Catullus: Jetsetting Through the Forum
Lee Butterman
There was a man, Gaius Valerius Catullus, who lived in the early middle of the first century BC. Not much is known about his life except for what his poems tell us. Consensus sets his birth at mid-80s BC, his early death at mid-50s BC, his blood as prominent Veronese stock, friends of the Caesars. Catullus’ poetry is vividly and viscerally emotional, and full of biographical details. It can help in forming an image of the man behind the pen, but only to the extent where truth does not conflict with his assumed persona. Catullus’ artistry is in smoothing over the seam between braggadocio and life experience to weave a poetry almost-larger-than-life, but always believable.
He was part of a poetic counter-culture from Alexandria whose poets were labeled the neoteroi / novi poetae (simply ‘New(er) Poets’). The neoterics were lyric poets, first and foremost, and rejected the bloated epic style. People had been writing epics without learning the modes of oral composition and brought epic to rather silly proportions (so they argued), originally an oral genre that was forced into a written scene. The Alexandrians were entirely written, entirely literary; they did take inspiration, though, from various genres, including folksongs, and they did insinuate relevant background stories with single adjectives, but their dialect was entirely a literary creation, placing words inside complex mosaics of meaning. Catullus does this, certainly, but his sentence structure is much more prosaic, much more conversational. Catullus is a superb metricist, and his diction is always straight-forward. His poetry always has a certain punch to it, a certain pop that conveys his sense of being caught up in the now, never going too over-the-top, a balance and style unparalleled in extant Latin verse.
13
You'll dine well, Fabullus, at my house,
In a few days (if the gods like you) in a short while
If you bring along a nice big
Dinner, accessorized with a dazzling girl
And citrus sangria and zest and joie de vivre.
All right? If you bring along all these, honeybunch,
You'll dine well — your dear Catullus' moneybag
Is just bursting open with cobwebs.
In return, you'll receive my true love,
And I've got something special (it's totally sweet).
I'll give you this cologne that Venus and Cupid
Gave my girl on the shaft of a love-arrow.
Fabullus, one whiff and poof!
You'll ask the gods to transform you into a giant nose.
45
Miss Climaxx rested in Geoffrey's lap,
His true love. “Oh, schmoopy,” he said,
“If I don’t love you hopelessly, if I’m not quite
Prepared to love for all the years to come
As much as anyone might long for anyone,
I’ll wrestle an Antarctic penguin,
Vanquish an Arctic polar bear, midway
Have a tête-à-tête with the Bermuda triangle.”
He spoke, and Love winked consent,
Switched position, twisted to the other.
Miss Climaxx tossed her hair back,
Kissed the love-struck face of the sweet boy
With those wonderful wet lips shimmering.
“Geoff, dearest, stay put. And let us
Bathe in worshipping one master—
A fair fiercer fire is coming, about to
Burst and shoot from the middle of me.”
She spoke, and Love winked consent,
Switched position, twisted to the other.
Now, with the blessing of Lady Luck,
Miss Climaxx and Geoffrey love each other.
How he feels for her—poor boy—
He wants her more than any flighty expedition.
Miss Climaxx, faithful, for her single Geoffrey
Stirs up enchanting lust.
Have you ever seen happier humans?
My god, aren't they adorable?
63
Attis, carried by a quick boat along the deep sea
Touched the Trojan forest with a foot eager and fast,
Entered the shadows of Mt. Ida that the goddess’ woods
enwreathed,
Goaded by crazed passion, restless in his heart,
Whittled the weights of his groin off with sharp flint,
Stained the soil of the earth with fresh blood,
Felt limbs left without their manhood,
Took the light drum with hurried snow-white hands,
(your drum, Cybele, your induction)
Shook the hollow bullhide with slender fingers,
Tremblingly began to sing these things to his fellows:
“Come, now, sailors, to the tall forests of Cybele,
And come, restless flock of our Idaïan mistress,
Bound for others’ lands as exiles,
Following my path, with me as leader, my comrades,
You who withstood the fast seafoam and the waters’ ferocity,
You who unmanned your bodies, loathing ancestral Venus,
Make glad our lady with your spirits fast in straying.
May sluggish delay depart from the mind; come let us press on
To the Trojan house of Cybele, to the Trojan woods of the goddess
Where sounds the voice of the cymbals, where the drums shout
reply,
Where the Trojan flautist sings deeply with a curved pipe,
Where the ivy-clad Maenads toss their heads,
Where the ritual frenzy shakes them, shrieking,
Where the goddess' restless train flits about.
Rush we now there in the dancer's triple-step, as we ought."
The fake woman Attis sang this to her fellows.
The anticipating tongues, shrieking in the orgy,
And the light drum responds, resonant, and the deep cymbals hiss
reply.
