Group Read in Latin: Catullus

Alright then, here begins the official Catullus Group Read thread. We will be reading through Catullus' poems, in order, starting, of course, with poem 1 (cui dono lepidum novum libellum). We'll be discussing both the Latin itself and the content of each poem. Readers of Latin at all levels are welcome, and I'd love to see a range of discussion from questions of grammar and translations (i.e. "What the heck does *that* say?!?") to deep conversation about meaning, tone, persona, et al. As far as I'm concerned, no question is too simple, no thought too deep. Those with no Latin language under their proverbial reading belts are welcome to join in on the content discussion too - feel free to grab a translation, skip the grammar talk and jump in when and where you feel comfortable.

Discussion of the group read can be found here:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/108368

So, let's get started with Poem 1!

I have added this group read to the wiki.

Thanks, Stasia!

No problem, Amber.

I've been working on a translation...

My book came today from BD -I opened it and showed it to my son (taking Latin 3 in HS) He rattled off a translation of the first few lines- then admitted he had read this poem earlier this year.

I will be much, much further behind.

Managed the first two lines. So far, so, er, mediumly difficult. A loose trans. is fairly easy, but getting the grammar correct is a bit challenging!

For those not using The Student's Catullus, I thought that I would include a few highlights from the intro to the poem in the commentary section:

The Cornelius mentioned in the third line is none other than Cornelius Nepos, the biography and historian, some of whose work is extant (and a fantastic read, in my opinion). It's the romantic in my, I know, but I just love when we have evidence of different known authors knowing each other - it's exciting, no?
The commentary also mentions that Catullus was wealthy enough that he didn't really need a patron to support his poetic career, and so he's likely being playful here - it's customary to dedicate one's collection to one's patron, and so he may be following (and at the same time playing with) the convention here, playing the demure, humble, little ol' poet to Nepos' huge and impressive work, poking fun (in a good natured way) at both Cornelius and himself.
The meter, if you're interested, is hendecasyllabics (---uu-u-u-x; where the first two longs may be exchanged for 1 short syllable each); a meter he uses more than any other in the first half of the collection.

Grammar questions, anyone, as you're plugging through the poem? I'm happy to field any and all befuddlements (and I'm sure others are too). No question too small - don't be shy!

Gail: It'll get easier as we go along - you'll start to get used to his style and to reading verse (which has it's own challenges - word order and such).

Mine arrived! I'm looking at it now and only panicking slightly...

Just moved (Tuesday of last week) and didn't have internet from then until yesterday (terrible withdrawal symptoms, btw). Also just unpacked my books yesterday and got them onto shelves. Anyway, that is merely to say I haven't even started to read the poems in earnest yet and probably won't be able to sit down with them until tomorrow evening, but I am very much looking forward to seeing what everyone has to say about the first poem, of which I have not even begun to try to translate the first line.

So, how's the Latin going, everyone?

lente (is that the right word?)

*snork!* Yep, that's the right word.

that 'habe tibi' in line 8, what sort of dative is that?

My book *still* hasn't arrived... :(

#14: binders: I believe that it is a dative of advantage: "Have this whatever-of-a-little-book for yourself"

thanks. i'm just revising my datives before term starts, and am overthinking it!
edit: are you posting translations? if so, may i venture to post a bad one, so that others won't be so shy about their efforts? ;)

>#17: precisely what I was thinking...my trans of a few lines, open for (all sorts of) correction and improvement.

Off-topic question: I'd like to translate this line: Laughter in the face of adversity. Would I use contaand then the accusative res adversae? And is there a noun for laughter or should I use rideo? This has nothing to do with Catullus; it's a little side thing.

#18 Gail: risus, risus (m) is the noun form for 'laughter', but I wonder if it would be more Roman to use the gerund: ridendum. I think you're right about contra + acc here, although the accusative for res adversae would be res adversas. Or you could use the accusative of calamitas (= calamitatem).

