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V. The Poems (1)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2016

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Extract

Catullus chooses to introduce his readers to the woman central to his life in the two poems about her pet sparrow. She is not there identified even by the pseudonym Lesbia, but, whatever other women there may have been in the poet’s life, there is no serious doubt that all the six love-poems in the first eleven refer to the same woman. We have come to appreciate that the first of these (2) is a hymn, the sparrow who drew Aphrodite’s carriage taking on her divinity, that it stands within Hellenistic traditions, and that the language is highly erotic in its details. There is one potent ambiguity: strouthos in Greek and its Latin equivalents, turtur and the like, are used of the male sex-organ. This gives a strong ambiguity to the second poem (3), where G. Giangrande has argued that the death of the sparrow has an underlying meaning of sexual impotence. Not everyone accepts this, but there is no doubt about the ambiguities of passer, pipiare, mouere, gremium, and mors. The point is not that the poem is about sexual impotence, but that it must be read at more than one level.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Surveys in the Classics , Volume 20: Catullus , 1988 , pp. 24 - 31
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1998

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References

Notes

1. Giangrande, in Mus. Phil. Lond. 1 (1975), 137-46Google Scholar; Genovese, E.N. in Maia 26 (1974), 121-5Google Scholar.

2. Commager (1965).

3. Wiseman (1969), p. 34; (1985), pp. 152-5; Shipton (1980).

4. Wiseman (1985), p. 134.

5. Commager (1965), 94-5; Copley (1949), 27-31; Davis, J.T. in AJPh 92 (1971), 196–201 Google Scholar; Williams (1968), pp. 405-7.

6. Lee (1962); Ross (1969), p. 88.

7. See Ross (1969), pp. 80-95.

8. Ferguson (1985), p. 18.

9. For the genre, see Cairns (1972), pp. 243-4.

10. Rudd, N., ‘Colonia and her bridge’ in TAPhA 90 (1959), 238-42Google Scholar; Khan, H.Akbar, ‘Image and Symbol in Catullus 17’ CPh 64 (1969), 88–97 Google Scholar.

11. Cameron, A., ‘Catullus 29’ Hermes 104 (1976), 155-63Google Scholar; Mimyard, J.D., ‘Critical Notes on Catullus 29’ CPh 66 (1971), 174-81Google Scholar; Scott, W.C., ‘Catullus and Caesar (C. 29)’ CPh 66 (1971), 17–25 Google Scholar; Skinner (1980); Young, P.R., ‘Catullus 29’ CJ 64 (1969), 327-8Google Scholar.

12. Wiseman (1985), pp. 96-9; Goold (1983), p. 18 but ambiguously; Gordon Williams in Gold, B.K. (ed.) Literary and Artistic Patronage in Ancient Rome (Austin, 1982)Google Scholar; Ferguson (1985). Against: Fordyce (1962); Quinn (1970, 1973).

13. See e.g. Baker, Sheridan in CPh 53 (1958), 110-12Google Scholar; Khan, H.Akbar in Latomus 27 (1968), 3–12 Google Scholar; Singleton, D. in G&R 18 (1971), 181-7Google Scholar.

14. Cairns (1972), pp. 44-5; Wiseman (1985), pp. 99-100; Ferguson (1985), p. 134.

15. Collins, J.H. in CJ 48 (1957), 11–17, 36-9Google Scholar; Ferguson, J. in Latomus 25 (1966), 871-2Google Scholar; Fredericksmeyer, E.A. CPh 68 (1973), 268-78Google Scholar; Gugel, H. in Latomus 26 (1967), 686-8Google Scholar; Laughton, E. in CPh 65 (1970), 1-7;Google Scholar Thomson, D.F.S. in CW 60 (1967), 225-30Google Scholar; Wormell, D.E.W. in Phoenix 17 (1963), 59-60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar