Catullus

From Philosopedia

Catullus

Modern bronze bust of Catullus, Sirmione. (VRoma: Susan Bonvallet)

Catullus [Gaius Valerius Catullus] (c. 84 B.C.E - c. 54 B.C.E.)

The 1st century B.C.E. Roman poet, Catullus, may have been born in Verona, but little is known for sure about his life.

Catullus’s “love poems are among the most moving in all literature,” wrote Corliss Lamont. “[He] was a sort of ancient Omar Khayyam in his general attitude of irrepressible pleasure-seeking in this vale of delight.” “Suns may rise and set; we, when our short day has closed, must sleep on during one perpetual night,” Catullus the polytheist wrote.

Some of his poems were erotic, indicating homosexual penchants (50 and 99):

Catullus 50

Yesterday, Calvus, at leisure

we wrote very much poetry on my tablets,

since it had been decided to be frivolous:

each one of us writing our lines of poetry and

was playing in this meter or that meter,

each one of us is exchanging things through joke and wine.

And I went from there, having been inflamed

by your charm and your wit, Calvus,

that as a result did food could not help me

nor did sleep cover my little eyes with rest,

but I, unconquered, was tossed with fury

on the whole couch, wanting to see the light,

in order that I could speak with you the same time that I could be (with you).

But my half dead limbs were lying on the little bed

after having been exhausted by work,

at this time, delightful one, I made poems for you,

from which you may recognize my pain.

Now, beware that you may be daring, my little eyes, and I pray

beware that you may reject our prayers,

lest Nemesis demands punishment from you,

she is a violent goddess, you shall beware to harm her.

The scurrilous verses he wrote about Julius Caesar and his chief engineer in Gaul, Mamurra, got him in trouble. But Caesar allegedly was forgiving and asked him to dine with him later that day. He remained on friendly terms with Catullus's father.

A fine couple of shameless sodomites, /

Mamurra and sex-mad Caesar. . . . /

Perverted bedmates, /

They compete against each other/

At serial adultery /

And pulling teenage birds.”

LVII. 1-2, 7-10

One of his poems was addressed to the faithless Lesbia, and other pieces include elegies, epigrams, and works that are obscenely derisive. “On the Death of Lesbia‘s Sparrow” is one of his better known works.

{CE; CL; GL; TYD}