Yes, let's post some translations, eh? I'll get mine up tomorrow sometime.

#15 Faith: If you send me a PM with your email address, I'll scan the first couple of poems along with the commentary and email them to you...

here's my (mis)translation:

to whom do i dedicate my latest witty little book, freshly polished with dry pumice?
to you cornelius: for you used to think my books somewhat frivolous,
when you, an italian, had just dared unravel all of time
in three little learned and, by Jove, laborious books.
therefore, have this little book, such as it is, for yourself o virgin patron,
may it last more than one enduring generation

>21 binders:: I got "the only Italian" instead of "an Italian" there. I love your use of "by Jove" as it seems to fit with C.'s somewhat less than respectful attitude toward things in general and is also nicely colloquial for us today.

I was and am confused by "o patrona virgo". Is C. referring to his actual muse here rather than Cornelius?

And thank you, Amber, for your help. I'm still not certain whether I want to use res adversas or calamitatem; the cognate connotation of calamity may not be just right for my purpose.

#21 binders:
second line: "for you used to think my books somewhat frivolous": the Latin rearranged into English-translation word order would be, tu solebas putare meas nugas esse aliquid; in other words, I think the aliquid is predicative: "You were accustomed to think that my bits of nothing were something." Make sense?

I think Gail's right about Italorum too: genitive plural (partitive genitive with unus): "you alone of the Italians". Alternately, we can take it with aevum: "the whole age/race/history of the Italians. It's position suggests that we can take it both ways at once.

"three little learned...books": it's Catullus' books that are diminutive, not Nepos' (I think you've just misplaced your diminutive) :)

I think in the second to last line he's switching addressees - he's offering the book to Nepos, but the he turns to his patron goddess (unnamed, but likely the appropriate Muse) with this vocative and then the jussive maneat.

ETA: Thanks for being the Brave One and posting a first translation - an excellent start, it seems to me!

#22
thanks! i totally got that construction around the wrong way! it makes more sense now.

as for the 'an italian', i thought he might have been contrasting Nepos with greek historians of italy who wrote larger works on the history of Rome than Nepos' own three-book history. And that was my thinking with the 'three little books' too.
'cartis' seemed to indicate a roll or page, something smaller than a whole book, as though Catullus was pointing out the comparatively small size of Nepos' history.
(brought to mind by the reference to polishing (of vellum?) in the second line, and explicare in line 6 which can also mean to unfold or unroll)

#24: Well, as far as I know, the Romans didn't really have books as we think of them; they had papyrus rolls, so calling them 'cartae' doesn't diminish them - that's just what you'd call it. I think 'laboriosis' adds to the idea that what Nepos is doing is on a much grander scale than Catullus' own nugae. In essence, Catullus' little ol' collection of works is being dedicated to a giant in the field. Yes, he's being playful and tongue-in-cheek here, but doing so by painting Nepos' work as big and impressive.
The polishing refers to the polishing off of the ends of the roll (and probably also as a double meaning: his poems are polished as well).

Okay, so here's my translation. I'll try to keep mine as literal as possible, without sounding to awkward:

To whom do I give my charming little book,
only just polished with dry pumice?
To you, Cornelius: for it was you who
were accustomed to think that my
little nothings were something,
already then, when you alone of the
Italians dared to unfold all time
in three volumes - learned and
labor-intensive ones too, by Jove!
So, keep for yourself this whatever-it-is
of a little book, whatever sort it may be,
which, O patron maiden, may last
more than one enduring age!

Oh, I like that, especially the

"unfold all time in three volumes - learned and labor-intensive ones too"

lines. Very well done. I've tried reading the poem aloud in Latin--of course must have many accents wrong--and it sounds great that way.

I'm working on the number two poem now. It's so slow for me! And I feel as though, I don't know, I'm not doing as well as I ought on the whole thing. Probably because of no face-to-face feedback, do you think?

