The Poems of Catullus

by Catullus, Daisy Dunn (Translator)

Written in the twilight of the Roman Republic, the poetry of Gaius Valerius Catullus offers a delicious insight into the passions and gossip of high Roman society.

From the poet and his friends to cultural and political titans, including Caesar, Cicero, and Pompey, his cutting, modern verse spares no-one. In this new translation by Daisy Dunn, author of Catullus’ Bedspread, his obscene honesty, arrogant wit and surprising tenderness capture Roman society at their best.

Most famous for his obsessive love lyrics for the married Lesbia, Catullus’ words are an immortal expression of youth, rebellion and agonised love.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Ancient, Ancient History, Fiction, Literature, Roman

178 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 61

About the author

Gaius Valerius Catullus (ca. 84 BC – ca. 54 BC) was a Roman poet of the 1st century BC. His surviving works are still read widely, and continue to influence poetry and other forms of art. Catullus invented the "angry love poem."

Reviews

[Fergus, Weaver of Autistic Webs · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Poète Maudit of Near-Antiquity!

Did you know that us ‘senior’ denizens of Ontario, Canada had to endure TWO Senior Years of High School in the 1960’s?

That’s right!

The blue Tory clique, who thrived as our political masters for twenty-odd unmolested Bay Street Boom years in those far-away days, decreed that we wet-behind-the-ears teens had to pass both Grade 12 and (unlucky?) Grade 13 to win our senior matriculation!

Non-Canadians may be polite enough to label our final purgatorial year before the intellectual freedom of university a Finishing School...

But one Grade 13 teacher of mine, Mrs. Burroughs, who taught Latin, tenderly and humorously commiserated with us poor overworked students.

When she saw, out of the corner of her twinkling eye, one of my rear-row cronies - Brian, an avid motorcyclist - making pretend-wheelies with the front of his desk, so anxious was he to get out and take on the REAL business of life - she gave us a good break.

For she had decided to give us a Latin course injected with mature good humour.

It’s no wonder she extolled the crazy-quilt works of Catullus to us (and later, played Carmina Burana to us on a portable hi-fi)!

She knew our futures - and Freedom - beckoned to us brightly from beyond those dull cinder-block corridors.

She took special delight in the liberties Catullus took with the Latin language, and demurely (with a twinkle) told us much of his poetry was banned by the Ontario school system. For civil liberties were brutally repressed back then.

That was all the incentive we needed to decipher his Latin!

But back then, you see, they didn’t call us Ontario the Good for nothing (though I miss that simple time, now, in this in-your-face world)!

That’s right - Catullus was a Poète Maudit - a catchword Paul Verlaine made up in 1884 to fit, though it certainly didn’t, the saintly though outré fallen angels Rimbaud and Mallarme.

Passion - muddy and mercurial - was his main theme. The song ‘Forever Young’ fit him to a T.

Catullus ALWAYS wrote with passion. Mrs. Burroughs was right: it picked up the ears of us poor bored high school seniors pretty quickly!

1968 was a terrible year news-wise. Tricky Dicky was at the helm south of the border.

We are even told that one sultry summer night when the public’s rage against the war in Vietnam was at its height, Nixon (under the influence, ever so slightly) sauntered out into the angry mob and babbled to himself...

ODI ET AMO

Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.
Nescio, sed fieri sentio, et EXCRUCIOR.


I HATE AND I LOVE

I hate and I love.
Why, you ask.
I don't know -

That's how it is.

But it's EXCRUCIATING.

- CATULLUS, 65 BC
(My own rough-hewn & barbarous translation!)

Could Catullus have been MORE modern and urgent to our ears in that ugly year?

But he remained outspoken, frank and passionate all his too-short life.

Under the watchful eyes of the Empire...

“EXCRUCIOR!” Can you beat that?

So, who SAYS Latin is a Dead Language?

[Jibran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Catullus
Your Saturnalian bonne-bouche

I read this Penguin edition of Catullus's poems side by side Peter Green's translation. I have no hesitation in saying I prefer the latter, not because I am in any way able to compare it with the original Latin, but seeing the parallel text I can see that Green has endeavoured to remain faithful to metre, length and the rhythm of the original. This stands in contrast to Whigham's translation with its arbitrary enjambments and unruly line-breaks, where some poems are summarily translated, others are bloated (over-translated?), perhaps to give clarity to the vagueness of the original. However, Whigham's love epigrams are more spontaneous, direct and urgent compared to Green's.

I do not object to artistic recreation in translation when its purpose is to convey the tone and spirit of the original, and to give a sense of the language even if it means bending the rules of idiomatic English, especially when it requires an intelligent rendering of satire. But I think if you take too much liberty with the original you end up turning it more your own creation and less that of the writer you're translating. FitzGerald's and Omar Khayyam come to mind. I have since long refused to call it a translation. Rubaiyat is FitzGerald's reworking of Khayyam, a work that should be seen as Rubaiyat of Edward FitzGerald.

Entry #8 serves as a good example of Catullus' angry love poem. It's aimed at his lover, the wife of another man, whom he refers to as Lesbia in his poems. Catullus hates her for abandoning him and also hates being in love with her, but can't bring himself to concede. I'm quoting both translations to highlight the difference between Whigham and Green. (All italics belong to the translators)

Peter Whigham translation

Break off
fallen Catullus
time to cut losses,

bright days shone once,
you followed a girl
here & there

loved as no other
perhaps
shall be loved,

then was the time
of love's insouciance,
your lust as her will

matching.
Bright days shone
on both of you.

