CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

omniuoli This hapax legomenon is surely a Catullan coinage inspired on multiuola in line 128 (see the note
there).
plurima furta The principal MSS write facta ‘deeds’, while furta ‘amorous adventures’ is a conjecture
from the 15 th century; Baehrens proposed a number of more drastic conjectures to make better sense of
noscens but it is possible to solve this problem less invasively (see the note there). Most recent editors write
furta but Thomson retains facta, comparing in his 1997 commentary Prop. 1.18.25f. omnia consueui timidus
perferre superbae / iussa neque arguto facta dolore queri; however, there facta refers not just to romantic
faux pas but to cruel deeds in general. Here Juno has to know not Jupiter’s past actions (facta) but his
amorous faux pas (furta: on the word see on line 136). Before facta, plurima would be pointless; furta makes
it significant: Jupiter had committed no end of peccadilloes. plurima furta stands in neat balance to omniuoli
(Jupiter accomplishes what he desires) and picks up Lesbia’s rara … furta mentioned in line 136. The
conjecture is confirmed further by echoes of the line in Propertius and Ovid (see on line 140).
The corruption may well have taken place when an abbreviation was misread. This could happened in a
minuscule script similar to that of O, who writes facta as fca with a small arc above the gap between the c
and the a, and in Gothic minuscule the letters c and t strongly resemble each other; if furta was abbreviated
to fta with an accent denoting an r above the gap between the f and the t, it could easily be misread as fca, i.e.
facta.
141 atqui This is surely the right correction for the principal MSS’ unmetrical atque. The alternative at
quia, favoured by Munro (1878), is attested apparently only once in Classical Latin (at Sen. Suas. 2.10), and
the accumulation of conjunctions in at quia nec would be unpleasant. Meanwhile, atquī ‘but’, ‘however’
means the right thing and adds a lively, conversational touch. It is common in comedy and prose, where it is
used especially in dialogue (cf. OLD and TLL s.v.), and is firmly attested in Catullus (also at 23.12, 37.9 and
67.31).
componier The archaic form of the passive infinitive in –ier is frequent in the writings of Plautus, Terence
and their contemporaries, though even here the classical form in –i is more common (see the detailed
discussion in Neue-Wagener 3.224-235). Catullus uses it here and five times in poem 61 (line 42 citarier, 65,
70 and 75 compararier and 68 nitier); it is common in Lucretius (45x) and is used by Cicero in his poetry
(6x Arat. and 1x in a translation from Homer at Div. 2.64). It is used on occasion by Varro of Atax (1x),
Propertius (1x), Horace (1x in Od., 5x in Sat. and 3x in Epist.), Virgil (1x in Geo. and 5x in Aen.), Ovid (1x
in Met.), Phaedrus (1x), Manilius (1x), Juvenal (1x), Persius (2x) and other poets. In classical prose it is only
used in legal and religious formulae.
142 “Das Rätsel dieser Verse ist kaum lösbar”, as Kroll put it, “it is hardly possible to solve the riddle
posed by these verses”, i.e. of this and the preceding one. The crux of the problem lies in the words tolle and
onus. Baehrens, Riese and Quinn take tolle to mean ‘remove’, ‘do away with’ on the basis of parallels such
as Verg. Aen. 10.451 tolle minas, Hor. Od. 2.5.9f. tolle cupidinem / immitis uuae and Epist. 1.12.3 tolle
237