Die Welt des Catull: Gedichte und deutsche Übersetzungen

Gaius Valerius Catullus, ein römischer Dichter, der im turbulenten Zeitalter der späten Republik schrieb, hinterließ eine Sammlung von Versen, die bis heute mit verblüffender Unmittelbarkeit nachklingen. Seine Gedichte – roh, leidenschaftlich, satirisch und zutiefst persönlich – bieten einen einzigartigen Einblick in das Leben, die Lieben und die soziale Welt Roms im ersten Jahrhundert v. Chr. Für moderne Leser hängt der Zugang zu dieser lebendigen Stimme oft von der Qualität und Zugänglichkeit von Catulls Gedichten in Übersetzung ab. Übersetzung ist nicht bloß eine Übertragung von Worten; sie ist ein Akt der Überbrückung von Kulturen und Jahrhunderten, der versucht, den Witz, das Metrum und die brennenden Emotionen des lateinischen Originals einzufangen.

Dieser Artikel taucht in die Welt des Catull ein und erkundet seine vielfältigen Themen und seine anhaltende Anziehungskraft durch die Bräfte der Übersetzung. Wir werden seine gefeierten Gedichte untersuchen, vom berüchtigten Lesbia-Zyklus bis hin zu beißenden Schmähschriften und berührenden Elegien, und dabei würdigen, wie geschickte Übersetzung diesen antiken Versen erlaubt, neu aufzublühen.

Gaius Valerius Catullus: Leben, Lieben und literarische Landschaft

Geboren um 84 v. Chr. in Verona, kam Catullus in einer Zeit bedeutender politischer Umwälzungen und sozialer Veränderungen nach Rom. Im Gegensatz zu den großen Epikern früherer Epochen konzentrierte sich Catullus auf die Betonung persönlicher Erfahrung, ausgefeilter Verse und griechischer Vorbilder (insbesondere hellenistische Dichter wie Kallimachos), wie sie von der Bewegung der novi poetae (neuen Dichter) vertreten wurde. Sein Werk zeichnet sich durch seine beeindruckende Offenheit, emotionale Intensität und technische Brillanz in verschiedenen Metren aus.

Sein berühmtestes Sujet ist die rätselhafte Lesbia, von der angenommen wird, dass es sich um Clodia handelt, die Ehefrau von Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer. Der Lesbia-Zyklus zeichnet die volatile Entwicklung ihrer Affäre nach, von ekstatische Liebe bis zu bitterer Enttäuschung. Doch Catulls Dichtung reicht weit darüber hinaus und spricht Freunde (wie Calvus, Cinna und Veranius) an, prangert Feinde (Mamurra, Caesar, Gellius) an, trauert um Verluste (seinen Bruder) und feiert die Rituale des Lebens (Hochzeiten). Seine Fähigkeit, die flüchtigen Momente menschlicher Emotionen einzufangen, gepaart mit scharfer Sozialkritik und Obszönität, macht ihn zu einer der fesselndsten und zugänglichsten Figuren der Antike.

Die Kunst der Übersetzung: Antikes Latein zum Leben erwecken

Die Übersetzung von Catullus stellt eine einzigartige Reihe von Herausforderungen dar. Die lateinische Sprache mit ihrer flexiblen Wortstellung und reichen Flexionen unterscheidet sich stark vom Deutschen. Catullus verwendete eine Vielzahl von Metren, bei denen Übersetzer entscheiden müssen, ob sie diese nachbilden, anpassen oder zugunsten von Freiversen aufgeben wollen. Darüber hinaus enthalten seine Gedichte zahlreiche Anspielungen auf das römische Leben der damaligen Zeit, auf Mythologie und bestimmte Personen, was für moderne Leser Erläuterungen erfordert. Die berüchtigte Verwendung expliziter Sprache und scharfer Schmähreden zwingt Übersetzer auch dazu, sich Fragen des Tons und der Werktreue zu stellen.

Eine erfolgreiche Übersetzung von Catulls Gedichten erfasst nicht nur die wörtliche Bedeutung, sondern auch den Geist, die Energie und das emotionale Gewicht des Originals. Sie versucht, die antike Stimme für ein neues Publikum hörbar und fühlbar zu machen. A. S. Klines Übersetzung, die im Originaltext enthalten ist, ist ein solcher Versuch, Catullus zugänglich zu machen, indem er die Gedichte in klarem, modernem Englisch präsentiert.

Um weitere Arten von Versen über Catull hinaus zu erkunden, könnten Sie sich für einige der die besten kurzen Gedichte aller Zeiten aus verschiedenen Epochen und Kulturen interessieren.

Erkundung der übersetzten Gedichte von Catullus

Die hier präsentierte Sammlung bietet eine Reise durch Catulls berühmteste und charakteristischste Werke. Nach Konvention nummeriert, offenbaren diese Gedichte die Breite seiner poetischen Interessen und seines emotionalen Spektrums.

Gedicht 1: Die Widmung

Kommentar: Catullus widmet sein „frisches kleines Buch“ Cornelius Nepos, würdigt dessen wissenschaftliche Arbeit und hofft, dass seine eigenen „Kleinigkeiten“ (leichten Verse) Bestand haben werden. Dieses Gedicht gibt einen Ton bescheidenen Ehrgeizes vor, der im Kontrast zur bleibenden Qualität seiner Verse steht.

To whom do I send this fresh little book of wit, just polished off with dry pumice? To you, Cornelius: since you were accustomed to consider my trifles worth something even then, when you alone of Italians dared to explain all the ages, in three learned works, by Jupiter, and with the greatest labour. Then take this little book for your own: whatever it is, and is worth: virgin Muse, patroness, let it last, for more lives than one.

Römischer Autor widmet ein Buch

Gedicht 2: Tränen für Lesbias Sperling

Kommentar: Eine liebevolle Darstellung von Lesbia, die mit ihrem Haussperling spielt. Das Gedicht fängt einen Moment der Zärtlichkeit ein und deutet auf die Intensität der Gefühle des Sprechers für Lesbia hin, indem es ihre spielerische Interaktion mit dem Vogel seinem eigenen „starken Verlangen“ gegenüberstellt.

Sparrow, my sweet girl’s delight, whom she plays with, holds to her breast, whom, greedy, she gives her little finger to, often provoking you to a sharp bite, whenever my shining desire wishes to play with something she loves, I suppose, while strong passion abates, it might be a small relief from her pain: might I toy with you as she does and ease the cares of a sad mind!

Gedicht 2b: Atalanta

Kommentar: Ein kurzes, elliptisches Gedicht, das auf den Mythos von Atalanta und den goldenen Äpfeln verweist. Es wird oft als ein kurzes, suggestives Bild von Begehren und Nachgeben interpretiert, vielleicht ein Fragment oder ein Begleitstück.

It’s as pleasing to me as, they say, that golden apple was to the swift girl, that loosed her belt, too long tied.

Mythologische Szene mit Figuren

Gedicht 3: Der Tod von Lesbias Sperling

Kommentar: Eine berühmte Klage über den Tod von Lesbias Sperling, die die vertraute Anwesenheit des Vogels mit seinem Abstieg in die Unterwelt kontrastiert. Der Ton ist traurig und übertrieben, was die Tiefe der Trauer Lesbias (und des Sprechers) hervorhebt und den Vogel als geliebten Begleiter personifiziert. Diese übertriebene Trauer unterstreicht die Hingabe des Sprechers an Lesbia.

Mourn, O you Loves and Cupids and such of you as love beauty: my girl’s sparrow is dead, sparrow, the girl’s delight, whom she loved more than her eyes. For he was sweet as honey, and knew her as well as the girl her own mother, he never moved from her lap, but, hopping about here and there, chirped to his mistress alone. Now he goes down the shadowy road from which they say no one returns. Now let evil be yours, evil shadows of Orcus, that devour everything of beauty: you’ve stolen lovely sparrow from me. O evil deed! O poor little sparrow! Now, by your efforts, my girl’s eyes are swollen and red with weeping.

Figur, die mit der Unterwelt in Verbindung steht

Gedicht 4: Sein Boot

Kommentar: Dieses Gedicht, scheinbar über ein Boot, verwandelt sich in eine Metapher für das Leben oder die Erfahrungen des Sprechers. Das Boot erzählt seine Geschichte, vom Holz auf einem Berg bis zum Segeln auf gefährlichen Meeren, um schließlich sicher zu ruhen. Es reflektiert Reisen, Geschwindigkeit und das schließliche ruhige Altern.

This boat you see, friends, will tell you that she was the fastest of craft, not to be challenged for speed by any vessel afloat, whether driven by sail or the labour of oars. The threatening Adriatic coast won’t deny it, nor the isles of the Cyclades, nor noble Rhodes, nor fearful Bosphorus, nor the grim bay of the Black Sea where, before becoming a boat, she was leafy wood: for on the heights of Cytorus she often hissed to the whispering leaves. The boat says these things were well known to you, and are, Amastris and box-wood clad Cytorus: she says from the very beginning she stood on your slope, that she dipped her oars in your water, and carried her owner from there over so many headstrong breakers, whether the wind cried from starboard or larboard, or whether Jupiter struck at the sheets on one side and the other, together: and no prayers to the gods of the shore were offered for her, when she came from a foreign sea here, as far as this limpid lake. But that’s past: now hidden away here she ages quietly and offers herself to you, Castor and his brother, heavenly Twins.

