CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

At first sight, this debate could appear to be merely about whether or not to divide up a semi-continuous text
along its internal joints, about editorial tastes and preferences rather than questions of interpretation. The
following pages should make it clear that this is not the case. In fact, the proponents of unity and those of
division have put forward entirely different interpretations of carmen 68. This controversy is not about mere
editorial choice, but about what is the substance of this poem or of these poems; and as such, it has to be
considered carefully.
Carmen 68 appears as one poem in Catullus’ manuscripts as well as in the great editions of the Renaissance.
Lines 1-40 were first printed as a separate poem in 1785 in an anthology of Latin poetry translated into
German by the man of letters, diplomat and statesman August Rode (1751-1837, after attaining nobility in
1803 von Rode). 10 He explains why he has done so in his introductory note:
“In Brindley’s edition, which I have before me, [this poem] is about 120 verses longer; but it appears
from their contents that they do not belong to this letter. They constitute a separate poem in praise of
Manlius, which is not of the best sort, and in which the apostrophe to Catull’s dead brother is repeated
almost literally. I have felt it justified to leave out this pitiful appendage.” 11
Rode’s anthology was not a critical edition and it did not even contain a Latin text of the poems that he had
translated; however, his separation of lines 1-40 from the rest of the poem was soon taken up in a slightly
more scholarly work, the bilingual 1793 pocket edition published by his acquaintance the poet, translator and
literary critic Karl Wilhelm Ramler (1725-1798). 12 As an editor of contemporary German poetry, Ramler
was notorious for re-writing passages that he found deficient, for which Goethe duly lampooned him as “the
crab in B***” (Berlin), whose pincers clip off many a burgeoning poetic flower, and as a barber who shaves
his customers free but against their will and cuts into their skin and nose. 13 He dealt with Catullus along
similar lines: he bowdlerized the text thoroughly, removing all obscenity and turning homosexual love affairs
into heterosexual ones. As for poem 68, he treated its first forty lines as a separate poem, giving in a footnote
the same reasons for this that had already been given by Rode; and in an egregious case of the pot
10
Rode 1785: 81-85. On Rode see Hofäus 1889 and Arndt 1936.
11
Rode 1785: 81f. “In der Brindleyschen Ausgabe, die ich vor mir habe, ist er [sc. der Brief] noch um 120 Verse
länger; allein der Inhalt derselben zeigt, dass sie nicht zu dieser Epistel gehören. Sie machen ein eignes Lobgedicht auf
den Manlius aus, welches eben nicht von der besten Art ist, und worin die Apostrophe an den verstorbenen Bruder
Katulls fast wörtlich wiederholt wird. Ich habe mich berechtiget geglaubt, diesen elenden Anhang weg zu lassen.”
12
On Rode’s acquaintance with Ramler see Arndt 1936: 194; on Ramler see Petrisch 1888 and Fromm 1998. His
pocket-sized Catullus of 1793 has become very rare, its 1803 reprint (with a different layout and less footnotes)
somewhat less so.
13
J.W. von Goethe, Xenien 74 and Das Neuste von Plundersweilern 59-70; see also Xenien 106 and 358f.
11