I had genuinely hoped that I would have more time before I hit one of those poems that I knew Catullus had written but personally hadn’t read. One of those poems with invective and pejorative vocabulary and sexual violence. Not a lepidus versus, no matter what Catullus might claim. So, I knew I was in trouble when I read the VROMA content warning and I hadn’t gotten any further than poem #6 in this undertaking.
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Catullus 5: An Easier Prose Story
After working through the difficulty of Catullus 4, I was immensely—immensely—grateful when I turned to Catullus 5 and immediately recognized the famous opening line. A somewhat simple poem! Indeed, let us live and love indeed! Still, I do remember when I first read this poem when I was a beginning Latin student. It’s straightforward to me now, but it wasn’t then. The genitive of value and those final lines with the cum clauses and negative purposes clauses and the dropping of ali- from aliquis left me scratching my head a little. Still, I thought it was a fun poem, and it is a fun poem. Every generation can relate to…
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Catullus 4: An Easier Prose Story
I’m going to sacrifice myself on the proverbial alter of dignity and tell you exactly what I felt while I was reading Catullus 4 for the first time: WHAT AM I EVEN READING? It didn’t help that I didn’t know the first word of the poem or that it took me far longer than I care to admit to realize that the boat was speaking. I went into Catullus 4 with absolutely no background knowledge of what I was going to read, and it won. Handily. For a rather long time.
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Catullus 3: An Easier Prose Story
Catullus 3 is a lament for the death of Lesbia’s sparrow, a lament that seems to focus more on the change in Lesbia’s physical appearance due to her grief than any genuine grief for the sparrow’s death on Catullus’ part. I wonder how Lesbia might have interpreted poems with this subtext about her lack beauty while she is grieving. I certainly would have been angry.
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Catullus 1: an Easier Prose Story
I must confess something that seems rather shameless in the world of people who read Latin: I have read very little Catullus. In fact, I’ve read maybe a handful of poems, only two that I remember in any detail. I have probably read the poems about Lesbia’s famous sparrow—maybe, anyway—but I do vividly remember both Catullus 51 and 101. I might have even agreed to memorize Catullus 51 for one of my student’s fundraisers, where I recited it on stage in a toga. Though I don’t remember what prompted me to read Catullus 101, its pain and grief are renowned. Maybe that’s what drew me to it, the sense of…
