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Kenney_and_Clausen B.M.W.(eds.) - Get a Free Blog

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THE MARRIAGE OF PELEUS AND THETIS<br />

ideal past <strong>and</strong> the present, void of innocence <strong>and</strong> miserable. This emotional<br />

perspective recurs in the poems to or about Lesbia, in 8,11,58, 68.67—76,72,76.<br />

Miser Catulle, desinas ineptire,<br />

et quod uides perisse perditum ducas.<br />

fulsere quondam c<strong>and</strong>idi tibi soles. . . (8.1—3)<br />

Poor Catullus, stop playing the fool, <strong>and</strong> what you see is lost, consider lost. Bright<br />

suns once shone upon you. . .<br />

fulsere uere c<strong>and</strong>idi tibi soles.<br />

nunc iam ilia non uolt. . . (8.8—9)<br />

Bright suns truly shone upon you. Now she no longer wants it. . .<br />

In the luminous, mythical world Catullus envisions, the felicity of Peleus<br />

must be pure <strong>and</strong> undisturbed:<br />

talia praefantes quondam felicia Pelei<br />

carmina diuino cecinerunt pectore Parcae. (381—3)<br />

With such glad <strong>and</strong> solemn song the Parcae sang for Peleus once from their divining<br />

hearts.<br />

Now earth is imbrued with crime <strong>and</strong> guilt, horrible desecrations of kinship,<br />

faith, love. A reference to Hesiod (Works <strong>and</strong> Days 177—201) will not suffice to<br />

explain the powerful, dark conclusion of this poem. r Few poets can have felt<br />

so painfully the pollution <strong>and</strong> remorse of time. Peliaco quondam: at the beginning<br />

quondam is traditional, at the end it is personal as well. The poem is both.<br />

3. 'CATVLLI VERONENSIS LIBER.' 2<br />

Cui dono lepidum nouum libellum<br />

arida modo pumice expolitum?<br />

Cornell, tibi; namque tu solebas<br />

meas esse aliquid putare nugas<br />

iam turn, cum ausus es unus Italorum<br />

omne aeuum tribus explicare cartis<br />

doctis, Iuppiter, et laboriosis.<br />

quare habe tibi quidquid hoc libelli,<br />

qualecumque quod, o patrona uirgo,<br />

plus uno maneat perenne saeclo.<br />

To whom shall I give this pretty new booh, just polished with dry pumice-stone?<br />

Cornelius, to you; for you thought my trifles worth something even then, when you<br />

1<br />

As Wilamowitz understood (1924) 11 J04: 'In der Seele des Dichters nicht in seiner H<strong>and</strong>bibliothek<br />

ist die Antwort zu suchen.'<br />

2<br />

This section appeared originally in Class. Philology 71 (1976), <strong>and</strong> is reprinted in a somewhat<br />

revised form by kind permission of the University of Chicago Press.<br />

193<br />

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008

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