CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

there is simply no need to take the time and trouble to quote one’s correspondent ad litteram, as long as one
reacts to the points that (s)he has raised. (The situation is notably different in e-mail, where one can cut and
paste easily.) Quinn has pointed out that “a verse letter is not a normal letter”: it is presumably written with
greater care and with less haste than a letter in prose, so it would be technically easier for the author to
include a verbatim quotation, even though this would probably be a very unconventional thing to do.
Catullus introduces his paraphrase or quotation with the words quod scribis. The phrase is common in
Cicero’s correspondence, where it serves practically always to introduce a paraphrase rather than a quotation.
However, there are a couple of exceptions, but these involve one-word quotations or quotations of a
proverbial character (see ad loc. below). The Romans had no quotation marks at their disposal, and one
would expect a clearer statement than quod scribis that a quotation is to follow: for example quod ita scribis,
which is used in this sense by Cicero at Fam. 5.2.3.
In view of all this, one would expect a paraphrase rather than a quotation at this point; but can one be sure? I
think we can, on stylistic grounds. quod scribis, ‘Veronae turpe, Catulle, / esse,(’) quod ... would be
awkward in the extreme: four stops would fall between seven words, and standing in enjambment the bland
esse would receive an extraordinary amount of emphasis. The clumsy, halting quality of this run of words
would stand off starkly against the smoothness of the surrounding lines.
The alternative is to take lines 27-29 to contain not a quotation from Manlius’ letter, but a paraphrase. This
has been done since the Renaissance, when someone wrote Catullo in line 27. Accordingly, Mynors and
Thomson write the passage as follows:
quare, quod scribis Veronae turpe Catullo
esse, quod hic quisquis de meliore nota
frigida deserto tepefactet membra cubili,
id, Manli, non est turpe, magis miserum est. [here Mynors writes Mani]
Once again, esse stands in enjambment and receives an awkward amount of emphasis. Also, it is hard to
make sense of Veronae turpe Catullo esse. This has generally been taken to mean Veronae esse turpe
Catullo esse, ‘that it is shameful for Catullus to be in Verona’. Kroll has set out the two ways in which our
text could be made to suit such an interpretation: esse could stand π∫ κοινο⎝ both with Veronae and with
turpe, or the second esse that would go with turpe could have been omitted tacitly. But Kroll himself admits
that such an π∫ κοινο⎝ construction would be “etwas kühn”, “somewhat bold” – in fact it would lack
parallels; and so would the elision of one esse out of two (we only find elisions of a single instance of esse,
as at Prop. 1.6.9 illa meam mihi iam se denegat). Fordyce and Thomson cautiously favour the second
interpretation. However, it would have the further weakness that the missing esse would have to go with
turpe, as esse can only be omitted when it is an auxiliary verb but not when it means ‘to spend time’, ‘to
stay’ in a certain place, so the esse that we do have would have to go with Veronae – but in fact it stands
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