CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

elli (see further OLD s.v. limen 3 & 4 and TLL 7.2.1406.21-1408.59). Unless these passages share a lost
model, for example in Ennius, the phrase may have become widespread only in the 1 st century B.C.
The shipwrecked man in the metaphor is near death: that suggests that Manlius’ situation is similarly grave.
It is the question whether he is in any way near death. He does not appear to be physically ill – his longing
for sex and for reading-matter (cfr. lines 5-10) suggests that he is not. Had he written to Catullus that he was
contemplating suicide, as Cicero did to Atticus during his exile (Att. 3.7.2)? Or do these words simply
express his mental anguish? Catullus had talked about death (surely not suicide, but the natural end of a life
full of suffering) after having been abandoned by Lesbia (76.18 extremam iam ipsa in morte … opem) and a
couple of lines below he writes that the death of his brother has taken the entire family to the grave (lines 21-
26).
restituam ‘That I restore (you) to life’: thus Ov. Pont. 3.6.35f. extinctos uel aqua uel Marte uel igni / nulla
potest iterum restituisse dies and Hor. Od. 4.7.21-24 cum semel occideris ... non te, Torquate, genus, non te
facundia, non te / restituet pietas; cfr.OLD s.v. restituo, 2.
5-8 The second pair of distichs contain a pair of relative clauses that describe not the the unspecified
misfortune that has overcome Manlius in the past (its effects on Manlius were described in the first pair of
distichs through the perfect participles oppressus and eiectum) but his current suffering (note the present
indicatives perpetitur, oblectant and peruigilat). Each distich describes one of the problems that continue to
vex Manlius: the sleeplessness induced by his lack of a partner, and his lack of reading-matter to bring him
relief as he lies awake. While his lack of good books will hardly have been a consequence of the misfortune
that had afflicted him, his erotic deprivations could well have been due to it – and so much is suggested by
the smoothness of the transition from the metaphor describing Manlius’ afflicted state to the first symptom:
“that I should lift up and restore to life the shipwrecked man ... whom holy Venus does not allow to sleep”
(lines 3-5; see the Introduction, pp. 48f. for further discussion).
Manlius’ two symptoms that are described here, his lack of sex and of reading-matter, evidently correspond
to the two remedies mentioned in line 10 that he had asked from Catullus, the munera et Musarum et
Veneris: he (see the Introduction, p. 52). One should also note the correspondences between the description
of Manlius’ problems here and the description of what he had asked for in line 10: neque … nec … here
corresponds to et ... et ... there, and the Muses recur in an analogous position, as does the goddess of love.
Here Manlius’ two symptoms are described in a pair of distichs that are, as it were, symmetrical: each
contains a main clause describing allegorically the failure of a female divinity or several to help Manlius
alongside a short participial phrase (desertum ... caelibe) or subordinate clause (cum ... peruigilat) which
describe the sufferings that are not alleviated by the respective goddesses. The final words of the distichs,
perpetitur and peruigilat, both describe Manlius’ ongoing suffering, both carry the intensifying suffix perand
are of a similar metrical shape. The distichs contain a mix of theological allegory and realistic detail, set
out in rather florid language: note that all nouns bar one (Musae) carry an adjective.
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