CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

not] employ the offensively hyperbolical expression quisquis de meliore nota”. But quisquis de meliore nota
means nothing more than “every person of the better sort” (and Catullus was certainly capable of snobbism:
compare poem 23); it may not be impossible to solve the problems posed by these lines; and they are
certainly not irrelevant to their context: id … non est turpe, magis miserum est (line 30) refers back to the
previous section (lines 19-26), in which the poet explains that his current cloistered lifestyle is due to the
death of his brother. On the other hand, there are good reasons to consider these lines genuine: their style
closely resembles that of the rest of the poem (note the epistolary formula quod scribis, the commonplace
element in the contrast between turpe and miserum and the enallage of desertus, as of caelebs in line 6) and
line 29 was imitated by Ovid (see ad loc.). We have no reason to assume that they are not genuine.
Catullus picks up a remark from Manlius’ (verses 27-29) and replies to it (verse 30). Is he paraphrasing
Manlius’ letter, or is he quoting it directly? Most recent editors believe that we are dealing with a paraphrase,
and in line 27 they adopt the humanistic emendation Catullo. But the principal MSS’ vocative Catulle was
defended by Santenius, who printed Quare, quod scribis: Veronae… and commented: ita interpunxi, ut in
huc versu incipiat Manlium, tamquam scribentem, inducere, usque ad finem vicesimi noni. Note here the
words tamquam scribentem: Santenius evidently thinks that the words Veronae … cubili do not constitute a
real quotation from Manlius’ letter, but they were made up by Catullus on the basis of what Manlius had
written. Perhaps Santenius assumes that Manlius’ letter had not been a verse letter in elegiac distichs. But
Catullus’ circle of friends was permeated by literature, so we cannot be so sure of this; and it is assumed by
some scholars, most prominently by Quinn, that we are dealing with a genuine quotation. Quinn prints these
lines as follows:
quare, quod scribis, ‘Veronae turpe, Catulle,
esse, quod hic quisquis de meliore nota
frigida deserto tepefactat membra cubili,’
id, Manli, non est turpe, magis miserum est.
More recently, Wiseman (1974: 96-100) has argued that the quotation should be shorter:
quare, quod scribis ‘Veronae turpe, Catulle,
esse,’ quod hic quisquis de meliore nota... etc.
In both cases one has to supplement est after turpe and translate “Therefore as to what you write, that
‘Catullus, it is shameful to be in Verona (…)’ ”. I do not translate the phrase that Santenius and Quinn
include in the quotation, but Wiseman does not, as it is rather controversial how it should be interpreted; I
will rather discuss it separately below.
There is a strong tendency in Latin epistolography to paraphrase the letter that one is replying to rather than
to quote from it. In my experience this is still the case in traditional (hand-written) correspondence today:
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