Thanks, Gail!
Yeah, I'm not certain how to make this whole thing work more smoothly either - I'm not sure whether people are having trouble with the Latin and are too shy to speak up, or if no one is particularly interested in this first poem enough to inspire any conversations...? I think, too, that some people don't have the text yet.
Shall I start up a thread for the second poem, then? We can still chat here as others get the text and get started. What say you all?

My problem is generally that I don't know what to say about poetry. I read the poem... now what? I've just never been any good at literary analysis.

I do like looking at meter, but this one isn't my favourite (one note, though, re. message 8--isn't there one more syllable? Or can the x somehow be split in two?)

Ooh, thanks, Zoe, for catching my typo (i left out a short and a long - how embarrassing!); I've fix it up above.

I'm hoping it's just a product of this first poem, i.e. that there's not a whole lot to discuss here. The second poem, though, wow. All sort of stuff we can chat about there. I've done a quick (re)read through it this morning, and I'm excited to see what others have to say. When a get a few free moments altogether, I'll go ahead and start that next thread, I think.

Amber et al., I haven't jumped in yet, but I hope to......I did read through the first one with lots of holes and no time right then to mend them. I haven't read the thread closely, but do you really need a whole thread per poem? Is that the plan? I don't know that it matters to the housekeeping here, but I'd be happy to see message 31 announce II and so on down the line....... (Ignore me if I'm out of line.)

I haven't jumped in because my Latin is so far in the past that I can't make meaningful comments about grammar, but would welcome the chance to read yours and others'. I'm going to ask my son if I can borrow his Latin I text to refresh, but expect I won't be able to contribute much - Will gladly follow along and try to relearn.

I am lurking on this thread, and purchased a copy of the Catullus. I am a wanna-be Latin reader, and have only the slightest of exposure to Latin. Is it okay if I just hang around? 8>)

I also think it would be okay to just continue in this thread with the next translation. There would be less chance of losing people, and the thread is still pretty tiny.

Karen O.

I agree about continuing in the same thread too. It might also be helpful to paste the Latin text here.

I also think continuing this thread is a good idea.

The text of the poems is available (with an English translation, so it's no good if you want to work it out on your own without any outside influences) here.

Okay, sounds like we'll stay here for now.

Karen O.: Welcome welcome! Don't be shy to ask questions, grammar or otherwise!

I'll post the text here from now on, too; Catherine: there's an even better site for many Latin texts, that only gives the Latin: thelatinlibrary.com

Catullus, Poem #2

Passer, deliciae meae puellae,
quicum ludere, quem in sinu tenere,
cui primum digitum dare appetenti
et acris solet incitare morsus,
cum desiderio meo nitenti
carum nescio quid lubet iocari
et solaciolum sui doloris,
credo ut tum gravis acquiescat ardor:
tecum ludere sicut ipsa possem
et tristis animi levare curas!

IIb.

TAM gratum est mihi quam ferunt puellae
pernici aureolum fuisse malum,
quod zonam soluit diu ligatam.

I'm heading out of town for a few days, so I'll just post the Latin for now to give people some time to mull over it, then I'll be back on Tuesday or so to add some notes and commentary. For now I'll just say that, 1) this is one of the more famous of Catullus' poems, along with poem 3 (also about Lesbia's sparrow), and 2) many folks consider the sparrow to be a, *ahem* euphemism...
Oh, and about Lesbia: this is Catullus' love interest throughout his collection of poems, and they have a very rocky relationship, which tends, of course, to follow the precepts of Latin love elegy (young male lover in love with woman who sometimes gives him what he wants, but generally leads him on and into frustration, all while she keeps other lovers on the side). Lesbia was a real woman, but Lesbia wasn't her real name - it's a common trope for elegists to give the women in their poetry names other than their own. Catullus uses 'Lesbia' in homage to Sappho (who was from Lesbos), whom he very much admires for her own poetry. The real identity of Lesbia is interesting: she's Clodia, sister to Clodius, the arch-enemy of Cicero (the guy who gets Cicero exiled for a time) and henchman to Julius Caesar. One of the things I absolutely love about this time period and it's authors is that they are all so interconnected.

