CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

eloved as a goddess: thus Pl. Bacch. 217 ni nactus Venerem essem, hanc Iunonem dicerem, Cist. 313 ut
quous adgreditur, placet!, Curc. 192 tun meam Venerem uituperas? and Stich. 748 Veneris mera
est oratio; ironically also at Lucr. 4.1185 nec Veneres nostras hoc fallit; and later at Verg. Ecl. 3.68 meae
Veneri and Ov. Am. 3.11.47 magni mihi numinis instar.
According to Lieberg (1963: 193f.) here Catullus “detects in the arrival of his beloved the corporeal
manifestation of a divine form of being” (“im kommen der geliebten Frau die leibhaftige Manifestation
göttlicher Wesensart erschaut”), that is, he considers Lesbia as a sort of goddess, only to realize later in line
141 that she is human after all. This is clearly not the case (thus Holleman 1970 and Syndikus 1990: 274f.):
Catullus prostrate himself, utter a propitiatory prayer or make a sacrifice, as a Roman would in the presence
of a god; the rendez-vous continues without interruption. Calling her a goddess was simply a way to express
his astonishment at her beauty, and perhaps the power that he felt she had over him. Such a compliment need
not have had wide-ranging implications for the Romans: note that an exclamation pro di immortales! Veneris
effigia haec quidem est (Pl. Rud. 420) does not prevent a Plautine character from touching up and harrassing
the girl in question, declarations of worship can be exploited for a comic effect (Pl. Poen. 277f. nam Venus
non est Venus: / hanc equidem Venerem uenerabor me ut amet posthac propitia) and one can combine such
declarations with strong statements of the mortality of the person in question (Ov. Her. 13.157-160 per
reditus corpusque tuum, mea numina, iuro … perque, quod ut uideam canis albere capillis, / quod tecum
possis ipse referre, caput). mea … candida diua simply implies that Catullus found Lesbia beautiful and
enchanting: compare the simile at Cat. 61.16-19 Iunia … qualis Idalium colens / uenit ad Phrygium Venus /
iudicem.
Baehrens was offended by the fact that Lesbia is called a goddess before being compared with the mortal
Laodameia, and conjectured mea … candida cura; but evidently there is no need to suspect diua here.
molli … pede mollis is a favourite adjective of Catullus’, which he uses 14x (also note molliculus, 2x, and
mollesco and mollicellus, 1x each), not only for soft objects (thus e.g. 64.129 mollia nudatae tollentem
tegmina surae and 65.21 molli sub ueste, of the clothes of a young girl) and conventionally for sleep (see line
5n. molli … somno), but also to characterize the supposedly luxurious Arabs (11.5), the passive homosexual
Thallus (25.1 and 10), Ariadne’s experience of the embrace of her mother (64.88), the day of a man who
practises fellatio (80.4), and the bone-marrow of a delicate young girl, aflame with love (45.16 ignis mollibus
ardet in medullis). He calls his own naughty verses molliculi (16.4 and 8). mollitia, ‘softness’, then, is an
attractive and even praiseworthy quality in a woman, since it indicates that she participates in a life of
luxury, from which her male lover may partake as well, as if by proxy; but when a man is called mollis, it is
implied that he has been drawn too far into this world and has become effeminate himself.
71f. Entering the house, Lesbia stepped onto the threshold. According to Baker (1960: 172) she was
„clearly doing an astonishingly unlucky thing“, while Tuplin (1981: 117) considers her action „an ill omen in
a matrimonial context“, and Sarkissian (1983: 17) detects „a grim foreboding“ in its description. When the
bride entered the house of the groom during a Roman wedding, she was supposed to step carefully over the
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