CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

spumantibus exspuit undis This expressive phrase not only describes the waves buffeting the shore, but it
also renders their sound by the alliteration of spu- and the hissing s-sounds, and their force by the rhythm of
these words in which word-accent coincides with verse-accent. Catullus used the same phrase in the same
place within the hexameter at 64.155 quod mare conceptum spumantibus exspuit undis (since a reference to a
seething sea is more appropriate here, this suggests that poem 68a was composed before poem 64). Catullus
appears to have modelled his image on Ennius trag. 118 Jocelyn maria salsa spumant sanguine (note the s-
sounds). He was imitated in turn by Virgil at Geo. 4.529 spumantem undam, Aen. 2.209 spumante salo and
esp. 3.268 spumantibus undis |.
4 Note the echo of the line at Culex 223f. cum te / restitui superis leti iam limine ab ipso (which also
reflects Lucr. 2.960, quoted here on a mortis limine).
subleuem In the context of the image of the shipwrecked man the verb has its literal sense ‘to lift up’ (cfr.
Cat. 17.18 nec se subleuat ex sua parte), but since the point of the image is that Catullus should help
Manlius, there is also a hint of the more abstract meaning of subleuo, ‘To help ..., back up, assist, or
encourage’ (OLD s.v., 2a; thus e.g. Cic. Clu. 168 is hunc suo testimonio subleuat, ad note its use in a letter
by Q. Metellus Celer ap. Cic. Fam. 5.1.1). The word fits both the invented world of the image in which it
stands and the actual message that the image must convey; it acts as a hinge between metaphor and reality.
a mortis limine ‘From the threshold of death.’ Strictly speaking limen could stand for both the horizontal
beams surrounding a doorway, for the lintel as well as the threshold (cfr. Pl. Mer. 830 limen superum
inferumque and likewise Novius com. 49f.), but ‘threshold’ is its only meaning that is securely attested in
Catullus (at 61.160, 63.65, 67.38 and apparently also at 64.271, while 32.5 and 66.17 are ambiguous), and it
seems absurd to think of ‘the lintel of death’. On the other hand, the threshold was a familiar image in
ancient literature. The phrase γ→ραο! ο⎡δ〉!, ‘the threshold of old age’ (surely its beginning, pace LSJ and
others) is already found in the Homeric epics (Il. 22.60 and 24.387 as well as Od. 15.246, 15.348 and 23.212)
and is taken up by a wide range of later authors (h.Ven. 106, Hes. Op. 331, Hdt. 3.14.10, Pl. Rep. 328e6,
Lycourg. 40, Hyp. Dem. 22.13-14 /from frg. 5/ Jensen = frg. 6.24 Kenyon, Menander, frg. 629 Körte = frg.
671 CAF and Ps.-Phoc. 230). In later antiquity Quintus Smyrnaeus 10.426 will write βι〉του κλυτ∫ν ο⎡δ∫ν
⇓κϒ!ψαι.
In Latin the metaphorical use of limen ‘threshold’ to mean ‘boundary’, ‘limit’ was conflated with its
metonymical use to mean ‘building’, ‘house’, ‘dwelling’: compare Accius trag. 530f. in quos delatus locos /
dicitur alto ab limine caeli, Cat. 64.271 Aurora exoriente uagi sub limina solis and Varro Men. 568 limina
nidica (where nidica has been suspected but surely makes good sense as an absurdly exaggerated poeticism).
For the purely metaphorical use compare Cic. Arat. 240 Buescu annorum uolitantia limina and more
relevantly Lucretius’ use of leti limen for the proximity of death (6.1157 languebat corpus leti iam limine ab
ipso, also 2.960) and uitae limen for the beginning of one’s life (3.681 tum cum gignimur et uitae cum limen
inimus). The expression may be a vivid poeticism; it is not found in prose before Tac. Ann. 3.74.3 in limine
101