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Catullan Otiosi: The Lover and the Poet

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Charles Segal
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Extract

Discussions of otium in Catullus concentrate, naturally enough, on poem 51. The role of otium in poem 50 has, in consequence, been neglected. It is the point of this paper to show that 50 is far more than an amusing Gelegenheitsgedicht and that 50 and 51, whether or not intended by Catullus to stand in this order, shed light on one another through a complementary conception of otium.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , April 1970 , pp. 25 - 31
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1970

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References

page 25 note 1 An important exception is Pucci, Piero, ‘II carme 50 di Catullo’, Maia, N.S. 13 (1961), 249–56Google Scholar and especially 254–5 on otium (I was able to consult this excellent study unfortunately only after I had essentially written my essay). On otium in general and in connection with 51 see Fraenkel, Eduard, Horace (Oxford, 1957), 211–14Google Scholar; Woodman, A. J., ‘Some Implications of otium in Catullus 51. 13–16’, Latomus 25 (1966), 217–26Google Scholar; André, Jean-Marie, L'otium dans la vie morale et intellectuelle romaine, des origines à l'époque augustéenne (Paris, 1966)Google Scholar (which I have not seen), with the summary and discussion by Fontaine, J., Latomus 25 (1966), 855–60Google Scholar; Laidlaw, W. A., ‘Otium’, G & R, 2nd Series, 15 (1968), 42–52Google Scholar, who has a brief discussion of 51 (p. 47), but no mention of 50.

page 25 note 2 A connection between 50 and 51 has apparently been proposed by Ferrero, L., Un'introduzione a Catullo (Torino, 1955), 63–9Google Scholar which I have been unable to consult: see Leon, H. J., ‘A Quarter Century of Catullan Scholarship’, CW 53 (1959–1960), 146.Google Scholar A different connection between the two poems is broached by Lavency, M., ‘L'ode à Lesbie et son billet d'envoi’, AC 34 (1965), 175–82Google Scholar, who regards 50 as the poetic epistle accompanying 51, as 65 accompanies 66. But 50, even line 16, offers no concrete evidence for such a view and certainly no indications as clear as line 15 of 65.

page 25 note 3 See Pucci, , op. cit. 254Google Scholar, who speaks of the neoterics' ‘assunzione di moduli etico-letterari sconvenienti, provocatori e, come diremmo noi, anticonformisti’.

page 25 note 4 See the preceding note.

page 26 note 1 See Laidlaw, (p. 25, n. 1)Google Scholar, passim and especially 42–3 and 47: ‘In fact, the word otium from the time of Comedy may have a connotation of reprobate life.’ Otium could, of course, have positive implications too, like Cicero's honestum or cum dignitate otium (though the very fact that the word needs to be qualified is significant), but certainly not in the context of the voluptates of 50: see Pucci (above, p. 25, n. 1), 255 and Balsdon, J. P. V. D., ‘Auctoritas, Dignitas, Otium’, CQ, N.S. 10 (1960), 43–50, especially 47–50.Google ScholarCicero, , Pro Sestio, 66. 138–9Google Scholar, illustrates the conventional attitude: ‘… sed mihi omnis oratio est cum virtute non cum desidia, dum dignitate non cum voluptate, cum iis qui se patriae, qui suis civibus, qui laudi, qui gloriae, non qui somno et conviviis et delectationi natos arbitrantur. Nam si qui voluptatibus ducuntur et se vitiorum inlecebris et cupiditatium lenociniis dediderunt, missos faciant honores, ne attingant rem publicam, patiantur virorum fortium labore se otio suo perfrui. Qui autem bonam famam bonorum, quae sola vere gloria nominari potest, expetunt, aliis otium quaerere debent et voluptates, non sibi.’

page 26 note 2 Cic. De Off, iii. 1. 1.Google Scholar See Laidlaw, , op. cit. 44–5Google Scholar: Cicero ‘prided himself on being occupied, claimed never to be otiosus' and ‘seems always to feel the need of some sort of apology for leisure’.