To green Mount Ida the quick troupe approaches with a fast foot.
She, raving mad, breathless, heaving breaths, walked, Attis
Accompanied by a drum, leading through the dark wood
Like a heifer avoiding her job free of the yoke.
The swift sailors follow their fleet-footed leader
And so, as they reach Cybele’s home, weary,
Work-worn, they start their sleep, dinner plates and appetites
unsated.
Slow rest closes their eyes under billowy waves of exhaustion.
The violent raging spirit departs in soft quiet.
As Sun of the golden face and gleaming eyes
Polished the milky marble sky, tough soil, wild sea,
And chased night’s shadows with fire-blooded stallions,
Now too Sleep slipped away from frenzied Attis;
His Goddess Pasithea took him in, her heart nervous, eager.
Then from soft quiet without rushed rage
Attis started to remember what she had done,
Saw level-headedly what she lacked, from where,
Soul ablaze, returned, back, walked to the beach,
Scanned the broad sea with gloom-moistened eyes,
Cried out towards home: (poor thing)
“O Home, whence I was created, whence I was birthed,
Whence I left, poor me, as runaway slaves
Do to their masters, I have borne my feet to Mount Ida’s forests,
That I might be within snow, icy lairs of beasts,
All of their wild dark dens.
Where did you go, O my Home, where?
My eye would fix its line of sight upon you,
While my raw mind is without rage for a little while.
Will I deliver myself unto this wood, come far from my distant
house?
Home? estate? friends? ancestors? Will I be gone?
Will I be gone, absent from the marketplace? gymnasium? running
field? swimming pool?
Poor, oh, poor spirit, complaining again and again,
Is there any shape that I have not assumed?
I the woman? I the young man? I the teenager? I the boy?
I have been the flower of the gymnasium, I used to be the pride of
wrestling oil.
My crowded doorway, my threadbare Welcome mat,
My house would be bedecked in flowery garlands
By sunrise, when I would stir awake.
Am I now taken, that I be mistress of the gods and maid of Cybele?
Will I be a Maenad, a sterile man, a small slice of Attis?
Will I now roam the acres of green Mount Ida cloaked in cold
snow?
Live my life under the lofty Trojan peaks
Whence the forest-dwelling doe, whence the wood-roaming boar?
Now, now it hurts, what I did.”
As the swift sound left these rose-red lips
For the ears of the gods, bringing new news,
Cybele, loosening the lions yoked fast
Speaks thus, egging on the left, bane of the fleecy sheep:
“Come now, depart you fiercely, bring a madness upon him,
A madness, pricking him, directing his return to the trees.
That one desires to flit from my empire.
Make the whole world echo with a bellowing roar.
Toss your ferocious mane about your strong neck.
Come, the gleam of blood is in your eye.”
Cybele speaks with an evil smile and lets the lion-yoke go.
The beast rouses his savage self, stirs his soul,
Speeds off, growls, breaks brambles underfoot,
Approaches the foam-white shore,
Sees slender Attis near the placid water,
Gives chase. She flees, witless, into the wild wood.
There, for the entire span of her life, was she ever a maid of
Cybele.
Goddess, great goddess, Cybele, goddess, Idaïan mistress of Troy,
My home, O Cybele, keep the pure fury far off, far from my
home.
Drive others to a frenzy, drive others to a rage.
6
Flavius! your crush! to Catullus! Spill it!
If she weren’t a boorish oaf,
You’d want to talk and
You wouldn't be able to sit still.
But I bet you’ve fallen for some broken-down
Slut, hot to the touch when you squeeze her,
Like a cold sore.
You don't sleep alone at night, that's for sure—
Your bed tries to keep this hush-hush
But it just squeaks the news out,
Smelling of flowers and scented oils
With that threadbare pillow, tossed every which place,
And the jittering bed's shaken broken
Squeals and its staggers across the room.
There's nothing to be had in keeping your lips shut.
Why? You wouldn't show us such a shagged-out you
Unless you're up to something silly again.
So, whatever you have, good or bad,
Do tell! You and your love I want
To call up to heaven in charming poetry.
81
Couldn't there be anyone in the whole damn city, Iuventius,
A pretty man who you could start loving,
Besides that one of yours from the plague-filled city of Pisauros?
A fair-faced stranger with a complexion of Astroturf,
Who now has your heart – who you’d dare have before me?
You know what you're committing when you're committed to him?
106
When you see a pretty boy with an ugly well-dressed daytrader,
I mean, isn't it logical to think that that's how he sells himself?
113
Two score and seven years ago, three men had
Use of Abigail.
One score and seven years ago, three grew to three thousand.
Someone's Mrs Popularity.
~ ~Fruitful is the seed of adultery.~ ~