CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

Catullus paraphrases Manlius’ request (munera Musarum) and refuses it (‘no, I do not have enough books
with me’) in general terms. Manlius evidently did not ask for one particular work. He made a generic request
– but he could have asked for
(A) poetry of any sort;
(B) poetry of some particular type;
(C) poems to be written by Catullus;
(D) poems that Catullus has already written.
Baehrens, Quinn and many other scholars believe in version (C), that Manlius asked Catullus to write him
something (see above). It is obviously an attractive idea that a love-sick friend should ask the author of
famous erotic poems to write him something that will console him or brighten up his mood. The notion of
love’s wounds, or love itself, healed by poetry may find a parallel in the poems about the ‘healing’ of the
love-sick Polyphemus by Philoxenus of Cythera, Theocritus and Callimachus (see on lines 7f.). However,
these more or less ironical Greek works about the bungling Cyclops do little to prove that two young men in
Late Republican Rome could believe seriously that lovesickness could effectively be healed by poetry. There
is no sign that Catullus ever thought so; when in difficulties, he prays to the gods (carmen 76b = 76.17-26),
tries to talk sense into himself (poem 8) and expects consolation from his friends (poem 38, and compare
96), but is under no illusion (for an illusion it would be) that poetry has the power to put an end to one’s
passion. Manlius evidently needed poems not to put an end to his passion but as reading-matter during his
sleepless nights. He was evidently in need of a text of some length, which could hardly have been written in
a day or two. 118 In fact, out of Catullus’ surviving works only poem 64 is of the right length to distract a
native speaker of Latin for a significant amount of time. Last but not least, asking a poet for his poems is a
big compliment and if Manlius had asked Catullus for his, one may well expect Catullus to have commented
in some way, as he does in poem 65 – but that is not the case. All this amounts to a strong case against
possibility (C), that Manlius should have asked Catullus to write him something, and the last two arguments
apply equally to possibility (D), that he should have asked Catullus for some poems he had written in the
past. That leaves two possibilities: either (A) that Manlius should have asked for whatever poetry Catullus
thought fit to send, or (B) that he should have asked for some special sort of poetry.
This may be the best stage at which to consider a widespread interpretation of Catullus’ apology in lines 33-
36 that he has no books with him. Fordyce comments on 68.33: “The excuse is revealing evidence of the
118 Compare Cat. 95.1-3, where the poet celebrates Cinna’s exquisite slowness in putting together his epyllion Zmyrna
in nine years, and dismisses Hortensius (if the name is correct), who churns out ‘five hundred thousand in one’ (there
follows a lacuna in the MSS, but we certainly have to do with five hundred thousand verses, which are probably the
produce of one single year).
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