CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

ingenious, but here amore stands too far from the past participle to be taken up by it in any understandable
way.
nondum cum Trappes-Lomax (2007: 237) re-proposed the transposition cum nondum, already printed by
Avantius around 1535 in the Trincavelli edition, as “it is impossible to believe that Catullus inverted the
normal word order so as to produce the cacophonous jingle nondum cum/quom.” I myself prefer the sound of
nondum cum, as with cum nondum the negative element non–, already emphatic in itself and carrying the
word-stress, would also receive the weight of the ictus, and would be unduly highlighted.
There is no secure parallel for nondum cum, while cum nondum is only attested rarely from the 2 nd century
A.D. (Paul. Dig. 41.4.2.2, Ulp. Dig. 4.4.3.3 and 28.8.8, Papin. Dig. 5.1.41, and Serv. in Verg. Aen. 6.177). At
Livy 44.19.1 cum has been inserted variously before and after the MSS’ nondum. But elsewhere nondum
often stands in an initial emphatic position: compare 64.386 nondum spreta pietate, Cic. Caec. 34 nondum de
Caecinae causa disputo, nondum de iure possessionis nostrae loquor, Verg. Aen. 4.698f. nondum illi flauum
Proserpina uertice crinem / abstulerat. Delayed cum is common: see line 16, 37, etc.
Incidentally, nondum is not found in high poetry before Catullus (it is absent from Ennius, Pacuvius and
Accius), nor in Lucretius, but such a practical word can hardly have had an unpoetic feel to it; and Catullus
uses it also in poem 64 (in line 219 and 386). Poets choose their words not only according to their feel, but
also according to their meaning; and certain types of epic and tragic poets may not have much use for a word
that means ‘not yet’. In the event, the word becomes common in ‘silver’ Latin poetry: it is used 59x by Ovid,
35x by Seneca in his tragedies, and 58x by Statius.
sanguine sacro sacer is properly said of the sacrificial animal itself: thus Pl. Rud. 1208 agni et porci sacres
and Men. 290, Cato orat. 75, Varro R.R. 2.4.16, Verg. Geo. 2.395 stabit sacer hircus ad aram, etc.: see OLD
s.v., 1b. Here it stands in enallage.
76 hostia The technical term for the sacrificial animal, long established in poetry: attested in Plautus (8x),
Ennius (2x), Pacuvius (1x) and Titinius (1x).
caelestis … eros ‘The masters in the sky’, i.e. the gods: on erus (first used perhaps only for the slavemaster)
see on line 114.
pacificasset Unlike derivatives such as pacificator and pacificatio, the verb is relatively rare under the
Republic and the Empire: it is first attested at Pl. Stich. 517 satin ego tecum pacificatus sum, Antipho? (a
passive in the middle sense, as later Just. 17.2.15 pacificatus cum omnibus finitimis) and then here. Before
late antiquity the transitive use of the active verb is only attested in poetry (also at Sen. Ag. 225 mentemque
tibimet ipsa pacifica tuam and Sil. 15.421 pacificans diuos), but given its rarity in all constructions this may
be due to chance rather than to poetic licence.
O abbreviates the ending to a shape resembling a number 3 reaching below the line that he uses both for –em
(as in line 73 amorem) as well as for –et (as in line 86 isset). There is no question as to how it should be
resolved here, but it is worthwhile to note the ambiguity, which is rather characteristic of this calligrapherscribe:
compare line 69n. ad quam.
196