Catullus III I. 141 



ces are collected b}- Valilen [Itid. Led., Berlin, 1898). He would 

 class the repetition of this j^hrase with passer, deliciae nieae puellae 

 (II, 1 and III, 4) and cui neque servus est neque area (xxiii, 1 and 

 xxiv, 5) as intentional repetition in order to remind the reader of 

 a previous poem. But it is very difficult to see in xxxvii any- 

 thing which could have led Catullus to remember viii or to desire 

 to recall it to a reader. The two poems are about as different in 

 tone as poems could be, too different' even to make an effective 

 contrast. I do not see in this repetition anything which distin- 

 guishes it with certainty from, e. g., x, 4 and xxxvi, 17 or iii, 1 and 

 xiii, 12. Nor do I find in the words that strength of emotion 

 which some commentators see in them. On the contrar}', the 

 phrase is a commonplace of lovers' speech ; it is precisely one of 

 those lovers' vows at which Jove laughs, the kind of declaration 

 which fervid youth daily makes to the object of his affections and, 

 it may be, after the lapse of a suitable interval, employs a second 

 or a third time. It is quite true that the words may be used with 

 the strongest emotion and the deepest conviction of their truth, 

 as Catullus uses them in xxxvii, 12, but the}^ are at least equally 

 suited to the humorous attitude. In short, it is a phrase which 

 takes its color from the context, not one so positive that it may 

 properly be used to determine the tone and color of a poem. In 

 a serious poem, it is serious ; if the context is playful, this phrase 

 also is light. And yet, though the argument from these words 

 will not bear all the strain that is put upon it, the denial of the 

 reference to Lesbia makes as many difficulties as it removes. For 

 if the puella is not Lesbia, who is she ? Practically, if we suppose 

 this poem, with all its indications of a past, to refer to some 

 other woman than Lesbia, then we are obliged to say also that the 

 whole relation is nowhere else touched upon by Catullus — a 

 very difficult hypothesis. Nor is it a poem of pure phantasy. The 

 ideal poems of Catullus are quite distinctly marked off from the 

 personal poems ; he nowhere introduces himself into them as 

 speaker or actor, as Horace so frequently does. We must still look 

 upon this as a Lesbia poem, though not — and this is of some 

 importance — on the ground of its seriousness and depth of feeling. 

 A second expedient to explain away the contradictions of the 

 poem would be to den}' the identification of Lesbia with Clodia. 

 All the difficulties come from the hypothesis that Lesbia was the 

 wife or widow of a man of consular rank, that she was of the 

 proud Claudian gens and a personage in Roman society; if we 

 reverse the hypothesis, the poem becomes harmonious and intelli- 



