CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

the previous and the following distichs add a new subject to sitis felices, the et qui introducing this highly
corrupt couplet should not do the same.
Out of the conjectures that have been proposed, te tradidit Anser is the most plausible. There are good
reasons, however, not to put this into the text, especially not into a detailed critical edition. Since the
principal MSS’ reading terram dedit aufert consists of correct Latin words and is metrical (though
ungrammatical), the corruption appears to have been non-mechanical, so that it is not clear how far the
transmitted text has departed from the original reading. What Catullus wrote may have been quite different
from what we read in the MSS. Worse yet, the corruption appears to have obliterated the sole reference to a
person who is not mentioned in the rest of the poem; and the transmitted text does not enable us to identify
him. We are short of indications regarding the form as well as the contents of these words. te tradidit Anser
would constitute a perfectly satisfactory emendation – but other emendations may be possible. On the other
hand, such a text would introduce a very significant new element into our understanding of the poems of
Catullus: it would make him a contemporary and a close friend of the poet Anser; and we cannot be sure that
he was either of these. In view of all these uncertainties it is best to leave te tradidit Anser in the apparatus.
158 The principal MSS write this verse as a quo sunt primo omnia nata bono. There are two problems with
this: the hiatus after primo, and the strange accumulation of adjectives in a quo … primo … bono. The latter
defect is easily mended if one accepts a Renaissance conjecture and writes bono; this is confirmed by omnia
… bona in the same position within the distich at 77.4. The hiatus is a more complicated question.
It has been a matter of controversy whether hiatus could be admitted in Catullus’ text, in general and also at
the caesura of the pentameter. It was already doubted by Haupt (1837: 85f.); Levens (1954: 296) thought that
11 occurrences of hiatus in the principal MSS were genuine; Goold (1958: 106-111) argued with
characteristic zeal that in all these cases the text is corrupt and that in fact Catullus never admitted hiatus;
Zicàri (1964) defended the position of Levens; finally Goold (1969: 186-193) re-stated his original case with
the help of new arguments. However, the Qaṣr Ibrîm fragment of Cornelius Gallus has an instance of hiatus
in the line Fata mihi, Caesar, tum ¦ erunt mihi dulcia, quom tu ... (frg. 3.1 FPL 3 ). Lyne proposed to remove
the hiatus by writing tum, Caesar, erunt – but this is unlikely, not only because it results in an unattractive
text (the bland tum becomes awkwardly exposed), but also because the papyrus was written in the life-time
of the author, it was owned by someone in his entourage, and it is hard to imagine that under these
circumstances a major metrical error could have found its way into the text and stayed in it. On the other
hand, Hollis (2007: 245) suggested that tum ¦ erunt “should perhaps be considered not a ‘hiatus’ but rather
the survival of an old licence whereby –m was not always disregarded before an open vowel” (he refers to
Priscian GL 2.30, and a number of passages where such a licence is observed, such as Ennius Ann. 330
Skutsch). On this account, Gallus’ fragment would demonstrate the existence not of a licence for hiatus in
general, but of a licence for ‘prosodic hiatus’ involving words ending in -m followed by an open vowel. In
fact, Lucretius admits hiatus not only in such a context, but also after a long vowel or diphthong at 3.374
animae ¦ elementa minora and at 6.755 sed natura loci ¦ opus effficit. Hiatus is also well attested in the
259