ABSTRACT
Both guest and stage manager at the ceremony, the speaker of Catullus 61 describes the day’s events in chronological order. He invokes Hymen, invites the nymphs and other wedding guests to participate in the festivities, details such Roman wedding customs as sprinkling wine in the house, praises the couple, refers to the dangers their marriage will confront, and offers prayers for children. Catullus’ chronological structure, the particular events described within it (including allusions to the Roman customs), and his use of a refrain were all to be imitated in continental and English versions of the lyric epithalamium. The poem emphasizes the passage of time during the wedding day (one refrain is ‘sed abit dies’ [‘but the day is passing’]) and reminds us that one can achieve a type of immortality by producing heirs-a juxtaposition of mutability and immutability that no doubt helps to explain why the genre appealed to the author of The Faerie Queene and to many of his contemporaries.
