CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

uiri Lesbia’s uir re-appears at 83.1 Lesbia mi praesente uiro mala plurima dicit. Who is he? According to
the OLD, the word uir can mean both ‘husband’ (s.v., 2a) and ‘lover’ (2b). Could Lesbia’s uir be her
boyfriend or her partner rather than her husband? The odds are against this. While one does come across the
latter use in passages such as Prop. 1.6.9f. illa minatur / quae solet ingrato tristis amica uiro and Mart.
10.68.7f. lectulus … quem lasciuo strauit amica uiro, the former use is much more common and is the only
one attested in Catullus (14x, also in lines 80 and 130). It was probably common enough to be the default
meaning of the word: if a Roman heard about a woman and her uir, in the absence of other information he
will have assumed that he was her husband: compare Sal. Cat. 25.2 uiro liberis satis fortunata fuit ‘she was
lucky enough on account of her husband and her children’. Nor is there any sign that uir could be used to
describe a partner in a long-term extra-marital relationship, as could amator; in fact the two words are
contrasted at Ov. Tr. 2.371f. adultera, de qua / inter amatorem pugna uirumque fuit. Lesbia’s uir, then, must
be her husband.
Catullus shows less concern for this man than for Lesbia’s numerous lovers, and he in turn feels a great
satisfaction when he hears Lesbia denounce her former lover Catullus (poem 83). Evidently he is aware of
having only a tenuous hold over her.
147f. It is enough for Catullus if Lesbia meets her on the days she marks ‘with a whiter stone’. The Romans
appear to have marked special days on their wall-calendars with white chalk, witness 107.6 o lucem
candidiore nota! and Hor. Od. 1.36.10 Cressa ne careat pulchra dies nota with Nisbet & Hubbard (1970) ad
loc. A comparable, if slightly eccentric wall-calendar is described at Petron. 30.3f. duae tabulae in utroque
poste defixae, quorum … altera lunae cursum stellarumque septem imagines pictas [i.e. habebat inscriptos]
et qui dies boni quique incommodi essent, distinguente bulla notabantur.
The comparative candidiore indicates Catullus’ “willingness to compromise” (Clarke 2003: 60). He does not
expect to be the only lover of Lesbia; he only hopes that she will mark her appointments with him ‘with
whiter chalk’ than those with her other lovers – that is, she will consider them special, she will prefer him to
the rest.
148 lapide … candidiore candidus ‘gleaming white’ aptly describes white chalk, but the colour white
was generally associated with luck, well-being and good omens in the same way that black (niger, ater) was
and is still associated with misfortune: compare Prop. 2.15.1 o me felicem! o nox mihi candida! (‘happy’ and
not ‘bright’, pace Clarke 2003: 60) and 4.1.67f. Roma, faue, tibi surgit opus, data candida, ciues, / omina et
inceptis dextera cantet auis! as well as Ov. Pont. 4.4.18 candidus et felix proximus annus erit. See further
Clarke (2003: 59-61), OLD s.v., 7a and TLL 3.244.28-43.
diem The principal MSS read dies; diem is a conjecture from the late 15 th century that has been adopted by
most recent editors, though not by Mynors or Quinn. dies would have to go with is in the previous line,
which would result in a violent hyperbaton. Hyperbaton is not impossible per se in Catullus – commentators
compare 44.8f. non immerenti quam mihi meus uenter, / dum sumptuosas appeto, dedit, cenas – but as Goold
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