Gemälde mit mythologischen Figuren

Gedicht 5: Lasst uns leben und lieben: an Lesbia

Kommentar: Vielleicht das berühmteste von Catulls Gedichten, „Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus“ (Lasst uns leben, meine Lesbia, und lieben), ist eine leidenschaftliche Bitte, die Liebe angesichts gesellschaftlicher Missbilligung und der Kürze des Lebens zu umarmen. Die Betonung unzähliger Küsse wird zu einer Art, Konventionen zu trotzen und die unermessliche Intensität ihrer Liebe zu messen. Dies ist ein typisches romantisches Gedicht.

Let us live, my Lesbia, let us love, and all the words of the old, and so moral, may they be worth less than nothing to us! Suns may set, and suns may rise again: but when our brief light has set, night is one long everlasting sleep. Give me a thousand kisses, a hundred more, another thousand, and another hundred, and, when we’ve counted up the many thousands, confuse them so as not to know them all, so that no enemy may cast an evil eye, by knowing that there were so many kisses.

Gedicht 6: Flavius’s Mädchen: an Flavius

Kommentar: Ein spielerisches und suggestives Gedicht, das sich an einen Freund, Flavius, richtet, der offensichtlich in eine leidenschaftliche, geheime Affäre verwickelt ist. Catullus beschreibt humorvoll die verräterischen Anzeichen von Flavius‘ nächtlichen Aktivitäten und fordert ihn auf, sich zu bekennen, damit Catullus seine Liebe in Versen verewigen kann.

Flavius, unless your delights were tasteless and inelegant, you’d want to tell, and couldn’t be silent. Surely you’re in love with some feverish little whore: you’re ashamed to confess it. Now, pointlessly silent, you don’t seem to be idle of nights, it’s proclaimed by your bed garlanded, fragrant with Syrian perfume, squashed cushions and pillows, here and there, and the trembling frame shaken, quivering and wandering about. But being silent does nothing for you. Why? Spread thighs blab it’s not so, if not quite what foolishness you commit. How and whatever you’ve got, good or bad, tell us. I want to name you and your loves to the heavens in charming verse.

Gedicht 7: Wie viele Küsse: an Lesbia

Kommentar: Eine Fortsetzung von Gedicht 5. Lesbia fragt, wie viele Küsse „genug“ wären. Catullus antwortet mit extravaganten Vergleichen – Sandkörner in Libyen, Sterne am Nachthimmel – was darauf hindeutet, dass sein Begehren unermesslich und jenseits menschlicher Zählungen ist, um sie vor neidischen Blicken zu schützen.

Lesbia, you ask how many kisses of yours would be enough and more to satisfy me. As many as the grains of Libyan sand that lie between hot Jupiter’s oracle, at Ammon, in resin-producing Cyrene, and old Battiades sacred tomb: or as many as the stars, when night is still, gazing down on secret human desires: as many of your kisses kissed are enough, and more, for mad Catullus, as can’t be counted by spies nor an evil tongue bewitch us.

Kopf einer antiken Gottheit

Gedicht 8: Rat: an sich selbst

Kommentar: Ein ergreifender innerer Monolog, vielleicht die berühmteste Darstellung seines Kampfes, seine verheerende Liebe zu Lesbia zu überwinden. Catullus ringt mit dem Schmerz der Ablehnung und fordert sich selbst auf, stark zu sein und weiterzumachen, während er gleichzeitig Lesbias zukünftiges Bedauern und ihre Einsamkeit imaginiert.

Sad Catullus, stop playing the fool, and let what you know leads you to ruin, end. Once, bright days shone for you, when you came often drawn to the girl loved as no other will be loved by you. Then there were many pleasures with her, that you wished, and the girl not unwilling, truly the bright days shone for you. And now she no longer wants you: and you weak man, be unwilling to chase what flees, or live in misery: be strong-minded, stand firm. Goodbye girl, now Catullus is firm, he doesn’t search for you, won’t ask unwillingly. But you’ll grieve, when nobody asks. Woe to you, wicked girl, what life’s left for you? Who’ll submit to you now? Who’ll see your beauty? Who now will you love? Whose will they say you’ll be? Who will you kiss? Whose lips will you bite? But you, Catullus, be resolved to be firm.

Gedicht 9: Zurück aus Spanien: an Veranius

Kommentar: Ein freudiges Willkommen für seinen Freund Veranius, der von einer Reise nach Spanien zurückkehrt. Das Gedicht fängt die Wärme der Freundschaft, die Gier auf Reiseberichte und die einfache Freude des Wiedersehens ein.

Veranius, first to me of all my three hundred thousand friends, have you come home to your own house your harmonious brothers, and old mother? You’re back. O happy news for me! I’ll see you safe and sound and listen to your tales of Spanish places that you’ve done, and tribes, as is your custom, and hang about your neck, and kiss your lovely mouth and eyes. O who of all men is happier than I the gladdest and happiest?

Gedicht 10: Klare Worte für Varus’s Mädchen: an Varus

Kommentar: Eine humorvolle Anekdote, die erzählt, wie Catullus mit Varus eine Prostituierte besucht, wo er fälschlicherweise mit dem Reichtum prahlt, den er in Bithynien erworben hat. Seine Lüge wird entlarvt, als sie bittet, seine imaginären Sänftenträger auszuleihen, was zu einem amüsanten Moment der Verlegenheit führt.

Varus drags me into his affairs out of the Forum, where I’m seen idling: to a little whore I immediately saw, not very inelegant, not unattractive, who, when we came there, met us with varied chatter, including, how might Bithynia stand now, what’s it like, and where might the benefit have been to me in cash. I told her what’s true, nothing at all, while neither the praetors nor their aides, return any the richer, especially since our Praetor, Memmius, the bugger, cared not a jot for his followers. ‘But surely,’ they said, you could have bought slaves they say are made for the litter there.’ I, so the girl might take me to be wealthy, said ‘no, for me things weren’t so bad, that coming across one bad province, I couldn’t buy eight good men.’ But I’d no one, neither here nor there, who might even raise to his shoulder the shattered foot of an old couch. At this she, like the shameless thing she was, said ‘I beg you, my dear Catullus, for the loan of them, just for a while: I’d like to be carried to Serap’s temple.’ ‘Wait’ I said to the girl, ‘what I just said was mine, isn’t actually in my possession: my friend Cinna, that’s Gaius, purchased the thing for himself. Whether they’re his or mine, what difference to me? I use them just as well as if I’d bought them myself. But you are quite tasteless, and annoying, you with whom no inexactness is allowed.’

Antikes Relief: Figuren vor einer Gottheit

Gedicht 11: Worte gegen Lesbia: an Furius und Aurelius

Kommentar: Ein brutaler und berühmter Abschied von Lesbia, überbracht durch Freunde, die beauftragt werden, seine bittere Botschaft zu übermitteln. Das Gedicht kontrastiert exotische, weit entfernte Orte mit Lesbias Promiskuität und gipfelt in der kraftvollen Metapher ihrer Liebe als eine Blume, die durch einen vorbeifahrenden Pflug zerstört wurde. Es markiert eine scharfe Kehrtwendung gegenüber früheren liebevollen Gedichten.

Furius and Aurelius, you friends of Catullus, whether he penetrates farthest India, where the Eastern waves strike the shore with deep resonance, or among the Hyrcanians and supple Arabs, or Sacians and Parthian bowmen, or where the seven-mouthed Nile colours the waters, or whether he’ll climb the high Alps, viewing great Caesar’s monuments, the waters of Gallic Rhine, and the furthest fierce Britons, whatever the will of the heavens brings, ready now for anything, tell my girl this in a few ill-omened words. Let her live and be happy with her adulterers, hold all three-hundred in her embrace, truly love-less, wearing them all down again and again: let her not look for my love as before, she whose crime destroyed it, like the last flower of the field, touched once by the passing plough.

Gedicht 12: Hört auf, die Servietten zu stehlen! : an Asinius Marrucinus

Kommentar: Ein leichtfüßiges, aber spitzes Gedicht, das einen Freund, Asinius Marrucinus, tadelt, weil er bei gesellschaftlichen Anlässen Servietten stiehlt. Catullus scherzt darüber, besteht aber auf der Rückgabe seiner Servietten, die sentimentale Geschenke von anderen Freunden sind.

Asinius Marrucinus, you don’t employ your left hand too well: in wine and jest you take neglected table-linen. Do you think that’s witty? Get lost, you fool: it’s such a sordid and such an unattractive thing. Don’t you believe me? Believe Pollionus your brother, who wishes your thefts could be fixed by money: he’s a boy truly stuffed with wit and humour. So expect three hundred hendecasyllables or return my napkin, whose value doesn’t disturb me, truly, it’s a remembrance of my friends. Fabullus and Veranius sent me the gift, napkins from Spain: they must be cherished as my Veranius and Fabullus must be.

Gedicht 13: Einladung: an Fabullus

Kommentar: Eine charmante Einladung an einen Freund, Fabullus, zum Abendessen. Catullus gibt humorvoll zu, dass er selbst weder Essen noch Wein hat, bietet aber etwas Besseres: gute Gesellschaft, Witz, Lachen und ein besonderes Parfüm, das ihm von Lesbia geschenkt wurde, so exquisit, dass es Fabullus wünschen lassen wird, er wäre „ganz Nase“.

You’ll dine well, in a few days, with me, if the gods are kind to you, my dear Fabullus, and if you bring lots of good food with you, and don’t come without a pretty girl and wine and wit and all your laughter. I say you’ll dine well, and charmingly, if you bring all that: since your Catullus’s purse alas is full of cobwebs. But accept endearments in return for the wine or whatever’s sweeter and finer: since I’ll give you a perfume my girl was given by the Loves and Cupids, and when you’ve smelt it, you’ll ask the gods to make you, Fabullus, all nose.

Gedicht 14: Was für ein Buch! : an Calvus den Dichter

Kommentar: Eine humorvolle Beschwerde an seinen Freund, den Dichter Calvus, weil dieser ihm während des Saturnalienfestes eine schreckliche Gedichtsammlung als Geschenk geschickt hat. Catullus scherzt, dass ein solches Buch ein Fluch sei und verspricht, sich zu rächen, indem er Calvus ebenso schreckliche Werke anderer schlechter Dichter schickt.

If I didn’t love you more than my eyes, most delightful Calvus, I’d dislike you for this gift, with a true Vatinian dislike: Now what did I do and what did I say, to be so badly cursed with poets? Let the gods send ill-luck to that client who sent you so many wretches. But if, as I guess, Sulla the grammarian gave you this new and inventive gift, that’s no harm to me, it’s good and fine that your efforts aren’t all wasted. Great gods, an amazing, immortal book! That you sent, of course, to your Catullus, so he might immediately die, on the optimum day, in the Saturnalia! No you won’t get away with this crime. Now when it’s light enough I’ll run to the copyists bookstalls, I’ll acquire Caesius, Aquinus, Suffenus, all of the poisonous ones. And I’ll repay you for this suffering. Meanwhile farewell take yourself off, there, whence your unlucky feet brought you, cursed ones of the age, worst of poets.

Gedicht 15: Eine Warnung: an Aurelius

Kommentar: Catullus vertraut einen jungen Mann, vielleicht seinen Geliebten, der Obhut seines Freundes Aurelius an, äußert aber sofort tiefes Misstrauen gegenüber Aurelius‘ sexuellem Raubtierverhalten. Das Gedicht ist eine deutliche Warnung, die drastische Bilder verwendet, vor jeder Verletzung des Jungen.

I commend myself and my love to you, Aurelius. I ask for modest indulgence, so, if you’ve ever had a desire in your mind you’ve pursued chastely and purely, keep this boy of mine modestly safe, I don’t speak to the masses – nothing to fear from those who pass to and fro in the streets occupied with their business – truly the fear’s of you and your cock dangerous to both good and bad boys. Shake it about as you please, and with as much force as you please, wherever you choose, outside: I except him from that, with modesty, I think. But if tempests of mind, and mad passion impel you to too much sin, you wretch, so you fill my boy’s head with deceptions, then let misery, and evil fate, be yours! Of him whom, with feet dragged apart, an open door, radishes and mullets pass through.

Gedicht 16: Ein Tadel: an Aurelius und Furius

Kommentar: Ein scharfzüngiger Angriff auf Aurelius und Furius, die Catulls Verse offenbar als zu explizit oder weibisch kritisiert haben, basierend auf ihrem Inhalt (mit Bezug auf die „tausend Küsse“ aus Gedicht 5). Catullus argumentiert, dass ein Dichter selbst keusch sein sollte, seine Verse jedoch ausschweifend und witzig sein können, ohne seine eigene Männlichkeit zu beeinträchtigen. Er endet mit einer schockierenden Drohung in grober Sprache.

I’ll fuck you and bugger you, Aurelius the pathic, and sodomite Furius, who thought you knew me from my verses, since they’re erotic, not modest enough. It suits the poet himself to be dutifully chaste, his verses not necessarily so at all: which, in short then, have wit and good taste even if they’re erotic, not modest enough, and as for that can incite to lust, I don’t speak to boys, but to hairy ones who can’t move their stiff loins. You, who read all these thousand kisses, you think I’m less of a man? I’ll fuck you, and I’ll bugger you.

Gedicht 17: Die Stadt Cologna Veneta

Kommentar: Dieses Gedicht richtet sich an eine Stadt (Cologna Veneta), die für eine wackelige Brücke bekannt ist. Catullus hofft auf eine neue Brücke, wünscht sich aber auch, einen bestimmten „geistlosen“ Mitbürger in den Schlamm darunter fallen zu sehen, wobei er die Gefühllosigkeit des Mannes gegenüber seiner jungen Frau mit dem lebhaften Potenzial der Stadtbrücke kontrastiert. (Anmerkung: Nr. 18-20 gelten als unecht und sind hier ausgelassen).

O Cologna, who want a long bridge to sport on, and are ready to dance, though you fear the useless bridge-props with their much-patched standing timber, lest they tumble and lie in deep mud: let a good bridge be made for you as you desire where even leap-frogging priests are safe: but Cologna, give me that greatest gift, a good laugh. I want a fellow-citizen of mine to go head over heels straight into the deep mire from your bridge, since truly the whole pool and the putrid marsh is the blackest and deepest of chasms. The man’s totally dull, knows no more than a two-year-old child, asleep in its father’s trembling arms. Who, though he’s married a girl in her first flowering, a girl more delicate than a pretty little kid, needing to be tended more carefully than choicest grapes, let’s her play as she wishes, doesn’t care a fig, hasn’t risen to the occasion, but like an alder in a Ligurian ditch, crippled by the axe, feels as much of it all as if there were no woman there: Such is his stupor he doesn’t see, or hear me, he, who doesn’t know who he is, or whether he is or not. Now I want to toss him headlong from your bridge, if it’s possible suddenly to raise that stupefied dullness, and abandon that indolent mind in the heavy bog, as mules cast shoes into tenacious depths.

Gedicht 21: Gierig: an Aurelius.

Kommentar: Ein weiterer Angriff auf Aurelius, dem Catullus sexuelle Übergriffe auf seine Freunde, insbesondere auf den in Gedicht 15 erwähnten jungen Mann, vorwirft. Catullus verwendet harte, explizite Sprache, um seinen Abscheu auszudrücken und Aurelius zu warnen.

Aurelius, father of hungers, you desire to fuck, not just these, but whoever my friends were, or are, or will be in future years. not secretly: now at the same time as you joke with one, you try clinging to him on every side. In vain: now my insidious cock will bugger you first. And, if you’re filled, I’ll say nothing: Now I’m grieving for him: you teach my boy, mine, to hunger and thirst. So lay off: while you’ve any shame, or you will end up being buggered.

Gedicht 22: Leute, die im Glashaus sitzen: an Varus

Kommentar: Catullus verspottet den Dichter Suffenus, der sich für einen raffinierten Schriftsteller hält, aber schreckliche Gedichte verfasst. Catullus nutzt dies als Beispiel für Selbsttäuschung und merkt an, dass jeder seinen eigenen blinden Fleck hat („wir sehen den Pack auf unserem eigenen Rücken nicht“).

Varus, that Suffenus, thoroughly known to us, is a man who’s charming, witty, urbane, and the same man for ages has penned many verses. I think he’s written a thousand, ten thousand, or more, not those that are done on cheap manuscript paper: but princely papyri, new books, new roller ends, new red ties for the parchment, lead-ruled and smoothed all-over with pumice. When you read them, that lovely urbane Suffenus turns into a goat-herd or a ditch-digger: he’s so altered and strange. What should we think of it? He who might just now have been playing the fool, being witty with the thing, the same man’s crude, crude as a bumpkin, he mentions his poems as well, nor is there ever likewise anything as happy as the poems he writes: he delights in himself so, is so amazed by himself. Of course we’re all deceived in the same way, and there’s no one who can’t somehow or other be seen as a Suffenus. Whoever it is, is subject to error: we don’t see the pack on our own back.

Gedicht 23: Armut: an Furius

Kommentar: Ein satirisches Gedicht, das sich an seinen unglaublich armen Freund Furius richtet. Catullus schlägt humorvoll vor, dass Furius‘ Armut eine Art Reichtum oder Gesundheit sei, da er nichts zu verlieren habe und aufgrund von Nahrungsmangel körperlich „ausgetrocknet“ sei. Der Humor ist düster und basiert auf lebhaften, wenig schmeichelhaften physischen Beschreibungen.

Furius, you who’ve neither slaves nor cash nor beetles nor spiders nor fire, truly have a father and step-mother, whose teeth can chew like flints: that’s fine for you, and your father and your father’s wooden wife. No wonder: since you’re all well, good digestion, nothing to fear, no flames, no weighty disasters, no wicked deeds, no threat of poison, no chance of further dangers. And you’ve a body drier than bone or whatever is most desiccated by heat and cold and hunger. Why wouldn’t you be well and happy? You’ve no sweat, no phlegm, or mucus, or evil cold in the head. To this cleanliness add more cleanliness, your arse is purer than a little salt-cellar, and doesn’t crap ten times in a year: and your shit’s harder than beans or pebbles. So if you rub it and crush it between your fingers, you can’t stain a single finger: it all suits you so happily Furius, don’t despise it, or consider it nothing, and cease to beg for that hundred sestertia you always ask for: sufficiency is riches.

Gedicht 24: Furius’s Armut: an Iuventius

Kommentar: Catullus wendet sich an Iuventius, einen seiner jungen männlichen Geliebten, und warnt ihn vor Furius, wobei er dessen extreme Armut betont, obwohl dieser scheinbar ein anständiger Mensch ist. Die Wiederholung unterstreicht den zentralen Punkt des Mangels an Reichtum bei Furius.

Iuventius, who are our pride, not just now, for all times that have been, or will be hereafter in later years, rather surrender Midas’s riches to him, who has no slaves or cash, than allow yourself to be loved by him. ‘Why, isn’t he a decent man?’ you ask. He is: but this decent man has no slaves or cash. Ignore it: disparage it as you may: he still has no slaves and no money.

Gemälde mit mythologischen Figuren

Gedicht 25: Gib mir meine Sachen zurück: an Thallus

Kommentar: Eine harte und obszöne Schmährede, gerichtet an Thallus, der Catullus‘ Besitztümer gestohlen hat. Catullus kontrastiert Thallus‘ Zartheit und Weiblichkeit mit seinem räuberischen Verhalten und droht ihm mit Peitschenhieben, wenn er die gestohlenen Gegenstände nicht zurückgibt.

Thallus the sodomite, softer than rabbit’s fur or goose grease, or the little tip of the ear, or an old man’s slack penis mouldy with spider-webs, and that same Thallus more rapacious than a wild storm, when the sea-goddess reveals the yawning breakwaters, return my cloak, you pounced on, and Spanish napkin, and Bithynian painted ware, absurd man, that you ‘own’ openly like heirlooms. Now, unglue them from your talons, and return them, lest those soft little flanks and tender fingers are shamefully written over with the mark of the lash, and you toss immoderately, like a paltry boat caught in a heavy sea, in a raging wind.

Gedicht 26: Die Hypothek: an Furius

Kommentar: Ein kurzes, witziges Gedicht über Furius‘ Villa. Anstatt den Elementen ausgesetzt zu sein, behauptet Catullus, dass sie nur finanziellen Schwierigkeiten ausgesetzt sei – einer enormen Schuld.

Furius, your little villa’s not exposed to the southerlies, or the westerlies, the savage north-wind, or the easterly breeze, but truly to fifteen thousand two hundred cash. O terrifying and destructive wind!

Gedicht 27: Falernischer Wein

Kommentar: Ein kurzes, feierliches Gedicht über das Trinken von starkem Falernischem Wein, einer geschätzten römischen Sorte. Catullus lobt den Wein und lehnt Wasser ab, erklärt es nur für die „Strengen“ oder Abstinenzler geeignet und widmet das Getränk Bacchus, dem Gott des Weins.

Serving-boy fill for me stronger cups of old Falernian, since Postumia, the mistress’s, laws demand it, she who’s juicier then the juicy grape. But you water, fatal to wine, away with you: far off, wherever, be off to the strict. This wine is Bacchus’s own.

Gemälde mit mythologischer Figur

Gedicht 28: Günstlingswirtschaft: an Veranius und Fabullus

Kommentar: Catullus drückt sein Entsetzen darüber aus, dass zwei unerwünschte Personen, Porcius und Socration, von Piso, dem Provinzgouverneur, bevorzugt werden und üppig speisen, während seine würdigen Freunde Veranius und Fabullus kämpfen. Es ist eine Beschwerde gegen Ungerechtigkeit und schlechtes Urteilsvermögen in gesellschaftlichen Kreisen.

Followers of Piso, needy retinue, with suitable and ready packs, Veranius, the best, and you, my Fabullus, what possessions do you carry? Haven’t you borne hunger and cold enough with that good-for-nothing? Do any small gains show in the expense accounts, considering that I, following my praetor, repay what was spent, with small gain? O Memmius, truly, and daily, slowly buggered me backwards with that whole tree of his. But, as far as I can see, your case is the same: now you’re stuffed by no less a circumcised cock. Seek out the noble ones, my friends! But, to you, may the gods and goddesses bring much evil luck, disgraces to Romulus and Remus.

Gedicht 29: Der Katamite

Kommentar: Eine harte politische Satire, gerichtet an Julius Caesar und dessen angeblichen Geliebten, Mamurra („Mentula“ oder „Schwanz“). Catullus verurteilt Caesar dafür, dass er den Reichtum der Provinzen (aus Gallien und Britannien) für Mamurras Extravaganz verschwendet, und fragt, wie die Römer solch eine Korruption von ihrem Führer tolerieren können. Dieses Gedicht ist ein starkes Beispiel für Catulls Bereitschaft, selbst die mächtigsten Figuren anzugreifen.

Who could see it, who could endure it, unless he were shameless, greedy, a gambler? Mamurra owns riches that Transalpine Gaul and furthest Britain once owned. Roman sodomite, do you see this and bear it? And now shall the man, arrogant, overbearing, flit through all of the beds like a whitish dove or an Adonis? Roman sodomite, do you see this and bear it? You’re shameless, greedy, a gambler. Surely it wasn’t for this, you, the unique leader, were in the furthest western isle, so that this loose-living tool of yours might squander two or three hundred times its worth? What is it but perverted generosity? Hasn’t he squandered enough, or been elevated enough? First his inheritance was well and truly spent, then the booty from Pontus, then Spain’s, to make three, as the gold-bearing Tagus knows: now be afraid for Gaul’s and Britain’s. Why cherish this evil? What’s he good for but to devour his rich patrimony? Was it for this, the city’s wealthiest, you, father-in law, son-in-law, wasted a world?

Gemälde mit mythologischen Figuren

Gedicht 30: Untreue: an Alfenus

Kommentar: Eine Klage, die sich an einen Freund, Alfenus, richtet, der offenbar Catullus‘ Vertrauen missbraucht und ihn in einer Zeit des Leidens verlassen hat. Catullus stellt die menschliche Loyalität und das Vertrauen in Frage, drückt seinen Schmerz über die zerbrochene Bindung aus und warnt Alfenus, dass die Götter sich an seine Untreue erinnern werden.

Alfenus, negligent, false to the concord of pals, have you no sympathy now with your gentle friend? The impious deeds of deceitful men don’t please the gods. You neglect me and abandon me to miserable illness. Ah, say, what should men do, in whom should they trust? Surely you, unjustly, commanded my trust, seduced me to love, as if it were all quite safe for me. Now you withdraw, and all your vain actions and words you let slip on the winds, with the airy clouds. If you forget, the gods will remember, Faith remembers, so that whatever you do, you’ll soon repent of your deeds.

Gedicht 31: Sirmio

Kommentar: Eine herzliche Hommage an Sirmio, Catulls Villa am Gardasee. Das Gedicht drückt seine immense Freude und Erleichterung aus, nach Reisen ins Ausland nach Hause zurückzukehren. Es ist ein seltener Moment purer Zufriedenheit und Wertschätzung für einen bestimmten Ort.

Sirmio, jewel of islands, jewel of peninsulas, jewel of whatever is set in the bright waters or the great sea, or either ocean, with what joy, what pleasure I gaze at you, scarcely believing myself free of Thynia and the Bithynian fields, seeing you in safety. O what freedom from care is more joyful than when the mind lays down its burden, and weary, back home from foreign toil, we rest in the bed we longed for? This one moment’s worth all the labour. Hail, O lovely Sirmio, and rejoice as I rejoice, and you, O lake of Lydian waters, laugh with whatever of laughter lives here.

Gedicht 32: Siesta: an Ipsíthilla

Kommentar: Eine sexuell explizite Einladung an eine Frau namens Ipsíthilla zu einem Siesta-Rendezvous. Catullus macht eine unverblümte Anfrage nach mehreren sexuellen Begegnungen, ausgedrückt mit charakteristischer Direktheit und einem Hauch von Humor („ein Loch in meinem Rock und Mantel machen“).

Please, my sweet Ipsíthilla, my delight, my charmer: tell me to come to you at siesta. And if you tell me, help it along, let no-one cover the sign at your threshold, nor you choose to step out of doors, but stay at home, and get ready for nine fucks, in succession, with me. Truly, if you should want it, let me know now: because lying here, fed, and indolently full, I’m making a hole in my tunic and cloak.

Gedicht 33: Ein Vorschlag: an Vibennius

Kommentar: Ein kurzer, derber Angriff auf einen Vater (Vibennius) und Sohn, denen Catullus vorwirft, Diebe und sexuell Abartige zu sein, die mit Badehäusern in Verbindung gebracht werden. Catullus schlägt vor, dass sie aufgrund ihres berüchtigten Rufs ins Exil gehen sollten.

O first of the bath-house thieves Vibennius the father, with sodomite son (since the father’s right hand is dirtier, and the son’s arse more all-consuming), why not go into exile, to some vile place? Seeing the father’s pillage is known to us all, and the son’s hairy arse, you can’t sell for a farthing.

Gedicht 34: Lied: an Diana

Kommentar: Ein Hymnus, gewidmet Diana, der Göttin der Jagd, des Mondes und der Geburt. Dieses Gedicht ist ein formelles, ehrfürchtiges Stück, das sich stark von Catulls persönlicheren und satirischen Werken unterscheidet. Es demonstriert seine Fähigkeit, in verschiedenen Stilen und für verschiedene Anlässe zu schreiben.

Under Diana’s protection, we pure girls, and boys: we pure boys, and girls, we sing of Diana. O, daughter of Latona, greatest child of great Jove, whose mother gave birth near the Delian olive, mistress of mountains and the green groves, the secret glades, and the sounding streams: you, called Juno Lucina in childbirth’s pains, you, called all-powerful Trivia, and Luna, of counterfeit daylight. Your monthly passage measures the course of the year, you fill the rustic farmer’s roof with good crops. Take whatever sacred name pleases you, be a sweet help to the people of Rome, as you have been of old.

Gemälde mit mythologischen Figuren in einer Landschaft

Gedicht 35: Kybele: an Caecilius

Kommentar: Catullus bittet ein Stück Papier, seinen Freund, den Dichter Caecilius, nach Verona zu rufen. Er erwähnt, dass eine gelehrte Frau tief in Caecilius verliebt ist, nachdem sie sein unvollendetes Gedicht über die Göttin Kybele gelesen hat. Dies zeigt, wie Catullus sich mit zeitgenössischen literarischen Kreisen und Themen auseinandersetzt.

Paper, I’d like you to say to Caecilius, that tender poet, that friend of mine, leave Lake Como, come now to Verona, abandon the town there and the shore. Because there are certain thoughts that I want him to hear of, from his friend and yours. So, if he’s wise, he’ll eat up the road, though some lovely girl calls to him asks his return, clasping both hands round his neck, and begging delay. Who, if the truth’s been told me now love’s him with violent desire. For, since the moment she read his unfinished Lady of Dindymus, the poor little thing has been eaten by fire to the core of her bones. I forgive you, girl, more learned than the Sapphic Muse: it’s truly lovely, Caecilius’s unfinished Great Mother Cybele.

Darstellung einer Gottheit

Gedicht 36: Brandopfer: an Volusius’s Kot

Kommentar: Catullus wendet sich an die schrecklichen „Annalen“ des Dichters Volusius und nennt sie „Papyrus-Kot“. Er erzählt von einem Gelübde, das sein Mädchen (Lesbia) abgelegt hat, die schlechteste Poesie als Opfergabe zu verbrennen, wenn Catullus aufhört, wütende Verse über sie zu schreiben. Da sie Volusius‘ Werk für das schlechteste hielt, erfüllt er sarkastisch das Gelübde. Dies ist eine literarische Kritik, getarnt als religiöser Akt.

Annals, of Volusius, papyrus droppings, discharge my girl’s votive offering. Since, by sacred Venus and Cupid, she promised, that if I were given back to her, and I left off launching wild iambics, she’d offer the gods the choicest words, of the worst of limping poets, consumed with malignant wood. And the girl thought this was the worst, with charming laughter, to move the gods. Now O goddess created from the blue sea, whose is holy Idalia, Urii, Ancona, reed-bound Cnidos, and Amathusia, Golgos, and Adriatic Dyrrachium, make the vow acceptable, fulfilled, if its not lacking in wit and charm. But meanwhile, you, enter the fire, you, full of boorishness and crudities, Volusian annals, papyrus droppings.

Gemälde mit mythologischer Figur

Gedicht 37: Freifahrt für alle: an die Stammgäste und Egnatius

Kommentar: Ein wütendes Gedicht, gerichtet an eine Taverne und ihre Stammgäste, die offenbar mit Lesbia zu tun haben. Catullus verwendet drastische Sprache, um seinen Neid und seine Wut auszudrücken, und hebt Egnatius, einen Mann mit auffallend weißen Zähnen (weiter verspottet in Gedicht 39), als Hauptrivalen hervor.

Lecherous tavern, and you its regulars, nine pillars along from the Twins’ pillars, do you think you’re the only ones with cocks, the only ones who’re allowed to trouble young girls, and consider the rest of us goats? Or, because a hundred or two of you sit in a row, you, dullards, that I daren’t bugger two hundred together? Think on: I’ll draw all over the front of the tavern with your leavings. Because my girl, who’s left my arms, whom I loved as no other girl’s ever been loved, for whom so many great battles were fought, is there. You, all the rich and the fortunate, love her, and, what’s so shameful, it’s true, all the lesser ones, all the adulterous frequenters of by-ways: you, above all, one of the hairy ones, rabbit-faced offspring of Spain, Egnatius. Whom a shadowy beard improves, and teeth scrubbed with Iberian piss.

Gedicht 38: Ein Wort bitte: an Cornificius

Kommentar: Ein klagendes Gedicht, gerichtet an seinen Freund Cornificius. Catullus ist krank und elend und fühlt sich von Cornificius vernachlässigt, der ihm keine tröstenden Worte angeboten hat. Er vergleicht seine Traurigkeit mit der legendären Trauer des Simonides.

He’s ill, Cornificius, your Catullus, he’s ill, by Hercules, and it’s bad, and worse and worse by the hour. Where are you, for whom it’s the least and easiest thing, to bring consolation with chatter? I’m cross with you. So much for my friendship? Even a little might comfort me, sadder than Simonides’s tears.

Gedicht 39: Deine Zähne! : an Egnatius

Kommentar: Ein satirisches Gedicht, das speziell auf Egnatius und sein ständiges Lächeln abzielt, das Catullus auf seine ungewöhnlich weißen Zähne zurückführt. Catullus findet sein ständiges Lächeln in verschiedenen Situationen unpassend und enthüllt das ekelhafte Geheimnis hinter seinen weißen Zähnen: Sie werden mit Urin gereinigt, eine Praxis, die den alten Iberern zugeschrieben wird.

Egnatius, because he has snow-white teeth, smiles all the time. If you’re a defendant in court, when the counsel draws tears, he smiles: if you’re in grief at the pyre of pious sons, the lone lorn mother weeping, he smiles. Whatever it is, wherever it is, whatever he’s doing, he smiles: he’s got a disease, neither polite, I would say, nor charming. So a reminder to you, from me, good Egnatius. If you were a Sabine or Tiburtine or a fat Umbrian, or plump Etruscan, or dark toothy Lanuvian, or from north of the Po, and I’ll mention my own Veronese too, or whoever else clean their teeth religiously, I’d still not want you to smile all the time: there’s nothing more foolish than foolishly smiling. Now you’re Spanish: in the country of Spain what each man pisses, he’s used to brushing his teeth and red gums with, every morning, so the fact that your teeth are so polished just shows you’re the more full of piss.

Gedicht 40: Du willst Ruhm? : an Ravidus

Kommentar: Catullus warnt Ravidus davor, ihn durch Beleidigung seiner Geliebten (wahrscheinlich Lesbia) zu provozieren, und erklärt, dass das Streben nach Ruhm durch Angriffe auf Catullus nur zu Berühmtheit und Bestrafung in seinen Versen führen wird.

What illness of mind, poor little Ravidus, drives you headlong onto my iambics? What god, badly-disposed towards you, intends to start a mad quarrel? Or is it to achieve vulgar fame? Why the assault? You want to be known everywhere? You will be, seeing you’ve wanted to love my love, and with a long punishment.

Gedicht 41: Eine unzumutbare Forderung: an Ameana

Kommentar: Catullus verspottet Ameana, eine Frau, die er wenig schmeichelhaft beschreibt, weil sie von ihm eine große Geldsumme fordert. Er stellt sie als gierig und wahnhaft dar und deutet an, dass sie psychiatrische Hilfe und kein Geld braucht.

Ameana, a girl fucked by all, requires ten thousand from me, that girl with the ugly great nose, bankrupt Formianus’s ‘friend’. Gather round, you who care for the girl, assemble together, doctors and friends: the girl’s not well, don’t ask what it is: she’s suffering from fantasy money.

Gedicht 42: Die Schreibtafeln: an die Hendekasyllaben

Kommentar: Catullus ruft seine Hendekasyllaben an und personifiziert sie als Verbündete, um ihm zu helfen, seine Schreibtafeln von einer „niederträchtigen Ehebrecherin“ (wahrscheinlich Lesbia oder eine ihrer Gefährtinnen) zurückzubekommen, die ihn verspottet. Das Gedicht schildert eine Szene öffentlicher Konfrontation und verbaler Beschimpfung und zeigt Catulls Verwendung seiner Poesie als Waffe.

Come, hendecasyllables, all that there are and from every side, as many as are. A base adulteress thinks I’m a joke, and refuses to give me my tablets once more, if you’d believe it. We’ll follow her: ask for them back. Which one, you may ask? The one you can see strutting disgracefully, laughing ridiculously, maddening, with the jaws of a Gaulish bitch. Surround her: ask for them back: ‘Stinking adulteress, give back my letters, give back, stinking adulteress, my letters!’ You won’t? O to the mire, the brothel, or if anything can be more ruinous, then that! But still don’t think that’s enough. Call her again in a louder voice: ‘Stinking adulteress, give back my letters, give back, stinking adulteress, my letters!’ But it’s no use: nothing disturbs her. We’d better change methods and tactics, if we want them to be of more use to us: let’s see if we can’t get a blush from that bitch’s brazen face.: ‘Honest and chaste one, give back my letters.’

