says, that she never snuffed the candle with her fingers for fear of
setting them on fire.