140 E. P. Morris, 



to Lesbia. Following out this hypothesis, vs. 4, vcntitabas quo pitella 

 ducebat, has been sometimes, though not universally, understood to 

 be an allusion to the meetings at the house of Allius. while some 

 scholars (Schwabe, Westphal), going still further, have tried to fix 

 the poem chronologically and to connect it with a definite period 

 of alienation between the lovers. 



The second half, on the other hand, is applicable to Lesbia-Clodia 

 only with considerable difficulty. Taken by themselves — if, for 

 example, they were a fragment without context — vss. 14-18 would 

 bear only one natural interpretation ; they would be understood 

 to be addressed by a lover to the girl whom he was threatening 

 to abandon and who, in her abandonment, would be left to lone- 

 liness and unhappiness ; that is, they would be understood to be 

 spoken to a woman of the libertina class. In particular, the question 

 cuius esse diceris ? requires — and has had — some very pecuhar inter- 

 pretation, if it was addressed to Lesbia-Clodia and not to a Cynthia 

 (Prop, ii, 8, 6) or Corinna (Ovid. Amor, iii, 12, 5). To these diffi- 

 culties, which have been often pointed out, must be added the 

 fact that the diction of vss. 14—18 belongs, in a special and technical 

 sense, to the amatory style. The words dolebis, rogaberis, adibit, 

 bella, auiabis, basiabis, labella mordebis are all technical words of 

 erotic poetry and are illustrated in Pichon {de Serin. Anialor.). 

 To find another passage so crowded with amatory diction one must 

 go back to comedy, e. g., to Plant. Pseud. 64 ft'. No other poem 

 addressed to Lesbia contains such lines as these ; the nearest ap- 

 proach is perhaps in ii [dcsidcrio, iocari, dolor is, ardor). But if we 

 compare with these lines the poems or parts of poems which 

 manifestly express the strongest emotion, like v or Ixviii, 70-72, 

 we find that in the utterance of real passion Catullus speaks not 

 only with force and directness, as we might expect, but also with 

 a true dignity that is quite above the artifices of technical amatory 

 poetry. On the evidence of the style alone, even without the 

 strong evidence of the thought, I think it must be said that vss. 

 14—18 are either not addressed to Lesbia-Clodia at all, or else are 

 in a tone of quite unusual lightness. 



This apparent incongruity between the first half and the last may 

 be explained in various ways. The difficulties would disapj^ear if 

 the hypothesis that this is a Lesbia poem were given up, and it 

 is at least worth while to examine somewhat carefully the grounds 

 on which the hypothesis rests. The phrase amata nobis quantum 

 amabitur nulla is, it is true, used again in a Lesbia poem, xxxvii, 

 12, l)ut such repetitions are very common in Catullus. The instan- 