page 26 note 3 Pucci, , op. cit. 252.Google Scholar

page 26 note 4 Elder, J. P., ‘Catullus I, His Poetic Creed, and Nepos’, HSCP 71 (1966), 143–9Google Scholar; also Copley, F. O., ‘Catullus, c. 1’, TAPA 82 (1951), 200–6.Google Scholar

page 26 note 5 On lepidus and lepos see Pucci, , op. cit. 251–2Google Scholar, with p. 252, n. 3; Copley, , op. cit. 201–2Google Scholar; Buchheit, V., ‘Catulls Dichterkritik in C. 36’, Hermes 87 (1959), 319–21.Google Scholar

page 26 note 6 On ludere, especially in connection with poetry, see Kroll, W., C. Valerius Catullus, ed. 2 (Leipzig, 1929)Google Scholar, on 50. 2, who cites 61. 232 and Virgil, , Ecl. 6. 1Google Scholar; add also Horace, , Odes i. 32. 2 and iv. 9. 9Google Scholar; Culex, 1–5.Google Scholar See also Fraenkel, , op. cit. 172–5.Google Scholar

page 27 note 1 See Kroll (preceding note) on 50. 8 ff.; Lavency (above, p. 25, n. 2), 180–1; Quinn, Kenneth, The Catullan Revolution (Melbourne, 1959), 56.Google Scholar

page 27 note 2 Fraenkel, Eduard, ‘Catulls Trostgedicht für Calvus’, WS 69 (1956), 282Google Scholar: ‘… mit ganz leichter Übertreibung, ganz leisem Lächeln über sich selbst’. See also Pucci, , op. cit. 255.Google Scholar

page 27 note 3 Quinn, , op. cit. 56Google Scholar speaks of this language as conveying ‘an intellectual or artistic excitement that is as acute as sensual excitement’.

page 27 note 4 Pucci, , op. cit. 255Google Scholar notes in otiosus the ‘sottile ambivalenza che s'insinua nell'aggetivo, poiché s'adatta alla condizione di poeta che a quella di amante’.

page 28 note 1 Cf. poems like 44, 32, 53, and perhaps 49, which have a political background, and also the Caesar poems. Catullus was no Epicuri de grege porcus, although, as Horace too realized, the legacy of Epicurus could be both subtler and nobler than a private, quietistic hedonism.

page 28 note 2 See, for example, Kroll, , op. cit.Google Scholar and Fordyce, C. J., Catullus. A Commentary (Oxford, 1961)Google Scholar on conturbabimus and fecerimus, 5. 10–11Google Scholar; also the translation of the latter part of 5 by Quinn (above, p. 27, n. 1), 52, with his note 21 on p. 109; Grimm, R. E., ‘Catullus 5 Again’, Cf 59 (1963–1964), 15–22Google Scholar, especially 19–21; Steele Commager, ‘The Structure of Catullus 5’, ibid. 361–4; and my essay, ‘Catullus 5 and 7: A Study in Complementaries’, AJP 89 (1968), 284–301, especially 289–92.Google Scholar

page 28 note 3 Otia here may refer to ‘places of leisure’ rather than ‘leisure’ itself: see Cyril Bailey's note in his editio maior (Oxford, 1947) vol. iii ad loc.Google Scholar; also Laidlaw, , op. cit. 46.Google Scholar

page 28 note 4 For the ramifications of this otium in connection with the view of poetry in the Eclogues see Smith, P. L., ‘Lentus in Umbra: A Symbolic Pattern in Vergil's Eclogues’, Phoenix 19 (1965), 298–304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 29 note 1 See Fraenkel's discussion of this passage, op. cit. 174–5. He aptly cites Epist. i. 7. 44–5:Google Scholar

mihi iam non regia Roma,

sed vacuum Tibur placet aut imbelle Tarentum,

where one may note the implied antithesis between regia and vacuum and the parallel between vacuum and imbelle.

page 29 note 2 For otium in Ovid's view of his poetry I am much indebted to the discussion in Laidlaw, , op. cit. 47–8.Google Scholar

page 29 note 3 See also Trist. iii. 2. 9–10 and iv. 8. 7–8Google Scholar; also Laidlaw, , op. cit. 48.Google Scholar

page 30 note 1 Noted by Pucci, , op. cit. 249–50.Google Scholar

page 30 note 2 For the problems of the last stanza of 51 see Woodman, , op. cit.Google Scholar; Fraenkel, , op. cit. 211 with n. 4Google Scholar; Leon, , op. cit. 146–7.Google Scholar Recent discussion and bibliography in Fredricksmeyer, E. A., ‘On the Unity of Catullus 51’, TAPA 96 (1965), 153–63.Google Scholar

page 30 note 3 For gestire and exsultare see Woodman, , op. cit. 222.Google Scholar

page 31 note 1 The harshness is greatly stressed in the uncompromisingly ‘separatist’ view of Fordyce, , op. cit. 219.Google Scholar See contra Fredricksmeyer, , op. cit. 154 ff.Google Scholar