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FRVCTVS AMORIS: ON CATULLUS 55.17–22

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 October 2017

Wilfried H. Lingenberg*
Affiliation:
Universität des Saarlandes

Extract

In carm. 55, Catullus supposes his friend Camerius may be caught in erotic adventure:

      num te lacteolae tenent puellae?
      si linguam clauso tenes in ore,
      fructus proicies amoris omnes:
      uerbosa gaudet Venus loquella.    20
      uel, si uis, licet obseres palatum,
      dum nostri sis particeps amoris.

Type
Shorter Notes
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2017 

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References

1 Text (disregarding orthographical matters) as in Kroll, W., C. Valerius Catullus, herausgegeben und erklärt (Stuttgart, 1989 7 = 19806 Google Scholar). The most recent critical edition is Thomson's (below n. 16).

2 Nothing in ThLL s.v. fructus, VI.1.1393.25–44, points to any substantially different meaning.

3 Materialien zu einem Kommentar über die Orestis tragoedia des Dracontius (Hildesheim, 1888), 19 Google Scholar, on Orest. 143.

4 I find it difficult to read lines 18–19 as a general statement, detached from the particular situation (as e.g. Khan, H. Akbar did implicitly in ‘An interpretational crux: Catullus LV and LVIIIa’, AC 36 [1967], 116–31, at 128Google Scholar); tenent in 17 is specific to the situation, then 18 tenes should be as well. The only general statement around is line 20, but it is about the goddess of love, not about one of the protagonists.

5 E.g. Kroll (n. 1), ad loc., rightly doubtful: ‘Das ist vielleicht nicht sehr logisch gedacht, aber C. kommt es darauf an, den Freund um jeden Preis zum Reden zu bringen.’

6 During the last stages of preparing this manuscript for print there appeared a note proposing an attractive reinterpretation of the whole poem, which led quite naturally to this very understanding of fructus amoris: in Speaking stone in Catullus 55’, CPh 112 (2017), 8997 Google Scholar, M. Pasco-Pranger holds that the femellae of 55.7 are statues of the Muses in Pompey's portico and that Camerius is a love poet whom Catullus would like to see publishing his work. As for our expression, Pasco-Pranger (this note), 95 quotes Cic. Arch. 12, where fructus is connected with publishing activity: ceteros pudeat si qui se ita litteris abdiderunt ut nihil possint ex eis neque ad communem adferre fructum neque in aspectum lucemque proferre.

7 I am very grateful to CQ’s anonymous reader for pointing out this possibility to me, including the parallels in Aristophanes, Plato and Callim. Aet. 67 Pf.

8 Borrowings can be traced in Menander, Pseudo-Longinus and Plutarch (three times) among others; see Kannicht, R. (ed.), Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, vol. 5, Euripides (Göttingen, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on fr. 663, and Starkie, W.J.M., The Wasps of Aristophanes, with Introduction, Metrical Analysis, Critical Notes, and Commentary (Amsterdam, 1968)Google Scholar, on Vesp. 1074.

9 For the meaning of ἐποίμαινεν, see Hunter's, R. discussion in Theocritus. A Selection (Cambridge, 1999)Google Scholar, 220 and ad loc.

10 Faraone, C.A., ‘Magic, medicine and Eros in the prologue to Theocritus’ Id. 11’, in: Fantuzzi, M. and Papanghelis, T. (edd.), Brill's Companion to Greek and Latin Pastoral (Leiden – Boston, 2006), 7590, at 81Google Scholar.

11 Aet. 67.1–3 does not refer to the creation of poetry, but shares with Idyll 11 the concept of a twofold interaction; see Harder's, A. comment on the motif of ὁ τρώσας ἰάσεται (Callimachus, Aetia. Introduction, Text, Translation, and Commentary [Oxford, 2012]Google Scholar, ad loc.), which underlies Callimachus’ account also in Aet. 70 Pf.: ἀλλ’ ἀπὸ τόξου | αὐτὸς ὁ τοξευτὴς ἄρδιν ἔχων ἑτέρου.

12 Skinner, M.B., ‘The unity of Catullus 68: the structure of 68a’, TAPhA 103 (1972), 495–512, at 500 n. 13Google Scholar. See further Kiss, D., ‘Catullo 68, 10: munera Veneris ’, Philologus 152 (2008), 345–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Olszaniec, W., ‘ Munera Veneris sive de Catulli carminis 68 textu defendendo’, Philologus 152 (2008), 348–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 A striking case in point would be 65.3, where Catullus calls his poems fetus Musarum; he was the first to apply fetus to a ‘product of the mind’ (OLD s.v. fetus 2 4c); see Kroll (n. 1), ad loc.

14 Kiss (n. 12), 347.

15 Before taking into account the equation fructus amoris = ‘love poems’, nostri sis amoris particeps (22) would naturally be understood as ‘be a confidant of my affairs’; particeps in this sense is found already in comedy (Plaut. Aul. 605 is speculatum huc misit me, ut quae fierent fieret particeps; Ter. Haut. 427–8 nuntium adporto tibi | quoius maxume te fieri participem cupis) and remains common especially when coupled with consilii/-orum (e.g. Cic. Fam. 11.2.2 digni sumus quos habeas tui consili participes; see ThLL s.v. particeps, X.1.494.49–53).

16 Mynors, R.A.B., C. Valerii Catulli Carmina (Oxford, 1958)Google Scholar; Fordyce, C.J., Catullus. A Commentary (Oxford, 1961)Google Scholar; Thomson, D.F.S., Catullus. Edited with a Textual and Interpretative Commentary (Toronto, 1997; reprinted with corrections 1998)Google Scholar. Manuscript report above is based on Thomson's apparatus.

17 Barwick, Thus K., ‘Zu Catull c. 55 und 58a ’, Hermes 63 (1928), 66–80, at 71Google Scholar. Thomson (n. 16), 42 classifies nostri as a correction introduced by Coluccio Salutati, scribe of R2, rather than as a variant found in Salutati's exemplar X (where it would probably go back to the archetype: Thomson [n. 16], 28). But this is evidently due to Thomson's principle ‘to refrain from taking any given variant further back in the tradition than the evidence positively demands’ ([n. 16], 34); earlier origin is by no means excluded.

18 Details in Kokoszkiewicz, K.M., ‘Catullus 14B, 16, 41, 43, 55, 55B: adnotationes criticae’, Mnemosyne 60 (2007), 608–27, at 624CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 See his Nachträge: Kroll (n. 1), 297.

20 Ellis, R. (A Commentary on Catullus [Oxford, 1889]Google Scholar, ad loc.) and Barwick (n. 17) defended nostri sis with interpretations not far from mine.