146 E. P. Morris, 



lover, directs his predictions of unhappiness against his rival, not 

 against the girl, as in Asin. 127 ff, the threats are directed against 

 the girl's mother. The one poem in which Horace has most closely 

 followed the type is Epode xv. Here are the same elements that 

 Propertius uses, the reference to past happiness (vss. 1-10), the 

 indignant resolve to break away (11—14), the apparently unconscious 

 betrayal of weakness (15-16), and the predictions of unhappiness 

 (vs. 11, to the girl, o dolitura . . . Neaera; vss. 17—24, to the rival). 



In the adaptation of such a t3'pe as this to varying circumstances 

 it is to be expected that the emphasis would be differently distrib- 

 uted by poets of different temperament. The essential element is 

 the humorous portrayal, through a soliloquy, of a lover trying to 

 win back the favor of the girl by the threat — which he both hopes 

 and fears that he may not carry out — of leaving her forever. With 

 this, as secondary elements, go usually some reference to the happi- 

 ness of tlie past and some prediction of the misery that will ensue, 

 if he is allowed actually to go. In Plautus the emphasis is upon 

 the comic side, upon the lover's sudden changes of temper. In 

 Terence, with finer art, a second speaker is used to give the con- 

 trast. Propertius, limited by the laws of elegy, by his own 

 deficiencies of temperament and by the fact that he was using the 

 type for a particular occasion, expresses the indignation of the 

 lover and the predictions of unhappiness with almost too much of 

 personal sharpness, while the humor is merely suggested. Horace 

 is primarily the humorous observer and only secondarily the lover : 

 it is the threatening element that he treats most lightly. There is 

 a similar variety in the handling of other well-known types of poem, 

 the .T(>o.Tf//.T7-<zor and rr ar) axXavo i&vqov, in spite of the definiteness 

 of the accompanying action or the fixed scene. 



If, with these characteristics of the type in mind, we return to 

 Catullus viii, the question of its interpretation would now take this 

 form: — how far did Catullus modify the type and upon what ele- 

 ments of it did he lay special emphasis? 



The essential elements are of course present and not greatl}- 

 changed. The poem is, in general form, a soliloquy ; like Propertius 

 and Horace, Catullus assumes the attitude of the offended lover. 

 He has thus a double part to play ; as lover, he is deeply in earnest, 

 as observer and poet, he suggests with delightful humor the under- 

 lying hope of reconciliation. (Some editors remark, upon these 

 lines, that Catullus does not seem to know his own mind. That is 

 quite true of Catullus, as the lover ; but Catullus the poet knew 

 very well what he was doing.) Of the secondary elements, the 