Now,
a woman in unwilling.
Follow suit

weak as you are
no chasing of mirages
no fallen love,

a clean break
hard against the past.
Not again, Lesbia.

No more.
Catullus is clear.
He won't miss you.

He won't crave it.
It is cold.
But you will whine.


Peter Green translation

Wretched Catullus, stop this tomfool stuff
and what you see has perished treat as lost for good.
Time was, every day for you the sun shone bright,
when you scurried off wherever she led you-
that girl you loved as no one shall again be loved.
There, when so many charming pleasures all went on,
things that you wanted, things she didn't quite turn down,
then for you truly every day the sun shone bright.
Now she's said No, so you too, feeble wretch, say No.
Don't chase reluctance, don't embrace a sad-sack life-
make up your mind, be stubborn, obdurate, hang tough!
So goodbye, sweetheart, Now Catullus will hang tough,
won't ask, "Where is she," won't, since you've said No, beg, plead.
You'll soon be sorry, when you get these pleas no more-
bitch, wicked bitch, poor wretch, what life awaits you now?
Who'll now pursue you, still admire you for your looks?
Whom will you love now? Who will ever call you theirs?
Who'll get your kisses? Whose lips will you bite in play?
You, though, Catullus, keep your mind made up, hang tough!

For the sake of brevity, I'm not commenting on Catullus' longish (and excellent) poems mixing elements of tragedy and epic, so I'll round off the note on translation by saying that I have been unhorsed along with my hoary perceptions about ancient Roman poets. "Beautiful" is not a word that comes to mind when you read Catullus, no; he is witty, sardonic, playful, deeply personal, highly offensive, almost autobiographical. He does not mince words when he is up to denouncing whom he does not like: his Lesbia whom he repeatedly accuses of turning into a whore with a multitude of lovers, all for having spurned his love(!), the poets of habit, time-wasting rhymesters, and his foes whom he abuses without a blush: his preferred revenge is to drive his equine male organ through the foully malodorous bog land of other people's backsides. Not a man you would want to know in real life! Suffice it to say that Catullus startled me, amused me, shocked me, and gave me plenty to laugh through the sweet (& sour) time I took in reading both translations.

For Vibennius he has this to say. Poem #33

"Oh you cream of the con men in the bathhouse,
Pop Vibennius, and your son the bum-boy -
Dad may have a dirtier right hand, but
Juniorʻs got a more voracious backside -
why not just sod off to exile in some
hellhole, since Dadʻs larcenies are public
knowledge, while you, son, cannot hawk your bristly
asshole, no, not even for a penny!" (Green)

Thanks to Penguin Little Black Classics series I have discovered quite a few world greats which otherwise it would have taken me a long time to discover, independently. I was introduced to Catullus with this collection: I Hate and I Love, enjoyed it thoroughly and immediately sought out the full collection. Here are a couple of samplers to get a better (bitter?) taste of Catullus on your poetic palate!

Poem #16: Catullus rebukes his critics and detractors who most probably had objected to the content of his poems, as many still would! (I have no idea what the first and last lines mean)

"Pedicabo et irrumabo
Furius & Aurelius
twin sodomites,
you have dared deduce me from my poems
which are lascivious
which lack pudicity...
The devoted poet remains in his own fashion chaste
his poems not necessarily so:
they may well be
lascivious
lacking in pudicity
stimulants (indeed) to prurience
and not solely in boys
but those whose hirsute genitalia are not easily moved.

You read of those thousand kisses.
You deduced an effiminancy there.
You were wrong. Sodomites. Furius & Aurelius.
Pedicabo et irrumabo vos." (Whigham)


Poem #78B

"...but what irks me now is that your filthy saliva
has soiled the pure kisses of a pure girl.
You won't get away scot-free, though. All future ages
shall know that, and ancient Fame tell what you see." (Green)

September '15

[Steve]

1st century BCE portrait from Pompeii

Odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris?
nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.()


In the mid-1st century BCE the Roman Republic was stumbling to a close, torn by the struggles between factions of the Roman aristocracy trying to hold onto its wealth and influence, the rising merchants and bankers - some of whom were obscenely wealthy and holding the financial lifeline of many aristocrats - and the uncountable plebians driven off their farms by the aristocracy's acquisition of huge tracts of agricultural land worked by armies of slaves and forced to live in misery in the stinking tenements of the Subura. One civil war had recently come to an end with Sulla's dictatorship, but after a reign of terror motivated at least as much by greed as by reasons of state security he returned the power to the Republican hierarchy and Rome back to its old problems; a second civil war was imminent. This one would be the end of the Republic.

In such times of social and political turmoil one has observed again and again how some artists withdraw from a larger social engagement and focus on the private, not seldom emphasizing technical aspects of the craft that the more socially engaged writers left aside in order to reach a larger audience. These are both characteristics of the so-called neoteric poets, of whom Gaius Helvius Cinna, Licinius Calvus and Gaius Valerius Catullus (ca. 84 - ca. 54 BCE) were the most famous.

The overwhelmingly dominant literary tradition in Rome until that time was dedicated to edifying the reader in the Roman Republican virtues through history and epic poetry recounting the heroic acts of Rome's great men. Certainly there was also theater - tragedy and comedy based on Greek models, and lesser fare as well - but that was written and performed by slaves, freedmen and a few others until quite late in the Republic. The neoteric poets, whom Cicero, with a sniff, called the poetae novi, deliberately turned away from the tradition to write of more private matters - particularly (erotic) love - in a highly literary idiom that, often enough, could well be termed artificial and was based on Alexandrian models.

Like the late 19th century poètes maudits and aesthetes such as Stéphane Mallarmé, the core group of neoteric poets conjoined aesthetics and ethics whereof the principles forming their code were lepos (grace), venustas (charm) and urbanitas (urbanity). Born in fairly well-to-do families (but not aristocrats), they had the means to withdraw without concern for a wide audience (which they, in any case, spurned - another analogous trait with the poètes maudits).

Unfortunately, little of the work of Cinna and Calvus has come down to us, but we do have 113 of Catullus' poems in our possession, and The Poems of Catullus: A Bilingual Edition (2005) contains them all, along with striking translations by Peter Green. The high school Latin I learned before the dawn of time suffices to let me enjoy the exceedingly complex rhythmic schemes Catullus employs (though little else), to which, remarkably, Peter Green extends his primary efforts and reproduces as successfully as one is likely to do in English.(*)

Because of the deliberate air of spontaneity Catullus gives his poems and because almost all of us are not reading the original Latin, it is easy to get the impression that his poems are artless trivialities expressing standard feelings of joy, betrayal, suffering, hope and disillusionment in the relationships between lovers or that the poems addressed to men are just catty complaints or obsequious compliments tossed off on a whim. In light of the context suggested above, just the opposite is true. These poems are painstakingly worked and structured to provide texts based upon various complex and rigid metric schemes with a convincing appearance of spontaneity. That is not at all easy.

So imagine, for a moment, the irony of a strict hendecasyllabic metric form being used for a scurrilous insult:

33

Oh you cream of the con men in the bathhouse,
Pop Vibennius, and your son the bum-boy -
Dad may have a dirtier right hand, but
Juniorʻs got a more voracious backside -
why not just sod off to exile in some
hellhole, since Dadʻs larcenies are public
knowledge, while you, son, cannot hawk your bristly
asshole, no, not even for a penny!

Clearly, one would not like to be on Catullus' bad side! But I come back to the craft and hence time involved in fashioning a strictly maintained, complex metric form (explained at length by Green) in such a manner that it appears to be an off-the-cuff slur and think of those two gifted bad boys - Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine - writing a strict and classical sonnet to the trou de cul. Were they sniggering like adolescents (after all, one of them was an adolescent) while forming those lines (was Catullus?), or was something else altogether going on in their minds?

Insults aplenty are to be found in these poems, as well as what I interpret as quite insincere fawning. These and the many poems addressed to multiple lovers have raised the question of to which degree the poems are autobiographical. But they are so lively, and so convincingly spontaneous (despite the fact that they definitely were not) that I incline to share Green's view that we are getting a glimpse into the social and sexual life of real people removed from us by two millennia. As Green writes, "what need to make up stories when there was so much splendid material to hand."

Can one doubt that this actually happened?:

53

Nice joke lately in court from some bystander:
when my Calvus had finished his quite brilliant
list of all Vatinius' misdemeanors,
this man cries, hands raised in admiration,
"Oh my god, an articulate cock-robin."

(Licinius Calvus, Catullus' close friend and fellow poet, was a lawyer.)

And so why should we disbelieve the many ups and downs of his relations with Lesbia and his many other paramours? These, at least as reported by the author, were carnal and cynical, which makes for entertaining reading, but one has to wonder if the poor man ever experienced some real love before he died so young (probably due to tuberculosis contracted in his teens). Even the very idea of such a love receives the full weight of his sophisticated irony in poem 45, too long to reproduce here.

So, instead, I'll close with a poem in which he turns his irony against himself and his role as poet.

16

Up yours both, and sucks to the pair of you,
Queen Aurelius, Furius the faggot,
who dared judge me on the basis of my verses—
they mayn’t be manly: does that make me indecent?
Squeaky-clean, that’s what every proper poet’s
person should be, but not his bloody squiblets,
which, in the last resort, lack salt and flavor
if not “unmanly” and rather less than decent,
just the ticket to work a furious itch up,
I won’t say in boys, but in those hirsute
clods incapable of wiggling their hard haunches.
Just because you’ve read about my countless
thousand kisses, you think I’m less than virile?
Up yours both, and sucks to the pair of you!

It is clear to me that Catullus was more than intelligent enough to know that this farrago of invective and self-righteous outrage - thou dost protest too much, Gaius! - could only induce the opposite impression in the sophisticated reader. But then I stop and wonder again.

The man's poetry is entertaining, cynical, ironic and sophisticated to the point of self-negation. And all this 2,000 years ago. Green emphasizes how "alien" Catullus is to us at such a remove. Granted, but then why does he seem to be so familiar?


() I hate and I love. You wonder, perhaps, why I'd do that?
I have no idea. I just feel it. I am crucified.

(*) Green's introduction, in which he details the many difficulties of bringing the poetry of Latin into English and his solutions (building upon the work of Richmond Lattimore and Cecil Day Lewis), is very illuminating.

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

He is essential reading, of course, though I had only read bits and bobs in the past before this - and this version in particular is fantastic. A lovely hardback bilingual edition. Peter Green does extraordinary translation work (as he did with Ovid) and all the lewd crude rude and often beautiful work of this great poet is in one gorgeous package. Highly recommended.

[Yann · Rating 5 out of 5]

L'abandon d'Ariane

Le temps où je remettais à plus tard l'exploration de la poésie latine est révolu. J'ai une préférence pour le grec, mais cet ouvrage (l'émancipation féminine Dans La Rome Antique) a piqué ma curiosité quant aux mœurs romaines de la fin de la République et du début de l'Empire: en route pour l'Italie! Catulle est un Romain du 1er siècle avant notre ère, contemporain de la fin de la République. On trouve ici plus d'une centaine de poèmes plus ou moins longs, et dont les vers sont construits sur le rythme et non sur la rime, suivant l'usage des anciens. Comme mon latin est mauvais, je me suis contenté de la traduction.

Les poèmes de Catulle parlent d'amour, mais d'un amour jeune et impétueux, tour à tour passionné et violent, craintif et jaloux. Celui qui remplit l'âme de confusion, lorsque plaisirs et chagrins sont si bien entremêles qu'il devient impossible de les distinguer, et que l'on en vient à chérir ses douleurs et ne plus goûter la félicité que mêlée de craintes et d'angoisses. Tantôt ses vers sont pleins de tendresse et de douceur, il accable sa dulcinée de milliers de baisers plus nombreux que les grains de sable du désert de Lybie, tantôt, mordu par la dépit, son amour-propre blessé se révolte et il sort des horreurs aussi vulgaires que brutales, qui sentent le testicule. Dans tous les cas, ses vers sont emprunts d'une vie et d'une sincérité émouvante, qui mettent son cœur à vif, et j'ai pris un énorme plaisir à leur lecture.

Cette édition bilingue n'est pas forcément aussi complète qu'une Budé, mais c'est déjà pas mal. Je connaissais déjà Ovide, il me reste à découvrir Tibulle et Properce.

Moineau, délices de ma maîtresse, avec qui elle se plaît à jouer, qu'elle tient sur son sein, à qui elle donne le bout de son doigt à becqueter, provoquant ses ardentes morsures, quand cette beauté, objet de mes désirs, se livre à un badinage qui a pour elle je ne sais quel charme et qui console un peu sa douleur, afin, j'imagine, d'apaiser les tourments d'une passion brûlante; puissé-je, comme elle, en jouant avec toi, alléger les tristes soucis de mon cœur.

[L.S. Popovich · Rating 4 out of 5]

Words and expressions the translator should have thought twice about using: "Treadmill," "French poodle," "syphilitic."

Catullus is the OG badass Roman poet. His polyamorous adventures and vicious satirical portraits amply flex his majorly ripped wit, status, and (professed) sexual prowess.

Listen to him mic drop other statesmen and rapturously serenade his shameless strumpet Lesbia. His crucifying words remain vivid and alluring. Witness the art of the insult developed into an intimate, nauseating symphony:

"Even your arses, dry
as fine, operative salt-cellars -
working maybe ten times a year,
the product
like pebbles
or dry broad-beans
easily friable
between the fingers
and leaving no sh-t-smudge."

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Peter Green's exuberantly bitchy translation of the complete poems of the Roman poet Catallus never fails to amuse, amaze, and indeed shock, which was certainly the poet's original intent. With far too many earlier translations of these viscerally human poems, translators have tried to protect us from the full onslaught of both Catallus' subject and language. Not here. For once, we feel an uncensored direct connection to a person who lived more than 2000 years ago. We see how he's just like us, with the same angry emotions, sexual desires, fetishes, and imperfections.

Like all translators, Green does not present a literal translation. He adds more verbiage than is present in the Latin text to add additional clarifying meaning, while staying within the metric and artistic structure of the poem. There are more literal and deliberately obscure translations available, but given the concision of Latin, what Green has done is far better. There are also extensive explanatory notes reflecting his vast Latin scholarship, and a glossary which add considerably to understanding the poems, and the relevant Roman life and history.

Speaking of the poems themselves, those nevertheless justly famous ones covering Catallus' stormy relationship with Lesbia are at times tediously repetitive. I mean, so Lesbia was unfaithfully screwing lots of other guys—even the whole Roman army so Catullus says. Then she dumped him, or was it the other way around? Get over it man! How many poems are really necessary to express your love, then hate, toward her?

On the other hand—by the way, hands, mouths, other parts and holes play a very prominent role in these poems—Catullus enjoyed relations with both sexes. For me, the raw and erotic same-sex squibs about his young teenage boyfriend Juventius (other boyfriends too: Catallus was typically promiscuous) are a pure delight. Also funny are the many obscene insults toward poorer poets, enemies, and those who betrayed him, or Rome, sexually or otherwise. For some examples, check out Poem 48: "Mellitos oculos tuos, Iuuenti" (Oh those honey-sweet eyes of yours, Juventius!); Poem 80: "clamant Victoris rupta miselli ilia, et emulso labra notata sero." (translate that one for yourself!); and Poem 99 for some Roman S&M, reminiscent of Boise and Oscar, and even more so of Rimbaud and Verlaine.

I'll close by including in its entirety Poem 85, one of the better known of all Latin poems:

Odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris?
nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucitor.

(I hate and love. You wonder, perhaps, why I'd do that?
I have no idea. I just feel it. I am crucified.)

Just as Catallus hated and loved, so do we two thousand years later, for exactly the same sexual reasons, and with the same intensity. Don't let any translator, rewriter of history, politician, or priest tell you otherwise. And just as Catallus couldn't understand why he had these painful emotions, nor do we still.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poems of Catullus Translation by Guy Lee

Guy Lee (1918-2005), British poet and Latinist noted for his translations of Ovid and other ancient Latin poets, has rendered a lively, almost contemporary version of Catullus’ poetry. Catullus ( c. 84-54 BCE) must have been fun to translate, affording Mr. Lee the pleasure of using the most vulgar Latin epithets, sobriquets, swear words and insults in Latin,) Catullus was contemptuous of Julius Caesar and a devoted lover of “Lesbia", the wife of a fellow patrician and about whom he wrote romantic poems and scathingly lewd criticisms.

According to my research his “carmina" breaks down into 60 short poems, 8 long poems, and 48 epigrams. In them he includes poems about friends of his, his homosexual interests, also about women he admires, invectives against those who have somehow slighted him, like Caesar and Cicero, and condolences such as the one for his brother who died in the Troad.

While I have never made it to the area of ancient Troy (the Troad) I have traveled through some of the places such as Verona where Catullus was born, Rome of course and Bithynia along the southeast shore of the Black Sea, which is also where the Nicene Creed was developed and some of the finest silk is produced due to its extensive mulberry trees .

You can gather from Catullus’ poems what he looked like as depicted in the painting by Sir Thomas Alma-Tadema . When I read the poems I did visualize this image of him (see below). He only lived to be 30 years old.

Quite a wiseguy, unflinchingly bold and impolite, and a Casanova of several varieties. I found the poems interesting from the aspect of his use of various linguistic registers, from formal to the violently vulgar. You as an ancient Roman would not have wanted Catullus out and about blackening your name with his verses. He sent an apology to Julius Caesar for insulting him whereupon immediately J.C. invited Catullus to supper. (A supper I would have not declined myself but would have instead sent a double if I could find one, since poisoning was a favorite weapon in those days.) He is also known to classic scholars of ancient poetry for employing various meters in lines of his poetry, something which in English I admire.

A reason that a youth today might be interested in reading Catullus is to practice his Latin, since this book is a bilateral translation and rather easy to follow. I had contemplated studying Latin in my Texas high school, which was attended by three close friends who were my team mates in sports, but the more practical Spanish won out, since the Tejanas I knew would more readily respond to Latin's more contemporary offspring. Latin is a good language to study to improve your English vocabulary (about 70% of our vocab is based on Latin) and begin the study of not only Spanish, but also French or Portuguese and several other important European languages.

[Evan Leach · Rating 4 out of 5]

”In bed I read Catullus. It passes my comprehension why Tennyson could have called him ‘tender.’ He is vindictive, venomous, and full of obscene malice. He is only tender about his brother and Lesbia, and in the end she gets it hot as well.”

- Harold Nicolson, Diaries and Letters 1945-1962.

Catullus was a Roman poet that lived through some of the most tumultuous days of the Roman Republic, from about 84-54 b.c. He spent his short life socializing in the best of circles, and his poetry contains jabs at Julius Caesar and Cicero, among other notables. He left behind 116 poems, most of which are either memorializing his ill-starred affair with a woman named Lesbia (or Clodia), who was probably married to another man, or viciously attacking his contemporaries.

On the list of major writers of the Roman Republic/Early Empire, Catullus is firmly entrenched on the second tier (behind Virgil, Ovid, Horace, and maybe Cicero). But there is much to enjoy here. Catullus’ bawdy style and racy lyrics are a nice change of pace from the formalism (and occasional imperial brownnosing) on display in Horace and Virgil’s poetry. The quote from Nicolson above sums up the experience of reading Catullus nicely; he really does spend an awful lot of time slinging mud at his adversaries, and nothing about this book is tender. Catullus’ poems are certainly not stuffy (they can be quite funny at times), and all in all this book was an easy breezy read.

I did not think Catullus’ poetry was quite as good as Virgil/Ovid/Horace when that trio was on their game, and I wouldn’t recommend this book to a reader looking to just hit the highlights of this period.* However, for readers looking to dive more deeply into the literature of the late Republic Catullus’ poems should not be missed. I would rate the poetry on its own a 3.5 star read, but the excellent translation, introduction, and notes by Peter Green (one of my all-time favorites) were so enjoyable that they were worth an additional half star. 4 stars.

*For readers interested in tackling the literature of the Republic/early Empire (from Rome’s founding to the death of Augustus in 14 AD), I would say the essentials are Virgil’s Aeneid, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Lucretius’s On the Nature of Things and Horace’s Odes, in that order.

[Steven Godin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just how many kisses do I want, Lesbia,
before I finally get my fill of you?
Add up all the sand across Africa
from the drug markets of Cyrenaica
to Jupiter sweating in his hot temple
on down to the tomb of old man Battus,
or all the stars in the dead of night
watching folks making love on the sly,
and that's how many kisses it'll take
before crazy Catullus stops kissing you,
more than all of the curious can count
or bad-mouth with their mumbo-jumbo.

[sfogliarsi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un classico senza tempo che non vedevo l’ora di leggere. Penso che questa sia la raccolta integrale di tutte le sue poesie, con il testo a fronte.
Poesie d’amore ma non solo, anzi c’è una componente presente sempre che dà lo stampo alle sue poesie. L'amore comunque è il nucleo principale, si tratta di quell'amore passionale, quell'amore visto davvero come fuoco della passione... quell'amore da far venire i brividi al solo pensiero. Quell'amore inteso come forza devastante che Catullo aveva nei confronti di Clodia che comunemente chiamava L3sbia oppure, si pensa anche che ebbe un sentimento nei confronti di Giovenzio.
Conoscevo già questo grande poeta romano del mondo passato, proprio perché lo studiai durante il mio percorso di studi, sia al liceo sia successivamente all’università. Ma in egual modo la mia curiosità mi ha portato ad acquistare questo mattone che ho divorato in due serate.
Un volume che volevo comprare da tempo perché adoro possedere nella mia libreria le raccolte poetiche piú belle di sempre, che sia letteratura italiana o non, come in questo caso.
Poesie brevi, altre piú lunghe, altre lunghissime. Poesie belle e intense, altre meno d'impatto ma comunque sempre belle. Un volume bello compatto che merita l'attenzione se si vuole scoprire o approfondire questo grande poeta del passato.

[Adriana · Rating 5 out of 5]

A este tipo lo amo, no sé qué más decir, amé todo de este libro y no pude dejar de leerlo en voz alta (perdón a mis amigos que los estuve jodiendo por whatsapp todo el tiempo que logré extender esta hermosa lectura). Creo que nací para leer esto. Ahora que lo terminé qué hago???

[Niklas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vulgar, obscene, offensive, yet often hilarious, sometimes beautiful and incredibly moving. Catullus poems are powerful and always packed with emotion. Many modern readers will probably find him very relatable as well. He rages against his ex-lover Lesbia and calls her a whore in several poems (and not in a roundabout way either) yet is still obviously madly in love with her. He both praises and insults his friends and fellow poets, and often accuses them of questionable sexual practices. My favourite poems were however the ones where he mourns his brother who died in battle. Very touching stuff.

[Marta Cava]

«¿Què hi ha més joiós que, lluny dels maldecaps,
alliberat d'ànsies el cor i fatigat
d'un llarg viatge, retornar a la teva llar
i reposar per fi en el teu llit enyorat?»

[Laura V. لاورا · Rating 4 out of 5]

« Viviamo, o mia Lesbia, e amiamoci,
e le dicerie dei vecchi troppo severi
consideriamole tutte di valore pari a un soldo.
I soli possono tramontare e risorgere;
noi, quando una buona volta finirà questa breve luce,
dobbiamo dormire un'unica notte eterna.
Dammi mille baci, poi cento,
poi ancora mille, poi di nuovo cento,
poi senza smettere altri mille, poi cento;
poi, quando ce ne saremo dati molte migliaia,
li mescoleremo, per non sapere (il loro numero)
e perché nessun malvagio ci possa guardare male,
sapendo che ci siamo dati tanti baci. »

[Avery Liz Holland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Il mondo di Catullo

