CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

What makes the image effective and slightly humorous is that old women were considered to be naturally
talkative: if the papyrus sheet containing the poem will be an old woman, it will hardly be able to stop
talking. Ancient literature abounds in talkative old women: note Aristoph. Thesm. 1073 πολε⇑! μ ∈ γρα⎝
!τϖμυλλομϒνη, Callim. Hecale frg. 310 Pfeiffer = 58 Hollis ε⇔πλανα ξε⇔λεα γρη〉!, Plaut. Cist. 149
utrumque haec, et multiloqua et multibiba, est anus, Mart. 11.50.8 garrula saga and the anus who is called a
sermocinatrix inmodica at Apul. Met. 9.17. Cicero Sen. 55 lets Cato the Elder make the point that senectus
est natura loquacior.
charta ‘a sheet of papyrus’ comes from the Greek ξ ρτη!. In Latin the word remained in the first declension
but became feminine; Lucilius 709 Marx still uses the masculine plural charti. The word is widespread, but
less common in prose than in poetry before Apuleius, perhaps due to chance (cfr. TLL 3.997.5-9). Catullus
also uses it at 1.6, 36.1 and 36.21. The principal MSS consistently spell the word as carta; however, it is
written with a h in the MSS of Catullus’ contemporaries Lucretius (3.10, 4.790, 6.112 and 6.114) and Cicero
(Cael. 40, Rab. Post. 40, Fam. 7.18.2, Att. 2.20.3 and 5.4.4, Q. fr. 2.15.1, frg. poet. 6.48 FPL 3 = Div. 1.40)
and appears to have retained it in Lucilius’ Satires (709 and 1085 Marx), while Probus GL 4.10.20-22 lists
charta among the nomina post c litteram habentia h. The unaspirated form is preferred by the MSS of the
Rhetorica ad Herennium (3.30.8). The epigraphic evidence is ambiguous (see TLL 3.996.73-81), but of
doubtful value in this case, as CE 972.5 charte, which is listed in the Thesaurus as the only possible
attestation of the word on an inscription from the 1 st century B.C., could well date from the Renaissance (cfr.
Buecheler ad loc. in CE). Cremona (1958: 431f., with n. 130) notes that we are dealing with an old loan-
word, already acclimatized in Latin, and like purpura, ampora, tus and Poeni, deprived of its aspiration.
However, Catullus appears to have had a strong sense of propriety in using or omitting aspirations (cfr. poem
84) and the balance of evidence combined with the origin of the word strongly suggests that educated
speakers of Latin in the mid-1 st century B.C. would have preferred the aspirated form. The MSS’ carta could
well be a Medieval innovation.
Note the assonance in haec charta.
Statius’ ingenious conjecture cera ‘wax (tablet)’ rests on the belief that tabellis pro chartis utebantur antiqui
(Festus p. 542 Thewrewk = pp. 490-492 Lindsay). Catullus indeed talks of writing on tablets (50.2, cfr. 42)
but papyrus sheets appear to have been used quite widely in this period, even for private letters, witness Cic.
Fam. 7.18.2 miror quid in illa chartula fuerit quod delere malueris quam haec scribere, Att. 2.20.3
charta ipsa ne nos prodat pertimesco and Q. fr. 2.15.1 calamo et atramento temperato, charta etiam dentata
(‘on polished paper’) res agatur. In any case a poem reached the public written on papyrus and not on
perishable wax tablets; this was the format in which Catullus could expect this composition to become
famous.
These words could well be echoing a passage from Laevius’ Protesilaodamia, frg. 13 FPL 3 fac
papyrin haec terga habeant stigmata. These highly obscure words have been interpreted in a variety
of ways (see Frassinetti 1974: 315-317 and Courtney 1993: 130f.); on the basis of this parallel and phrases
such as linea terga (Verg. Aen. 10.784) and aerea terga / loricae (Stat. Theb. 9.552f., where some editors
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