Okay, so have at it, folks. I'll be back in a few days to add some grammar commentary and my own translation - can't wait to see what you all come up with!

Hi, all - just checking in. How's the translating going? Questions?

Ooh, I was working on this over the weekend as I traveled... I need to find my notes, as I know there were a few verb tenses I couldn't make sense of. I'll see if I can dig them up tonight.

I've only been studying Latin for a year (so please be gentle on my translation!), but seeing as it's so quiet, I thought I'd post my (rough) translation to get things started:

Sparrow, darling of my girl,
with whom she was accustomed to play, whom she was accustomed to keep in her lap
to whom she used to give her index finger to be pecked
and to incite sharp bites
when it pleases my bright shining sweetheart
to make some sweet joke
and comfort her sorrows,
I think that then her oppressive passion may rest:
If only I could play with you like she does
and lighten the cares of my melancholy mind!
------------------
It is so pleasing to me, as they say,
to have been the golden apple to the swift girl
that untied the girdle that had been tied for so long

I've kept my translation fairly literal. It took me a while to get started because I couldn't figure out what all those infinitives in the first few lines related to (I think I'm right that they're the subject of 'solent' in the fourth line?).

#39 Christine: Excellent start! Couple things:
second line: "was accustomed" - solet (4th line of the Latin) is present, not past tense - the bird's not dead (yet!). Same thing with "used to" in your next line. So, solet is something like "is accustomed to" here, but would be "used to" if it were past tense.
In the last bit: "to have been" (fuisse) is indeed an infinitive, but it's in indirect statement here, so maybe best to translate it as "as they say the golden apple was..." Make sense?

Please don't think me too picky about tenses and things - I just want to make sure that everyone understands what's going on in the grammar! :)

I'll post the translation I've come up with, although it is quite similar to Christine's. I'd love to see others' versions too, or hear other questions...

Sparrow, darling pet of my girlfriend,
with whom she is accustomed to play,
whom she's accustomed to hold in her lap,
to whom she's accustomed to offer the tip
of her finger, as you peck at it, and to
provoke sharp nibbles from you,
when it pleases my radiant darling
to make some dear it-don't-know-what of a joke
and take it as a little bit of comfort
for her sadness, I believe, so that
then her heavy passion may subside:
would that I could play with you as she does
and relieve the sad cares of my soul!
---
(it) is as pleasing to me as they say
the cute little golden apple was to the leggy girl,
the apple which loosened her belt long-tied.

40: Thanks Amber, that's really helpful! Thanks for picking up that I was using the wrong tense for the translation of 'solent' - silly me, I knew 'solent' was present tense, I think I got confused because of the translation 'accustomed' - which implies english past tense, but is really more like past participle. I thought that the other part might have been an indirect statement ('fuisse') but I just couldn't seem to get it to flow nicely.

I like that your translation (41) is a lot more idiomatic than mine.

I've had a bit of a look at the next one...there seems to be a few good questions to be asked about that one!

A few more thoughts about Poem #2:

This poem sets the poet (the persona Catullus is offering us) up as (what will soon become in Rome) a typical elegaic lover: in love with a woman who doesn't necessarily always (or ever) give him what he wants. The lover frequently finds himself on the wrong side (i.e. the outside) of his beloved's door, begging to be let in, begging for her attention, agonizing over the idea that she's in there with someone else (sometimes her husband, but usually just another lover on the side). Here we get a hint at Catullus(' persona - I'm just gonna call him Catullus, if that's okay) as not satisfied with the way the relationship is going - he's not getting as much attention even as her pet bird!
At the same time, like many of his poems, this one is very playful at heart, especially if you read it with euphemism firmly in mind.