I 116 carmi del liber catulliano sono noti al grande pubblico sopratutto per i versi d'amore indirizzati alla bella e traditrice Lesbia. «Dammi mille baci, e poi altri mille, e poi altri cento». «Ti odio e ti amo. Non so perché, ma so che è così. E me ne tormento». Anche chi non ha mai studiato letteratura latina o letto i testi di Catullo molto probabilmente conosce questi versi perché li ha visti citati da qualche parte, anche sui social o sui foglietti dei Baci Perugina.
Leggendo questa raccolta, però, quello che colpisce (oltre all'eccezionale qualità tecnica della composizione) è non solo la bellezza dei versi d'amore, ma la grande varietà dei temi, degli argomenti e degli interlocutori della poesia di Catullo.
I carmi d'amore, ad esempio, non sono indirizzati soltanto a Lesbia, ma anche al giovane Giovenzio, poco fedele come la stessa Lesbia. Catullo descrive banchetti, viaggi e incontri con prostitute, dialoga con amici e nemici, tempesta di insulti i rivali in amore e i membri della fazione cesariana, prende in giro i poeti che scrivono libri lunghissimi e poco curati dal punto di vista formale, utili solo a incartare il pesce per cuocerlo, per citare proprio uno dei suoi carmi. Poesie brevissime che condensano in due o tre versi una straordinaria raffinatezza stilistica e la più alta espressione del sentimento amoroso si affiancano a testi infarciti di insulti ed espressioni volgari e a carmi più lunghi e complessi (i così detti carmina docta) di argomento mitologico. È tutto il mondo romano, con i suoi personaggi, la sua vita, la sua cultura, a emergere da questa raccolta poetica e al termine della lettura sembra quasi riduttivo pensare a Catullo solo come a un poeta d'amore.
Ad accomunare questa variegata produzione è l'estrema cura stilistica che caratterizza tutti i componimenti, anche quelli di argomento più basso o dal linguaggio più volgare, che possono sembrare il frutto di un'invettiva spontanea. Di spontaneo in questi versi c'è poco. Catullo, e con lui tutto il gruppo dei poetae novi di cui fa parte, recupera la poetica di Callimaco, un poeta di età ellenistica vissuto tra il IV e il III secolo a.C. ad Alessandria d'Egitto. Questo autore rigetta i componimenti troppo lunghi e prolissi, poco curati dal punto di vista stilistico, e propone invece poesie snelle, ma caratterizzate da un'altissima cura del dettato poetico, una erudizione raffinata e un lungo, accurato labor limae (l'espressione, però, è del poeta latino Orazio), lavoro di limatura, che consiste nel tornare di continuo sul testo e perfezionarlo, levigando lo stile, selezionando il lessico, rifinendo la struttura retorica. Catullo abbraccia questa visione della poesia, criticando senza remore i lunghissimi, pesanti, noiosi poemi della letteratura latina del passato e prendendo in giro senza pietà i loro epigoni a lui contemporanei, ben poco dotati come poeti. Quindi anche i testi che sembrano più legati a occasioni del momento, come banchetti o fugaci incontri d'amore, sono in realtà frutto di una lunga e attenta revisione stilistica.
Per di più, i poetae novi respingono anche i contenuti della poesia tradizionale, rifiutano l'attività pubblica e politica, si disinteressano del bene comune, della storia, delle guerre civili, delle conquiste, e preferiscono cantare l'amore, le amicizie, i rapporti tra i membri del loro stesso circolo, la vita galante. Proprio questo rifiuto per la cosa pubblica, che per i romani della vecchia generazione è sacra, scatena contro di loro e contro Catullo i rimproveri di Cicerone, attivissimo nella vita politica. È lui a coniare l'espressione poetae novi in senso dispregiativo: insomma, dei giovani, viziosi, raffinati poetastri appena arrivati che pensano di poter abbandonare il mos maiorum (i costumi degli antichi) e parlare di quello che vogliono senza rispetto per la tradizione, la politica e i doveri del cittadino romano. E anche Cicerone si guadagna un posto nel liber di Catullo, che lo cita in un componimento per ringraziarlo, non sappiamo per cosa, ma probabilmente con intento ironico. Cicerone, forse, non ha apprezzato. Noi senz’altro sì.

[Alp Turgut · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eski Roma'nın aşk ve nefreti işleyen lirik şairi olan Catullus'un bütün şiirlerini okuyucuya sunan "Bütün Şiirler - Veronalı Catullus'un Kitabı", Virgil ve Ovid'e esin kaynağı olmuş yazarın Sappho (aşk teması) ve Hipponax'ın (müstehcen dil) mirasını nasıl bir üst seviyeye taşıdığına şahitlik ediyoruz. Şiirlerinde daha çok aşık olduğu Lesbia'ya olan nefretini kusarken yazara karşı kötü davranışta bulunan isimleri de eleştirdiğini görüyoruz. Fazla özel isim barındırmasından dolayı okuması zor bir eser olmakla beraber çevirisinin de çok akıcı olduğunu söylenemez. Buna rağmen Roma Edebiyatı'nı tam olarak özümseyebilmek için göz atılması gerekiyor. Ve tabii lirik şiirin geçtiği süreci görebilmek için.

07.07.2015
İstanbul, Türkiye

Alp Turgut

http://www.filmdoktoru.com/kitap-labo...

[Samantha Olson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best thing I’ve read in months. Catullus is beyond incredible. Poems include but are not limited to:
- Love poem to private yacht
- Passive aggressive poem regarding the theme of “you smell bad and that’s why women don’t like you. ‘Reach for the deodorant.’”
- “Your grandpa is a creep lol”
- Yelling at a prostitute who stole your pocketbook. Relatable content
- A hint of casual gay
- Making dick jokes for literally no reason other than “the hell of it”
5/5

[Ana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish I'd read this book in high school, I would have liked the Romans more.

Yes, Catullus wrote poems to and about his friends, erotic poems, invectives and condolences but I personally believe that he lives up to his fame as the inventor of the "angry love poem". His spiteful humor is great and the petty is strong, resounding as clear today as two millennia ago.

[emma ꪆৎ]

virgil in the streets
catullus in the sheets

[Ginny_1807 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Miser Catulle, desinas ineptire,
et quod vides perisse perditum ducas.
Fulsere quondam candidi tibi soles,
cum ventitabas quo puella ducebat
amata nobis quantum amabitur nulla.
Ibi illa multa tum iocosa fiebant,
quae tu volebas nec puella nolebat.
Fulsere vere candidi tibi soles.
Nunc iam illa non vult: tu quoque impotens noli,
nec quae fugit sectare, nec miser vive,
sed obstinata mente perfer, obdura.
Vale puella, iam Catullus obdurat,
nec te requiret nec rogabit invitam.
At tu dolebis, cum rogaberis nulla.
Scelesta, vae te! Quae tibi manet vita?
Quis nunc te adibit? Cui videberis bella?
Quem nunc amabis? cuius esse diceris?
Quem basiabis? cui labella mordebis?
At tu, Catulle, destinatus obdura.
(C.8)

[Derek · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t read a lot of poetry but when I do…

This stuff is great. Mayakovsky meets Ice Cube meets Akhmatova. Clever. Varied. Brutal. Sexy. Confident. Romantic.