Gedicht 43: Kein Vergleich: an Ameana

Kommentar: Catullus wendet sich erneut an Ameana und listet ihre vielen unattraktiven körperlichen Merkmale auf (hässliche Nase, Füße, Augen, Finger, Mund, Zunge). Dann verspottet er die Vorstellung, dass sie in ihrer Provinz als schön gilt und es wagt, mit seiner Lesbia verglichen zu werden, was den wahrgenommenen Mangel an Geschmack in seiner Gesellschaft hervorhebt.

Greetings, girl with a nose not the shortest, feet not so lovely, eyes not of the darkest, fingers not slender, mouth never healed, and a not excessively charming tongue, bankrupt Formianus’s ‘little friend’. And the Province pronounces you beautiful? To be compared to my Lesbia? O witless and ignorant age!

Gedicht 44: Sein Gut

Kommentar: Catullus schreibt über sein Vorstadtgut und ist sich scherzhaft unsicher, ob er es sabinisch oder tiburtinisch nennen soll. Er erzählt, dass er dorthin geflohen ist, um sich von einem Husten zu erholen, den er sich nach einem schrecklichen Abendessen und dem Lesen einer giftigen Rede zugezogen hatte. Das Gut dient als Zuflucht und Gesundheitsquelle.

O my estate, whether you’re Sabine or Tiburtine (for they call you Tiburtine, who don’t wish to wound Catullus: but those who wish to do so say that whatever the bet is you’re Sabine), but whether you’re Sabine or Tiburtine, I willingly inhabit your suburban villa, and shake off a bad bronchial cough, given me by a stomach chill, my own fault, while stuffing extravagant dinners. For I wanted to be a guest of Sestius, so I read the oration in Antius’s case, full of legal poison and pestilence, it weakened me even to the extent of watery colds and frequent coughing, till I fled to your bosom, and restored my health, with rest and nettle-soup. Refreshed by which, I give you great thanks, who take no revenge on me for my error. Now I don’t care, if I take up that heinous script again, if it’s not me but Sestius himself, wheezing and coughing, who takes a chill, who invited me only after I’d read that vile work.

Gedicht 45: Ein Pastorale: an Septimius

Kommentar: Eine süße, idealisierte Darstellung eines Paares, Septimius und Acme, die ihre gegenseitige Liebe mit Gelübden ausdrücken, die vom Gott Amor (niesend) bestätigt werden. Es ist ein Moment reiner, gegenseitiger Zuneigung, der im Gegensatz zur turbulenten Liebe zu Lesbia steht.

Septimius holding his beloved Acme in his lap, said: ‘Acme, mine, if I don’t love you desperately, and love forever, continually through all the years, as much as he who loves the most, in empty Libya and scorched India, I’ll fight against some green-eyed lion.’ As he spoke, Love, to left and right, sneezed his approbation. But Acme lifted her head slightly and her charming red lips spoke to her sweet boy’s intoxicated eyes: ‘So, Septimius, mea vita, let us always serve this one lord, that more deeply and more fiercely the fire will burn my tender marrow.’ As she spoke, Love, to left and right sneezed his approbation. Now profiting from these good omens their mutual spirits love and are loved. Septimius sets his little Acme, above the Syrians or Britons: faithful Acme makes Septimius her one darling and desire. Who might see more blessed creatures who a love more fortunate?

Gedicht 46: Frühlingsabschied

Kommentar: Ein Gedicht, das die Ankunft des Frühlings und das Ende von Catulls Zeit in Bithynien markiert. Er drückt seine Eile aus, nach Asien zu reisen, und verabschiedet sich von seinen Freunden, die sich in verschiedene Richtungen zerstreuen werden. Es fängt den unruhigen Geist ein, der mit dem Wechsel der Jahreszeiten und dem Reisen verbunden ist.

Now Spring returns mild and temperate, now the wild equinoctial skies are calmed by Zephyr’s happier breezes. The fields of Phrygia will be forsaken, Catullus, rich farms of hot Nicaea: we’ll flee to Asia’s bright cities. Now restless minds long for travel, now the glad feet stir with pleasure. O sweet crowd of friends farewell, who came together from far places, whom divergent roads must carry.

Gemälde mit mythologischen Figuren

Gedicht 47: Beförderung: an Porcius und Socration

Kommentar: Catullus drückt sein Entsetzen darüber aus, dass zwei unerwünschte Personen, Porcius und Socration, von Piso bevorzugt werden und üppig speisen, während seine würdigen Freunde Veranius und Fabullus kämpfen. Es ist eine Beschwerde gegen Ungerechtigkeit und schlechtes Urteilsvermögen in gesellschaftlichen Kreisen.

Porcius and Socration, two left hands of Piso, the world’s itches and famines, that circumcised Priapus prefers you to my Veraniolus and my Fabullus? You, indulged with great sumptuous banquets every day: my friends looking for work at the crossroads?

Gedicht 48: Leidenschaft: an Iuventius

Kommentar: Erneut an Iuventius gerichtet, drückt Catullus sein intensives Verlangen aus, seine Augen endlos zu küssen. Wie Gedicht 5 verwendet er Hyperbeln (tausende Küsse, mehr als Ähren), um die Tiefe seiner Leidenschaft für diesen jungen Mann zu vermitteln. Dies passt zum Thema Gedichte für den Mann, den du liebst, und zeigt Catulls vielfältige Beziehungen.

Iuventius, if I were always allowed to kiss your honey-sweet eyes, I might kiss you three hundred thousand times, and never be sated, not even if my kisses were more than the crop’s ripe ears of wheat.

Gedicht 49: Ein Kompliment: an Marcus Tullius Cicero

Kommentar: Ein scheinbar überschwängliches Kompliment an den berühmten Redner Cicero, den er als den eloquentesten Nachfahren von Romulus bezeichnet. Einige Gelehrte interpretieren dieses Gedicht jedoch ironisch, da Catullus sich selbst als den „geringsten aller Dichter“ positioniert, was möglicherweise den großen Unterschied in ihrem jeweiligen Status oder die wahrgenommene Trennung zwischen Rhetorik und Poesie hervorhebt.

Most fluent of Romulus’s descendants, that are, that have been, that will be through all the years, Marcus Tullius, Catullus sends you the warmest thanks, the least of all the poets, as much the least of all the poets, as you are the greatest of all lawyers.

Skulptur einer römischen Figur

Gedicht 50: Gestern: an Licinius Calvus

Kommentar: Catullus erzählt von einem Tag, den er spielerisch mit dem Schreiben von Gedichten und dem Austausch von Versen mit seinem Freund, dem Dichter Calvus, verbracht hat. Das Erlebnis war so anregend, dass es ihn ruhelos und schlaflos machte, was die intellektuelle und emotionale Intensität ihrer Freundschaft und gemeinsamen Leidenschaft für Poesie unterstreicht.

Yesterday, Calvus, idle day we played with my writing tablets, harmonising in being delightful: scribbling verses, each of us playing with metres, this and that, reciting together, through laughter and wine. And I left there fired with your charm, Calvus, and with your wit, so that, restless, I couldn’t enjoy food, or close my eyes quietly in sleep, but tossed the whole bed about wildly in passion, longing to see the light, so I might speak to you, and be with you. But afterwards I lay there wearied with effort, half-dead in the bed, I made this poem for you, pleasantly, from which you might gather my pain. Now beware of being rash, don’t reject my prayers I beg, my darling, lest Nemesis demand your punishment. She’s a powerful goddess. Beware of annoying her.

Gemälde mit mythologischer Figur

Gedicht 51: Eine Imitation der Sappho: an Lesbia

Kommentar: Eine berühmte Adaption von Sapphos Fragment 31, die das physische und emotionale Chaos ausdrückt, das der Sprecher erlebt, als er Lesbia intime Interaktionen mit einem anderen Mann sieht. Catullus fügt seine eigene abschließende Strophe hinzu, eine strenge Selbstkritik über die Gefahren der Untätigkeit, die einzigartig römisch ist und den Fokus von reiner Leidenschaft auf bürgerliche Tugend verlagert.

He seems equal to the gods, to me, that man, if it’s possible more than just divine, who sitting over against you, endlessly sees you and hears you laughing so sweetly, that with fierce pain I’m robbed of all of my senses: because that moment I see you, Lesbia, nothing’s left of me….. but my tongue is numbed, and through my poor limbs fires are raging, the echo of your voice rings in both ears, my eyes are covered with the dark of night. ‘Your idleness is loathsome Catullus: you delight in idleness, and too much posturing: idleness ruined the kings and the cities of former times.’

Gedicht 52: Ungerechtigkeit: über Nonnius

Kommentar: Ein kurzer Aufschrei der Verzweiflung und Ungeduld. Catullus fragt, warum er weiterleben soll, wenn korrupte und unerwünschte Männer (Nonnius und Vatinius) in Rom Macht und Einfluss innehaben.

Why, Catullus? Why wait to die? Nonnius the tumour sits in a Magistrate’s chair, Vatinius perjures himself for a Consulate: Why, Catullus? Why wait to die?

Gedicht 53: Lachen vor Gericht: an Gaius Licinius Calvus

Kommentar: Ein kurzes, anekdotisches Gedicht, das einen Moment vor Gericht beschreibt, in dem Catulls Freund, der Redner Calvus, eloquent gegen Vatinius (wahrscheinlich derselbe Mann aus Gedicht 52) argumentiert. Jemand in der Menge, beeindruckt von Calvus‘ feuriger Rede, ruft aus: „Große Götter, was für ein eloquenter kleiner Mann!“, eine Bemerkung, die Catullus amüsant findet.

