CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

threshold or to be lifted over it, witness Cat. 61.159f. transfer omine cum bono / limen aureolos pedes as well
as Plautus Cas. 815 sensim super attolle limen pedes, noua nupta, Lucan 2.359 translata uitat contingere
limina planta with the Commenta Bernensia ad loc. and Plutarch Romul. 15.6 = 26b διαμϒνει δ′ μϒξρι ν⎝ν
τ∫ τ↓ν ν⎛μφην α⎡τ↓ν φ α⎢τ°! μ↓ ⎢περβα⇔νειν τ∫ν ο⎡δ∫ν ε⇒! τ∫ δϖμ τιον, λλ α⇒ρομϒνην
ε⇒!φϒρε!ψαι; thus also Varro ap. Serv. in Verg. Ecl. 8.29, Plut. Quaest. Rom. 29 = 271d-e, Isid. Etym.
9.7.12 and Optatus 6.4.8 = p. 151.15-18 Ziwsa; also Rage-Brocard 1934: 29 with n. 1.
However, one cannot infer from the existence of this custom that under other circumstances it would have
been ill-omened to step onto the threshold – and in fact there is ample evidence to the contrary. Humans and
gods entering a building regularly step onto it in the Homeric epics (Il. 6.375 and 23.201f.; Od. 20.128 and
22.2; also h.Cer. 188); the cult-song of the Arval Brotherhood appears to have contained an invocation to
Mars to jump and stand on the threshold (verse 3 limen sali sta – cfr. Norden 1939: 141f.); in the Aeneid the
Sibyl describes Aeneas as having set up camp on her threshold (Verg. Aen. 6.151 dum consulta petis
nostroque in limine pendes); Tibullus suggests that someone is standing on the threshold of his beloved
(1.5.71 quidam iam nunc in limina perstat); Ovid exhorts his reader to stop on the threshold if he is on the
verge of an unhappy love affair (Rem. 80 in primo limine siste pedem). St Augustine even records a pagan
superstition that involved stepping onto the threshold as one passed in front of one’s house (Doctr. Christ.
2.31 [2.77] limen calcare, cum ante domum suam transit). A variety of other omens were linked in Roman
literature to the act of passing the threshold (TLL 7.2.1404.38-58) but stepping onto it was evidently not ill-
omened in itself. The bride was supposed to avoid something else, namely stumbling, which was ominous
whether caused by a threshold (thus Tib. 1.3.19f., Ov. Her. 13.85f., Am. 1.12.3-6 and Met. 10.452, Val. Max.
1.4.2 and Plin. N.H. 7.181, and cfr. Verg. Aen. 2.242f.) or by anything else (cfr. Cic. Div. 2.84 and Plin. N.H.
2.24, and see further Bömer 1969-1986 on Ov. Met. 10.452).
Sarkissian (1983: 17) proposes that „[c]ertain elements in Lesbia’s coming into the house invite the reader to
view the meeting as a symbolic marriage“, in particular the fact that Catullus is waiting for her inside, as a
groom would, and the fact that Cupid is flitting around her wearing a saffron-coloured robe, a colour that
was associated with marriage (lines 133f.). It is the question whether there is such an analogy, and if so, how
far it goes. Saffron-coloured robes were worn on other occasions as well as marriage (see the note ad loc.),
nothing is made at all in the poem of the fact that Catullus is waiting for Lesbia inside the house, and later on
he states explicitly that she is not his bride (lines 143f.). In any case, Syndikus (1990: 274) is right to point
out that the triumphant tone of the description of Lesbia’s arrival does not allow for the presence of a bad
omen at this point. In this poem Catullus goes out of his way to give a neutral interpretation even to Lesbia’s
philandering (lines 135-148).
Following a remark of Riese’s, Brenk (1987) suggested that the motif of the foot on the threshold was
probably a topos of Greek literature, in the first place of sacral poetry (he compares the Homeric Hymn to
Demeter at 188f. ″ δ ρ ⁄π ο⎡δ∫ν ƒβη πο!⇐ κα⇔ =α μελ ψρου / κ⎝ρε κ ρη, πλ°!εν δ′ ψ⎛ρα! !ϒλαο!
ψε⇔οιο, and the Homeric motif of someone stepping onto the threshold in entering: see above for refs.),
from where it passed into romantic literature. But he bases this second hypothesis on two passages that are
190