CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

altior illo, / qui … , which would be unusual, awkward and confusing: ‘your deep love was deeper still than
that abyss – [your deep love] which taught an unbroken girl to carry the yoke’. Also, this clause would be
factually wrong, as there is no sign anywhere in the poem, nor anywhere else in ancient literature, that
Laodameia was reluctant to get married; on the contrary, she was burning with desire during her wedding
(lines 73f.). We better look for another remedy.
Let us return to the text of the principal MSS:
sed tuus altus amor barathro fuit altior illo,
†qui tuum domitum† ferre iugum docuit.
Here Laodameia’s profound love is compared with barathro illo, after which there follows a relative clause
that is corrupt. One may well expect the clause to qualify not Laodameia’s amor, but the barathrum. In that
case the first word of line 118 should be corrected to quod, which was already written by Avantius in the first
Aldine edition. illo’s emphatic position at the end of line 117, detached from the noun that it qualifies, makes
good sense if it is taken up immediately by quod: ille qui constitutes a common formula of transition (cfr.
Cat. 4.1, 42.7, 51.1-3 and 58.1f.; OLD s.v. ille, 3a; TLL 7.1.347.82-349.8). The correction is
palaeographically plausible, as quis, qui and their conjugated forms are often mistaken for one another,
especially when abbreviated (compare the difficulties caused by the abbreviated pronoun in O in line 69).
In this case the distich would presumably mean that the barathrum may have been dug by a god in bondage,
but it was still less deep than Laodameia’s love for her husband. The pentameter would mean something like
‘that taught Hercules [the great god, the mighty hero etc.] to bear the yoke of servitude’. In Latin the
metaphor of the yoke is used as often for servitude (thus Cic. Phil. 1.6 iugum seruile, Rep. 2.46 iniustum
illud durae seruitutis iugum, Verg. Aen. 10.78 arua aliena iugo premere, Hor. Od. 2.6.2 Cantabrum
indoctum iuga ferre nostra; OLD s.v. iugum 2a; TLL 7.2.641.43-642.7) as for the yoke imposed by a
marriage, a relationship, or spousal control (Pl. Curc. 50 iamne ea fert iugum? ‘Is she already yours?’, Hor.
Od. 2.5.1f. nondum subacta ferre iugum ualet / ceruice, Stat. Silu. 1.2.164f. numquamne uirili / summittere
iugo?; OLD s.v., 2b; TLL 7.2.641.26-43 and 642.8-28), and the two images can even be combined (Ov. Her.
9.5f. quem numquam Iuno seriesque immensa laborum / fregerit, huic Iolen imposuisse iugum, Deianeira to
Hercules, and 6.97 scilicet ut tauros, ita te iuga ferre coegit, Hypsipyle to Iason).
It remains to reconstruct the words of the first hemistich. domitum, along with some of the minims that
precede it, probably conceals indomitum, which is already found as a variant in a manuscript from the 15 th
century; it was also proposed by Fröhlich (1849: 265) and has been suggested to me by Stephen Harrison.
This word would aptly describe Hercules’ untamed vigour; it is already attested in Old Comedy (Pl. Ba. 612
proteruo, iracundo animo, indomito, incogitato, Men. 862f. equos … indomitos, ferocis), is a favourite
adjective of Catullus’ (also at 50.11, 63.33, 64.54, 64.107, 64.173, 103.2 and 103.4) and is used for heroes
and martial gods (Verg. Aen. 2.440 Martem indomitum Danaosque ad tecta ruentis, Ov. Met. 13.335
indomitae deberi praemia detrae), also to emphasize the importance of their defeat (Luc. 2.581f.
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