CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

INTRODUCTION
CATULLUS 68: HOW MANY POEMS?
The origins of the controversy
“I assume here what it seems outrageous to deny, that the Mallius of the first part
(11) is the Allius and Mallius (66) of the second.”
Robinson Ellis
“... wenn zuletzt gesagt worden ist, dasz sich die einheit nie und nimmer erweisen
lasse, w e n i g s t e n s n i c h t f ü r h o m i n e s e l e g a n t i o r e s, so kann
dies nur in dem bekannten sinne gelten, in welchem elegantia dilettantismus
bedeutet.”
Fritz Schöll
“There is in fact very strong evidence that we are dealing with two separate poems
and attempts to show that the 160 lines constitute a single entity are as good an
example as any of the perversity of which the human mind is capable.”
Brian Arkins 9
There are two strong stops within the transmitted text of carmen 68, one after line 40 and one after line 148,
at both of which the speaker abandons his previous run of thought and turns to a new addressee. These stops
divide the text into three sections: lines 1-40, addressed to a friend; lines 41-148, addressed to the Muses;
and lines 149-160, once more addressed to a friend. For over two centuries, scholars have been debating
whether or not the first of these three sections is a separate poem; but it has also been proposed that three
sections are poems in their own right. (If lines 1-40 and 41-160 are treated as separate poems, they are
generally referred to as Catullus 68a and 68b; in the case of a division into three poems lines 41-148 become
poem 68b and lines 149-160 poem 68c. For no other reason than convenience, I will speak of carmen 68 to
indicate all of the text, but of poems 68a and 68b – and on occasion 68c – to indicate its constituent parts.)
9 Ellis 1867: 320; Schöll 1880: 472 „... if, as has been said lately, the unity [of the poem] can never be proven, a t a n y
r a t e n o t f o r h o m i n e s e l e g a n t i o r e s, this can only be taken in the popular sense in which elegantia
stands for dilettantism”; Arkins 1999: 81.
10