We're, of course, missing part of this poem, and when we pick back up, he's talking about the myth of Atalanta, a girl who doesn't really want to marry and who is quite a runner, so she (or in some versions her father) sets up a challenge for any and all suitors: win a footrace against her and win her hand. Lose, and lose one's head. Hippomenes, one of the said suitors, prays to Aphrodite to help him win, who gives him three golden apples and tells him to toss them off the track at strategic moments in the race. Atalanta likes the shiny apples (or else kinda likes Hippomenes,wants him to win and welcomes the chance to let him), and veers off course to pick each one up, thus giving Hippomenes the advantage and the lead to win. Hence the reference to the golden apple that loosens her chastity belt. The exact link between the two sections is impossible to say for certain, but maybe there's some link between the bird and the apples? Hoping that the sparrow can be his way into Lesbia's, *ahem* belt?

Thoughts?

The tenses overwhelmed me when I tried to trans. However, your trans. makes good sense; so glad you mentioned the euphemism problem, because I thought I had a, um, less than pure mind, even though it made the poem pretty comical for me. The difficulty of missing part of the poem makes it hard, too. You know, this is actually work, in a good kind of way. I've been mentally lazy for far too long, I think.

Gail: It'll get easier as we go along - as with most authors, I think, once you sort of get used to his style, the translating gets quicker and less trying. As far as the 'other' reading goes, it gets even better with the next poem (hint: don't get too attached to that sparrow...) ;)

Bumping this back up a bit - no other thoughts on the second poem? Shall I post the third one?

I'd be happy to continue with the group read; even though I haven't been participating much, I like to read along.

I actually sought out this thread to say that people here might be interested in some Catullus-inspired Latin zombie haikus.... http://www.librarything.com/topic/118928

Sorry I haven't been keeping up here - we've just moved and we're still getting things sorted. I'll be back soon (I hope!).

>47 _Zoe_: Some really funny stuff there, Zoe!

Alright, how about we try another? Sorry I've been away so long - we've finally settled in a bit from moving across 2.5 states! Here's the next poem in line:

Poem #3:

Lugete, o Veneres Cupidinesque,
et quantum est hominum uenustiorum:
passer mortuus est meae puellae,
passer, deliciae meae puellae,
quem plus illa oculis suis amabat.
nam mellitus erat suamque norat
ipsam tam bene quam puella matrem,
nec sese a gremio illius mouebat,
sed circumsiliens modo huc modo illuc
ad solam dominam usque pipiabat.
qui nunc it per iter tenebricosum
illuc, unde negant redire quemquam.
at uobis male sit, malae tenebrae
Orci, quae omnia bella deuoratis:
tam bellum mihi passerem abstulistis
o factum male! o miselle passer!
tua nunc opera meae puellae
flendo turgiduli rubent ocelli.

Okay, so this is a sad little continuation of the sparrow theme. Same little sparrow, but now his, ahem, life-status has changes, shall we say? This is again in hendecasyllabics, and it's a good-humored parody of a dirge poem, in the style of Hellenistic epigrams. Lots of tongue-in-cheek overstatement here. Feel free to post comments, questions, translations,...

Intimidated here. I do enjoy the comments and conversations about the poems and related subjects, but I see I am in way over my head. Can I just lurk from now on?

Oh Mary, of course your welcome to lurk, but don't let the Latin intimidate you and please feel free to ask questions or comment away, regardless of how much of the Latin you translate!

I never did get round to poem #2. Sigh. I shall definitely have a go at #3 some time soon, though. Maybe at the weekend.