I laughed when someone, from the crowd, while my Calvus explained the Vatinian case quite wonderfully, said admiringly, raising his hands: ‘Great gods, what an eloquent little man!’

Gedicht 54: Oh Caesar! : über Othos Kopf

Kommentar: Ein fragmentarisches und etwas obskures Gedicht, das Beleidigungen gegen kleinere Figuren (Otho, Libo, Sufficio) und einen allgemeinen Angriff auf „unseren einzigen General“ (vermutlich Caesar) enthält. Es ist ein weiteres Beispiel für Catulls Verwendung persönlicher Schmähreden.

Otho’s head is quite tiny, and it’s owner’s legs loutishly unclean, soft and delicate is Libo’s farting: if not with all that, then let me displease you with Sufficio, old age renewed… again let my worthless iambics rile you, our one and only general.

Gedicht 55: Wo bist du? : an Camerius

Kommentar: Catullus sucht verzweifelt nach seinem Freund Camerius in ganz Rom, drückt seine Frustration aus und deutet an, dass Camerius heimlich mit Frauen zu tun haben könnte. Er beklagt die Schwierigkeit, ihn zu finden, vergleicht die Aufgabe mit einer der Arbeiten des Herkules und fordert Camerius auf, offen über seinen Aufenthaltsort zu sein.

I beg you, if it’s not too much trouble, point out where your shade might be. You, little Camerius, I’ve looked for you, you, in the Circus, you, in the bookshops, you, in the sacred shrine of great Jove. I’ve detained all the girls together in Pompey’s Arcade, my friend, whose faces were blank, however. ‘Worst of girls, reveal my Camerius’, so I demanded of them. One replied, revealing her nudity… ‘Look he’s hiding in these rosy breasts.’ But, oh it’s a labour of Hercules to bear with you: as much as your pride denies it, my friend. Since I’m not that bronze guardian of Crete, not Ladas or wing-footed Perseus, since I’m not carried by Pegasus in flight, nor by Rhesus’s swift snowy-white team, add to that feathered-feet and swiftness and the collective speed of the winds, Camerius you might have said who you were with: but I’d be weary right down to my marrow and devoured by excessive fatigue if I went on searching for you, my friend. Tell us where you’ll be in future, utter boldly, commit yourself, trust to the light. Do the milk-white girls hold you now? If your tongue’s stuck in your mouth, you’ll banish all the rewards of love. Venus delights in copious language. Or, if you want, fasten your lips, while letting me share in your loves.

Gemälde: Mythologische Figur bei einer Arbeit

Gedicht 56: Dreier: an Cato

Kommentar: Eine kurze, derbe Anekdote, gerichtet an Cato (möglicherweise Cato den Jüngeren), die eine sexuell explizite Szene schildert, die Catullus zwischen seinem Mädchen und einem jungen Schüler beobachtete. Er findet den Vorfall amüsant und hofft, dass Cato ihn auch so findet. Das Gedicht hebt Catulls Bereitschaft hervor, über transgressive Themen zu schreiben und sie an angesehene Persönlichkeiten zu richten.

O Cato, an amusing ridiculous thing, worth your ears and your laughter! Cato laugh as you love Catullus: the thing is amusing, and quite ridiculous. I caught my girl’s little pupil thrusting away: if only to please Dione, I sacrificed him to my rigid succeeding shaft.

Gemälde mit mythologischen Figuren

Gedicht 57: Ihr Zwei! : an Caius Julius Caesar

Kommentar: Ein weiterer scharfer Angriff auf Caesar und Mamurra, der sie explizit als „perverse Bugger“ bezeichnet. Catullus verspottet ihre angeblichen gemeinsamen sexuellen Interessen und ihre wahrgenommene moralische Verdorbenheit und verstärkt die Themen aus Gedicht 29.

Beautifully matched the perverse buggers, Mamurra the catamite and Caesar. No wonder: both equally spotted, one from Formia, the other the City, marks that remain, not to be lessened. diseased the same, both of these twins, both somewhat skilled in the selfsame couch, this one no greedier an adulterer than that, rivals in shared little girls. Beautifully matched the perverse buggers.

Gedicht 58: Klage um Lesbia: an Marcus Caelius Rufus

Kommentar: Ein kurzes, erschütterndes Gedicht, das den Fall Lesbias beklagt, der Frau, die er einst intensiv liebte, zu einem Leben gewöhnlicher Prostitution („wichst die tapferen Söhne Roms ab“ an Kreuzungen und Gassen). Es drückt extreme Enttäuschung und Trauer über ihre Herabwürdigung aus.

Caelius, our Lesbia, that Lesbia, that Lesbia, Catullus alone loved more than himself, and all of his own, now at crossroads, and down alleyways, jerks off the brave sons of Rome.

Gedicht 59: Die Überreste: über Rufa

Kommentar: Ein grobes und groteskes Gedicht über Rufa, die Ehefrau von Menenius, die Catullus beschreibt, wie sie auf Friedhöfen von Scheiterhaufen nach Essen sucht. Es ist eine lebhafte Darstellung von Elend und Verzweiflung, die zu satirischen oder verächtlichen Zwecken verwendet wird.

Rufa from Bologna gives head to Rufulus, she’s Menenius’s wife, whom you’ve often seen, snatching food, from the pyre itself, in the cemetery, chasing the bread when it rolls from the flames, being thumped by the half-shaven cremator.

Gedicht 60: Löwin

Kommentar: Ein kurzes, intensives Gedicht, das die Herkunft der extremen Grausamkeit und Gefühlslosigkeit einer Person in Frage stellt. Catullus fragt sich, ob sie von einem wilden Tier oder einer monströsen mythologischen Figur geboren wurde, aufgrund ihrer verächtlichen Missachtung des Leidens anderer.

You now, did a lioness, from African mountains, or the depths of howling Scylla’s thighs, create you as hard and as foul as that, so you might show scorn for the voice of entreaty, in its latest misfortune, out of that oh too cruel heart?

Gedicht 61: Epithalamium: für Vinia und Manlius

Kommentar: Ein langes, aufwändiges Hochzeitsgedicht (Epithalamium) für seine Freunde Vinia (oder Aurunculeia) und Manlius Torquatus. An Hymen, den Gott der Ehe, gerichtet, feiert es die Schönheit der Braut, lobt den Bräutigam und spricht Segen für Fruchtbarkeit und eine lange, glückliche Ehe aus. Es enthält rituelle Elemente, spielerisches Necken (wie das Werfen von Nüssen) und Momente zarter Feierlichkeit, was Catulls Meisterschaft in einem formellen Genre zeigt.

