CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

actions (compare the plural of demonstration in English: “as we have seen …”) or of oneself in those of
others; however, in Catullus, Cicero’s letters, the elegists, Sallust, Tacitus, Martial and other authors ego and
nos often appear to be interchangeable. This plural is regularly used in contexts of strong emotion, notably of
pity: compare here lines 91f. nostro letum miserabile fratri / attulit, 64.138 nostri miserescere, 77.4 misero
eripuisti omnia nostra bona and 83.3 si nostri oblita taceret
18 It will only have required a modicum of learning to identify the goddess who ‘mixes sweet bitterness to
the cares [of love]’ as Venus, the goddess of love, as the topos is extremely common: see Sappho frg. 130.1f.
Voigt Ερο! δη⎪τϒ μ ⎮ λυ!ιμϒλη! δ〉νει, / γλυκ⎛πικρον μ ξανον ⎞ρπετον, Theogn. 1353f. πικρ∫!
κα⇐ γλυκ⎛! ⁄!τι κα⇐ ρπαλϒο! κα⇐ πην↓! / ⎞φρα τϒλειο! ƒηι Κ⎛ρνε νϒοι!ιν Ερϖ!, Eur. Hipp.
347f. Φα. τ⇔ το⎝ψ ⌡ δ↓ λϒγου!ιν νψρ⊕που! ⁄ρ ν; – Τρ. ×δι!τον, ∈ πα⇑, τα⎡τ∫ν λγειν〉ν ψ μα,
Asclepiades A.P. 12.153.3f. ο⎡δ ⌡ μελιξρ∫! Ερϖ! α⇒ε⇐ γλυκ⎛!, λλ νι→!α! / πολλ κι! ″δ⇔ϖν
γ⇔νετ ⁄ρ∩!ι ψε〉!, Meleager A.P. 12.81.1f. ⎟!οι φλ〉γα τ↓ν φιλ〉παιδα / ο◊δατε το⎝ πικρο⎝ γευ! μενοι
μϒλιτο! and 12.154.4 οδε τ∫ πικρ∫ν Ερϖ! !υγκερ !αι μϒλιτι and Pl. Cist. 67f. Amor et melle et felle est
fecundissimus: / gustui dat dulce, amarum ad satietatem usque oggerit and Pseud. 61 dulce amarumque una
nunc misces mihi. The image has been studied in detail by Carson (1986).
curis In Catullus the meaning of cura(e) and curare ranges from anxiety and worries about unspecified
matters (31.7) through concern for one’s clothing (64.69) or for the promises that one may break (64.148),
the act of caring for a relative (41.5) and the grief of bereavement (65.1) to the care, concern and worries of
someone who is experiencing the pangs of passion, especially one seriously in love: thus also in line 51
below, at 64.72, 64.95 (which is echoed here), 64.250, 66.23, and apparently also at 2.10 and 62.16. This
amorous use of cura(e) is already found in Plautus at Epid. 135 illam amabam olim, nunc iam alia cura
impendet pectori, an epigram by Valerius Aedituus (from the late 2 nd century B.C.?), frg. 1 FPL 3 ap. Gell.
10.9.10 dicere cum conor curam tibi, Pamphila, cordis, Lucr. 4.1059f. hinc illaec primum Veneris dulcedinis
in cor / stillauit gutta et successit frigida cura (note the contrast of pleasure and pain, as here) and 4.1067
seruare sibi curam certumque dolorem and often in later writers (see TLL 4.1474.80-1475.41). The word is
also used in concreto for one’s beloved by Catullus’ near contemporary Ticida at frg. 2 FPL 3 Lydia doctorum
maxima cura liber and often by later writers (Verg. Ecl. 10.22, Tib. 2.3.31, etc.; see TLL 4.1475.42-60 with
4.1466.57-81). In this romantic sense cura implies concern and emotional involvement.
Hermes (1888: 12) found it incongruous that Catullus should have wanted to describe human life as a chain
of worries and conjectured Musis, but this is evidently unnecessary.
19-24 ‘Your death has put an end to my love-affairs, my good times, my very family and my joys.’ Catullus
laments his brother in highly emotional terms; he apostrophizes him in the middle of the letter (see line 20n.)
and calls his death a catastrophe.
The idea that a person is the sole guarantor of one’s life and well-being first appears in the famous words of
Andromache to Hector, whose death she rightly fears, at Iliad 6.429f.: Εκτορ, τ ρ !⎛ μο⇔ ⁄!!ι πατ↓ρ
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