CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

can only claim that an expression should be interpreted in some other way if (s)he can come with a plausible
reason. In this way the problem is moved down from the level of the text as a whole to that of its details,
which is where the inquiry has to be pursued further.
Some arguments that are not wholly dissimilar from those proposed by Lieberg, Coppel and Sarkissian
would be admissible, however. One would be an argument regarding scale, that (say) one minor
inconsistency would be admissible within a text of some length; for example, one slight contradiction would
not undermine the unity of the Aeneid (it could be due to inattentiveness on Virgil’s part, to the fact that the
poem had not been completed or fully revised, or to something similar). But in the presence we are dealing
with a piece of text that, if unitary, cannot have been much longer than 160 lines. Lieberg’s position could
also be defended with reference to the obscurity of the text, on the ground that it is so hard to understand that
what looks like a contradiction might not be one after all. But for all its ambiguities, Catullus 68 is not
anywhere near so difficult as to allow for this desperate measure. (Sarkissian may seem to be taking a similar
line, but in fact it is despair with the scholarly debate that brings him to ignore the points of detail, and not
the difficulty of the matter itself.) In the end the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and we have to look at
the points of detail one by one to see whether they allow us to draw a conclusion of some sort.
Arguments in favour of separating carmen 68 after line 40
(S 1) The name of Catullus’ friend addressed in lines 1-40 begins with a consonant, and that of the
friend featuring in the rest of the poem with a vowel; so they cannot be one and the same person;
therefore a new poem has to start at line 41.
If this reasoning would leave no room for doubt, it would demolish the case for the unity for the poem
altogether; however, several counter-arguments have been proposed. The situation is complicated and we
better start with an overview of the passages that contain the name(s) of the friend(s), as they stand in the
principal manuscripts. The text below is a very tentative reconstruction of the archetype A. Where the
manuscript tradition leaves place for doubt for its reconstruction, I use italics; the forms concealing a name
have been underlined.
68.11 sed tibi ne mea sint ignota commoda mali uel manli
neu me odisse putes hospitis officium
11 commoda OG: comoda R: incommoda 117 59 84 γ mali A: al. mauli R 2 : manli 40 31, Muretus: malli αβ: Mani
Lachmann: mi Alli Diels: amice Schöll
68.30 id mali non est turpe magis miserum est
30 mali A : manli 10 31 49: malli β: Mani Lachmann : mi, Alli Schöll
19