Okay, how's the translating going, everyone? Here's mine:

Mourn, O Venuses and Cupids (i.e. gods of love and desire)
and however many charming people there are:
my girlfriend's bird is dead,
the sparrow, my girlfriend's pet,
which she loved more than her eyes.
For he was honey sweet and knew
his own Herself as well as a girl knows her mother
and he wouldn't move from her lap,
but would leap around here and there
and constantly chirp to his mistress alone.
He now goes on that shadowy journey
to that place from where they say no one returns.
But may it go badly for you, wicked shades
of Orcus, you who devour all pretty things:
you've taken away from me so pretty a sparrow.
O deed wickedly done! O poor little bird!
Now because of your deed the swollen
little eyes of my girl are red from weeping.

notes:
-"which she loved more than her eyes" - although it may sound weird to us, this was a common phrase for the Romans; akin to our "more than life itself"
-"his own Herself" - Ipse can be used to refer to a master or mistress, so I translate ipsam here as Herself, using what I think is the closest idiomatic phrase we have (British, no? Servants referring to the master/mistress of the house?).
-"may it go badly for you" - vobis male sit, and variations on the phrase, are a common way to curse at someone in Latin; something like, "Oh, go to hell!"
-Orcus is (one of) the name(s) both of the underworld itself and the god of the underworld.
-The last 3 lines come to a silly little climax: 3 diminutives amongst such dramatic language - Catullus is having lots of fun here.

Okay, comments? Questions?

On 54:
Very well translated I think, It has its faults but they are faults of the original.
What you say about the last 3 lines, in the notes, is a possibility that I hadn't thought of. If it is C.'s idea of "having lots of fun"
it is a very-un-Italic idea. Italic writers, ancient and modern, can have fun in their writing, but this isn't an Italic KIND of fun. The translation, anyway, is un-pretentious, and perhaps the original IS
pretentious -- intentionally or not, Which raises a problem for a translator: Should the translation try to reproduce the pretentiousness, or smooth it out of existence?
In translating the Fasti of Ovid* I've had to translate many passages which are pure flattery of the Emperor Augustus and his family. I don't try to make them any better, literarily-speaking,
(and certainly not make them worse!) than they already are.

A small point: ". . . i. e. gods of love and desire" should be relegated to the footnotes, not be included in line 1. I did really need, b t w, the note on "ipsam>Herself". And I knew a parallel to that in Irish English, where a mistress/master/boss/owner may be called "Her/HimSELF".

*completed on the same late-June date that Ovid was talking about in his final passages of his Sixth and last book of Fasti

Hi, rolandperkins. My translation is far from being anything formal or 'official' (I'm a classicist by trade, but demonstrably not a professional translator); it's what I've come up with to share with this little group of friends that have shown interest in a group read of sorts of Catullus' poems. To that end - and since several here have mentioned nervousness at not having much Latin or being a bit rusty at it - I try to add a few explanation here and there, hence the "e.i....", which is not, then, part of the translation, but an aside note. Again, since this isn't any publish-bound translation, but a sharing of my own humble thoughts on the text, I reserve the right not to be consistent in my notation of notes. :)

Since this is a thread for discussing Catullus, I won't get into my thoughts on Ovid, except to say that I don't think any of his imperial flattery is ever pure. Ovid, in my (again, oh-so-humble) opinion, writes nearly everything with tongue very firmly in cheek.

As far as Italic kind of fun: 2 thoughts: 1) What Catullus was doing was very new and strange, so perhaps that's part of the point, eh? 2) You're reading my language without enough silliness, I'm afraid. Again, not much formality trickles out of my keyboard fingers here. So relax, grab a glass of lemonade, sit back, and get those grains of salt ready. By "having lots of fun" I mean that he's playing with language, with genre expectations, with hyperbole, using the epigram tradition to praise a bird, to mourn the loss of a lover's pet. It's part of what make me love Catullus so much: his ability to produce absolute silliness, then to make one blush and turn around to make sure no one's reading over one's shoulder, then to produce something as beautiful as poem 85 (the most heart-wrenching, beautiful poem I've ever read). The man had range, for certain.

Amber - I took a great leap forward and printed the poem to have a crack at. (It's in the book I bought but I wanted to write on it.) That was 2 weeks ago!

Cushla: Yay! Good luck, and come here if you have questions!