148 



E. P. Morris. 



At the other extreme are the obvioush' personal poems, of which 

 both Catuhus and Horace have man}-. But the poems of Catuhus 

 are much more difficult to interpret. In the lirst place, the per- 

 sons to whom Horace alludes are for the most part known to us 

 from other sources, men in public life or distinguished in hterature, 

 while in Catullus the persons with whom he deals are often quite 

 unknown — Furius and Aurelius, Veranius and Fabullus. And, in the 

 second place, the odes of Horace are often deliberate!}' charged 

 with allusions which make them self-explanatory, complete in them- 

 selves. Catullus rarely works in this deliberate wa}' ; he goes straight 

 to the point of his poem and the personal allusions are incidental. 

 Such verses as Horace Carm. ii, 1, 9—16, which are a skilful mosaic 

 of allusions to the varied activities of Pollio's career, are not to be 

 found in Catullus, not even in xxix or xiv. Even such an ode 

 as Carm. i, 20, though the precise occasion for it is unknown, is 

 complete in itself. The proportion of mere inference, therefore, in 

 the interpretation of Catullus and the proportion, too, of the insol- 

 uble is much greater than in Horace. 



A like difference between the two poets must be frankl}' recog- 

 nized in the interpretation of the jDoems which lie somewhere between 

 the extremes, neither purely ideal nor strongly personal, the t3'pical 

 poems, like viii, which have nevertheless some personal reference 

 or application. Such a poem is Hor. Carm. i, 16, a palinode — a 

 well-known type — which Horace has apparent!}' addressed to a 

 particular person. The fi Ha pule hrior cdcnnot, it is true, be identified, 

 but the poem, in itself, is intelligible and enjo3-able, in spite of the 

 fact that the circumstances which called it forth are unknown to 

 us. The kind of interpretation which Boeckh calls generische Inter- 

 pretation, by comparison with other like poems, is reasonably satis- 

 fying. Further knowledge would do little more than gratif}' a natural 

 curiosity. The same thing ma}- be said of Catullus Ixx : — 



Nulli se dicit mulier mea nubere malle 



quam milii, non si se luppiter ipse petat. 



Dicit; sed mulier cupido quod dicit amanti, 

 in vento et rapida scribere oportet aqua. 



This is an epigram of a somewhat definite kind. A parallel to 

 it is in Antliol. Pal., v. 6 : — 



^'Q,fioOt KaUJyroToc. lorUh, /tijjroT! xiin^g, 

 e^iir f^it'irt: (f iXor y.Qiaaova fdjTi: (fiXiiv. 



"£if(or>iy dlkii Xiyovcnv (tXfjS-iix, toik ir &()coti 

 otjy.ipv^ 11)1 dvriir ovar <'-l; ad^arartor. 



