CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

prose it is replaced by tametsi. It survives in the conservative language of the law (Gai. 1x, Dig. 4x) and
possibly once in a declamation ([Quint.] decl. mai. 6.16).
136 uerecundae This perplexing word has been interpreted in three ways: (i) in the active sense as
‘modest’, ‘restrained’; (ii) in the passive sense as ‘deserving of respect’, ‘awe-inspiring’; (iii) as the adverb
uerecunde, used of how Catullus accepts Lesbia’s infidelities: ‘discreetly’, ‘showing restraint’, ‘modestly’.
uerecunde has been read with more or less certainty by Santenius (1788: 56), Peiper (1875: 54), Birt (1904:
429) and Büchner (1950 and 1957). Given that the principal MSS do not distinguish systematically between
–ae (or –ę) and –e, uerecunde is not a real conjecture (pace Lieberg 1962: 256) but just an alternative
interpretation of the text. Catullus would be proposing to ‘bear modestly’ (uerecunde feremus) his mistress’
infidelities. uerecunde would reflect the self-conscious shyness felt by the poet in the face of the Mistress
(era); Büchner (1957: 341, n. 74) compares Cic. De Orat. 1.171 uerecundius hac de re iam dudum loquor,
quod adest uir in dicendo summus. However, it is the question whether such an attitude would be in
character for Catullus, and uerecundus indicates in any case not that one generously ignores someone else’s
faux pas, but that one is reluctant to commit any oneself. In particular, uerecunde ferre is not attested
anywhere; this is admitted by Büchner (1950), who tries to remedy this problem by detecting a contrast
between uerecunde ferre here and moleste ferre in the following line, but there the second phrase is neither
used nor implied. Thus uerecunde is hardly possible here; Bickel (1950) calls it “kaum mögliches Latein”).
And Reynen (1974: 152) notes that there are further grounds to expect an adjective here: it is extremely
common for a noun standing at the end of the pentameter to be qualified by an adjective standing at the end
of the verse (thus 25x elsewhere in this poem at lines 38, 54, 58, 60, 62, 70, 72, 74, 76, 78, 80, 84, 86, 98,
100, 102, 104, 108, 112, 122, 124, 130, 132, 134, 140, and cfr. 20, 92 and 146) and if one noun out of two
carries an epithet, the other tends to do so as well (thus Kroll on 109.6).
In his discussion of the deification of the beloved in ancient poetry and in particular in Catullus 68, Lieberg
(1962: 253-259) has proposed to take uerecundae as a passive, a view that was also held by by Reynen
(1974). In this case, erae … uerecundae would be a term of deference and almost of worship: ‘of my awe-
inspiring mistress’. Lieberg (1962: 258) translates uerecundae as “verehrungswürdig”, that is, ‘worthy of
worship’ or ‘adorable’ in the literal sense of the word. This is not unattractive, since earlier in the poem
Catullus has called Lesbia ‘my shining goddess’ (mea … candida diua, line 70). However, an isolated
attestation of uerecundus in the passive (‘causing respect or shame’) is first found two and a half centuries
after Catullus in a low literary text (in the Vetus Latina at 1Cor. 12.23, preserved at Ambr. Epist. 72 col.
1074d, where it is used for the private parts, perhaps as a calx of the Greek term α⇒δο⇑α; that is to say, it is
not very close to the present passage) and it only re-appears in the late 4 th century (Amm. 14.6.6, 21.16.1,
30.8.4, Vulg. Ezech. 22.10, Hist. Aug. Prob. 10.4). Pace Reynen (1974: 153), it is irrelevant that uerecundia
appears to be found much earlier in a passive sense (Cic. ad Brut. 1.10.3 posteritatis uerecundia, Liv. 1.6.4
aetatis uerecundia, etc.: see further OLD s.v., 1b), as this can easily be explained not as a true passive (‘the
respectfulness of’) but as an active concept accompanied by a genitive of object (‘deference, respect for’,
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