ABSTRACT
It is better probably, to begin with, to leave the long poems on one side. Not because o f disputes about their quality, but because the long poems are too long and too complex for reliable initial impressions. Thinking, then, for the moment o f the short poems only, recall those pieces (a score perhaps) that we have all long known and liked. Let us take Poem 46 to represent them, for it is less hackneyed than some and because, i f we begin here, we shall be reminded o f something which Catullus’ romantic biographers may have caused us to forget-that Catullus is not only a love poet:1
This little poem claims our immediate respect. Here is some thing worth making a poem about and here is a poem well made. And it reveals to our continuing attention a subtlety and a rich ness that will reinforce, and not dispel, our initial impression.2 We note the careful symmetry o f the layout: eleven lines, o f which the first states the dramatic moment o f the poem, the central line the decision to which the excitement o f spring leads up, and the final line the conclusion o f the episode the poem announces. It happens we can fix the episode precisely: Catullus has finished his tour o f duty with Memmius, propraetor o f Bithynia Pontus. It is the spring o f 5 6 b .c . But these are things it is interesting to know, not essential. Into this framework is infused a pattern o f legiti mate emotional incitement: lines 1 and 2 begin with iam (to convey the excitement o f spring); so do lines 7 and 8 (to convey Catullus’ excitement at the prospect o f his journey through the famous cities o f Asia)—four iam9s in eleven lines, but the poem can stand it.3 Now some details. Note the economy with which the magic o f the past is evoked by the single word Phrygii, in order to prepare the ground for the right overtones in Asiae, out o f which we might otherwise here take only the administrators’ name for a Roman province.4 Observe also the four polysyl lables egelidos, aequinoctialis, aestuosae, and praetrepidans-words so bulky, so unemotionally precise in statement one does well to ponder how Catullus manages to make them reinforce the slender lyric fabric one might have thought they could not fail to destroy.5 But part o f the strength o f this poem comes from the sinewy ten sion between excitement o f feeling and sober precision o f state ment. The best example is perhaps the last line:
The members o f Catullus’ cohors have various plans for sight seeing on their way home: the routes they will take are quite different (diuersus is the strong word in Latin for ‘different’), but in the long run it won’t make all that difference, they’ll all arrive back in Rome (uarius is the weak word in Latin for ‘different’). What on first reading might have looked like otiose repetition is now seen as economically meaningful.