[māris šteinbergs · Rating 5 out of 5]

absolūta pornogrāfija tā roma

[Patrick Kennedy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The long poems, which Catullus himself regarded as his greatest achievements, are exquisite. The shorter poems are superficial, sophomoric, melodramatic, obscene…and also a lot of fun.

[Cassandra Kay Silva · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a sensual, torrid, and beautifully composed set of work is this? I am speechless. Catullus your words are like silk. Your stories and musings on human behavior are debauchery at its best. And Ha! The poem regarding your defense of flowery rhetoric. For you are fed wine and grapes in abound and surrounded by ladies night and day. In truth who could fault you for such as this! Oh a man who knows women, and knows his way around the written word is a rare and delicious treat.

[AB · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing book of poetry by a truly great Latin poet.

[Veronica]

allora va bene tutto ok la traduzione un po’ edgy non letterale ma a “un mr hyde è in lui” ho urlato ngl

[Diana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Si conegués a Catullus no se si li clavaria una bufetada o si l'abraçaria i li diria que tot sortirà be, segurament les dos coses.

La traducció d'A. Seva pren algunes decisions que em semblen qüestionables, però no està mal.

[Francesca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Da giorni penso. Cosa è l'Amore?
Da sempre abbiamo pensato che una delle massime dell'Amore sia quello che Catullo ha vissuto per Lesbia. Ma quello era davvero Amore? No, a mio avviso.
"Deve essere calore non un tormento", giusto, sante parole, ci rifletto da giorni.

Odi et amo. Quare id faciam fortasse requiris,
Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

L'Amore è Tormento? No. Non si può odiare chi si ama. Nè si può amare chi si odia. Tutto questo gioco di opposti non è ciò che l'Amore è, almeno per me.
Amare è condivisione, nel bene e nel male. E' far cena insieme, colazione o pranzo, parlare e scontro, anche forte se è il caso. Amare è volersi bene, ma bene per davvero. Senza gelosia né diventare pazzi.
Per cosa poi? Amare è un lusso che solo pochi sanno riconoscere. L'amore è fatto non di attimi ma di quotidianità, conoscere l'altro in tutti i suoi difetti e pregi, conoscere le smorfie del viso, ogni neo e ogni lato del corpo. Amare è accettare di vivere nelle diversità anche politiche, perché non siamo uguali, Dio ci ha fatto diversi l'un dall'altro. Amare è anche lasciare "andare l'altro", perché si vuole il suo bene e se le strade si dividono pazienza. (cit)
Amare è persino fare la pipì a porte aperte, con l'amato/a accanto.
Amare è andare in giro senza meta, perdersi nei luoghi, girovagare per bettole, ristoranti a basso costo, scaldarsi in riva al mare, osservare le stelle. Amare è un corpo unico, ma con i propri spazi e lasciare liberi, rispettare spazi altrui. Amare è scazzarsi, avere minuti di silenzio, guardare film insieme, avere pareri diversi e discutere. Amare è stare insieme sul divano, a guardare quella o quell'altra serie TV. Amare è ascoltare e ascoltarsi. Nella gioia e nel dolore.
L'amore è quello per i figli, se mai verranno.

Quello che Catullo ha provato per Lesbia non era Amore, ma tormento. E cari lettori, se pensate ancora che questa massima di Catullo sia l'espressione più bella dell'Amore, vi sbagliate di grosso.

Forse scrivo ancora in stato febbrile, ma dopo varie relazioni, di per certo, posso dire cosa l'Amore non è.

[Wendell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Catullus is a great Latin poet whose verse is astonishingly contemporary in the treatment of his themes of love and betrayal. Most of his poems are brief, less than 20 lines, and about a third of these are about his love affair with Lesbia, who is probably Clodia, a married woman from one of Rome's leading families. Other poems deal with his friendships and betrayals, including some delightful insults. In addition, there are eight longer poems, including two marriage songs, a poem about Attis who castrated himself for the goddess Cybele, a complex and gorgeous poem about the marriage of Peleus and Thetis, and No. 68, perhaps his most complex and personal poem. His shorter poems are often quite obscene, and older translations generally gloss over or omit his blunt expressions, so it is important to read a contemporary translation. I have read three of them that I can recommend: by G.P. Gould, Charles Martin, and this one, by Peter Green.

When it comes to reading poets in translation, I try to read more than one translation, because no translation is perfect, and comparing them can give you a better idea of the possibilities of the original. If you know anything of the original language, it is also helpful to have a bilingual version in order to get some sense of the sound and rhythm of the original. This translation, by Peter Green, is one of two best of those I read, and it also contains a comprehensive commentary, more extensive than either of the other two translations I used. A word of caution: None of the comments attached to this translation and to the Martin translation on Powell's site are about either of those versions.