You, who live on Helicon’s hills, the son of Urania, who carry the tender virgin to her man, O Hymanaee Hymen, O Hymen Hymenaee: crown your brow with sweet flowers of marjoram fragrance, put on the glad veil, here, come, wearing the saffron shoes on your snow-white feet: summoned to the happy day singing the nuptial songs with ringing voice, strike your feet on the ground, shake the pine torch in your hand. Now Vinia comes to her Manlius, as Venus, adorning Mount Ida, came to Paris, her Phrygian judge, a rare girl wedded to rare fortune, like the myrtle of Asia born on the flowering branches, that the divine Hamadryads playfully tend themselves with shining dew. So come, suffer yourself to approach, leave the Aonian cave among the cliffs of Thespia, leave the nymph Aganippe and her cooling stream. And call the bride to her new husband’s loving home, her heart bound fast with love, as the clinging ivy enfolds the tree, winding here and there. And you chaste virgins too, whose own day will come, singing harmoniously cry, O Hymanaee Hymen, O Hymen Hymenaee. That, hearing himself called to perform his service, he may suffer himself to approach, the commander of wedding joys, the true uniter-in-love. What greater god do you love sought out by lovers? What divine one do men worship more, O Hymanaee Hymen, O Hymen Hymenaee? You her trembling father invokes: for you the virgin belt’s untied: for you the bridegroom waits, fearful with new desire. You give the young girl fresh from her mother’s breast, to the young novice’s hands, O Hymanaee Hymen, O Hymen Hymenaee. Venus can take no advantage of what good custom allows, without you, but she can if you’re willing. What god dare compare with you in this? No house bears offspring without you, no parent can be brightened by children: but they can if you’re willing. What god dare compare with you in this? No ruler can set the boundaries to his country: but he can if you’re willing. What god dare compare with you in this? Open the lock of the door. The virgin comes. Do you see how the torches scatter brilliant sparks? ……………………………………………..**……………………………………………..Noble shame holds back. However obedient she is, she weeps that she has to go. Don’t weep. There’s no danger to you Aurunculeia, nor will bright day see a lovelier girl than you rise from the Ocean waves. Such a hyacinth flower as blooms in a rich man’s colourful little garden. But you linger: the day vanishes. Let the new bride appear. Let the new bride appear, so she can now be viewed, and listen to my words. See? The torches scatter golden sparks: let the new bride appear. Your husband’s not fickle, given to sinful adulteries, chasing shameful vices, does not wish to flee from sleep in your tender breasts, and as the vines slowly wind about the trees they claim, he’ll be wound in your embrace. But the day vanishes: let the new bride appear. O bridal-bed, that for all ……………………………………………..**……………………………………………..at the foot of the shining couch, comes to your master, what joy, what wandering night, what noon delights! But the day goes by: let the new bride appear. O, you boys, lift the torches: I see the flame approach. Come: let the song sound in harmony ‘io Hymen Hymenaee io, io Hymen Hymenaee.’ Don’t hold back the bold Fescennine laughter, don’t let this obedient concubine abandoning his master’s love deny the boys their nuts. Give nuts to the boys, you idle concubine! You’ve toyed with the nuts long enough: now be pleased to serve Hymen. Concubine, give them nuts. Girls seemed vile to you, concubine, yesterday, till today: now the hair-curler smooths your beard. Wretch of a wretch, concubine, give them nuts. You’ll speak ill of abstaining from your slaves, perfumed husband, but abstain. Io Hymen Hymenaee io, io Hymen Hymenaee. We know what’s allowed to you when you’re known to be single, but married it’s not allowed. Io Hymen Hymenaee io, io Hymen Hymenaee. Bride, beware you don’t deny what your man comes seeking, lest he goes seeking elsewhere. Io Hymen Hymenaee io, io Hymen Hymenaee. Powerful in your house, and happy in your powers, that act without you there, Io Hymen Hymenaee io, io Hymen Hymenaee, until with trembling motion white-haired old age nods at all and everything. Io Hymen Hymenaee io, io Hymen Hymenaee. In your saffron shoes cross the threshold with good omens, and enter the shining door. Io Hymen Hymenaee io, io Hymen Hymenaee. Look inside where your man lies on a Tyrian bed waiting for you alone. Io Hymen Hymenaee io, io Hymen Hymenaee. He no less than you burns with fire in his heart, but inwardly much greater. Io Hymen Hymenaee io, io Hymen Hymenaee. Page, let go the young girl’s shapely arm: now she reaches her husband’s bed. Io Hymen Hymenaee io, io Hymen Hymenaee. You good wives who know the powers of old to bring young girls to marriage. Io Hymen Hymenaee io, io Hymen Hymenaee. Now bridegroom, you may come: your wife waits in your bed, her lovely face gleaming, like a white poppy, on a saffron field. But, husband, let the gods joy, you are no less handsome, nor does Venus neglect you. But the daylight flies: come now, don’t delay. He’s not lingered: now he comes. Kind Venus shall aid you, since you desire openly what you desire, you won’t forget kind love. He who would count your joys, many thousands, must first tally the grains of Africa’s sands, and the glittering stars. Play as you wish, and quickly give her children. It’s not right for an ancient name to be childless, but it should create from the same root. I want a young Torquatus to stretch out his tender hand from his mother’s lap sweetly smiling to his father from half-open lips. Let him be like his father Manlius, let that be known by all the unknowing, and let his face reveal, his mother’s faithfulness. So our praise approves one born of a noble mother, just as unparalleled fame echoes from Penelope, the mother of excellent Telemachus. Close the doorways, virgins: we’re satisfied with our play. But you brave partners live truly, and do your duty constantly, with vigour and with joy.

Gemälde: Mythologische Figur beim Weben

Gedicht 62: Hochzeitslied

Kommentar: Ein weiteres Epithalamium, diesmal strukturiert als eine Debatte zwischen Chören von jungen Männern und Frauen über den Zeitpunkt und die Art der Ehe. Die jungen Männer argumentieren, dass es Zeit sei zu heiraten, sobald Hesperus (der Abendstern) erscheint, während die jungen Frauen den Abschied von ihren Familien beklagen. Das Gedicht verwendet starke Naturmetaphern (eine versteckte Blume, eine Rebe), um über Jungfräulichkeit und die Vorteile von Ehe und Gemeinschaft zu sprechen.

Evening is here, young men, arise: evening, awaited so long by the heavens, barely still shows the light. Now is the time to rise, to leave the rich banquet, now the virgin comes, now the wedding-song is sung. Hymen O Hymenaee, Hymen be near, O Hymenaee! Do you see the unmarried girls, you young men? Rise to meet them: the evening star shows Thessalian fire. Such is the contest: see how they spring up so nimbly? Don’t fear to rise, they sing to win a partner. Hymen O Hymenaee, Hymen be near, O Hymenaee! The palm’s not easily won by us men as equals: consider, the girls need to prepare amongst themselves. not a vain preparation: they truly know what’s what: no wonder, since they concentrate their whole mind. Our minds are elsewhere: our ears turn elsewhere: so we’ll be defeated by willpower: victory needs attention. Therefore turn your minds to it at the least: now they begin to sing, now you must reply. Hymen O Hymenaee, Hymen be near, O Hymenaee! Hesperus what fire, they say, is crueller than yours? Who can tear a daughter away from her mother’s arms, from a mother’s detaining arms tear a daughter away, and give a virgin girl to an ardent young man. What do the enemy do that’s crueller, in capturing a city? Hymen O Hymenaee, Hymen be near, O Hymenaee! Hesperus, who shines with happier fire in the sky? You who strengthen the bond of marriage with your flame, with what men swear, swearing it to the parents, not to be joined together before your own brightness rises. What wished-for hour by the gods is more happily granted? Hymen O Hymenaee, Hymen be near, O Hymenaee! Hesperus has stolen one like us away. ……………………………………………..**……………………………………………..**And now at your rising the watchman always wakes, thieves hide by night, who often likewise return, Hesperus, you catch them, as your name alters, at dawn, but the girls love to slander you with false complaints. Why do they complain, if they secretly wish it then? Hymen O Hymenaee, Hymen be near, O Hymenaee! As the hidden flower born in the hedged garden unknown to the beasts, untouched by the plough, that the breezes sweeten, the sun strengthens, the rain feeds: that many young men would choose, and many young girls: when that same flower fades, plucked by a tender hand, no young boy would choose it, and no young girl: so the virgin, while she’s untouched, while she’s their love: if she loses her flower of chastity, her body dishonoured, she’s no longer the boy’s delight, the girls’ beloved. Hymen O Hymenaee, Hymen be near, O Hymenaee! As the vine we see, grown in the open field, never lifting its head, never bearing sweet grapes, its delicate stem bending downwards with the weight, so that in a moment its tallest shoot will touch its roots: no countryman, no farm-hand will cherish it: but if the same plant is fastened tight, wedded to an elm, many countrymen and farm-hands will cherish it. So a virgin who stays untouched, and uncultivated, ages: while taken in equal marriage, while the time is ripe, she’s loved more by the man, less hateful to her parents. Hymen O Hymenaee, Hymen be near, O Hymenaee! And don’t you struggle with such a husband, girl. it’s not right to struggle, you, whose father gives you away, your father and your mother, who prepare you. Your virginity’s not wholly yours: part is your parents: a third your father’s, a third your mother’s, only a third is yours: don’t fight those two, who grant their rights to the son-in-law with the dowry. Hymen O Hymenaee, Hymen be near, O Hymenaee!

Gemälde mit mythologischen Figuren

Gedicht 63: Über Berecynthia und Attis

Kommentar: Ein langes, dramatisches erzählendes Gedicht, das den Mythos von Attis erzählt, der in einem religiösen Rausch, inspiriert von der Göttin Kybele, sich selbst entmannt und sich ihrem Dienst widmet. Das Gedicht schildert lebhaft den Wahnsinn des Kultes, Attis‘ anschließendes Bedauern und Kybeles Macht. Es ist in Galliamben geschrieben, einem schwierigen und frenetischen Metrum, das die wilde Thematik des Gedichts widerspiegelt.

As soon as Attis, borne over the deep seas in a swift boat, had reached the Phrygian woods, with rapid eager steps, had returned to a dark corner of the goddess’s grove, goaded by mad fury, and there, his wits wandering had sliced off his testicles with a sharp stone, and had seen his remaining members devoid of power, and that country’s soil spotted with fresh blood, he took up the drum lightly in his pale hands, your drum, Cybele, yours, Great Mother, in your rite, and striking the sounding bull’s-hide with delicate fingers, chanted to his followers, as it quivered from his assault: ‘Gallae, come, rise, to the high woods of Cybele, now, come, now, wandering cattle of Dindymus’s Lady, like exiles wandering here on an alien shore, followers of my way, lead by me, my friends, you suffered the swift seas and the wild waves and sheared your sex from your bodies with great hatred: gladden the Lady’s spirit with swift movements. Banish dull delay from your minds: come, now, follow, to Phrygian Cybele’s house, the Phrygian goddess’s grove, where the voice of the cymbal clashes, the drum echoes, where the Phrygian flute-player plays on a curving reed, where the ivy-crowned Maenads violently toss their heads, where they act out the sacred rites with high-pitched howls, where the goddess’s wandering retinue’s wont to hover, where we should hurry with our swift triple-step.’ As Attis, the counterfeit woman, sings this to his friends, the Bacchic choir suddenly cries with quivering tongues, the drum echoes it gently, the hollow cymbals ring. The swift choir comes to green Ida on hurrying feet. Attis, leading, panting wildly, goading his scattered wits, enters the dark grove accompanied by the drum, like a wild heifer escaping the weight of the yoke: The agile Gallae follow their swift-footed leader. Then, since wearied, foodless, they reach Cybele’s grove, they’re seized by sleep from their excessive labours. Dull tiredness overwhelms eyes giving way to languor: mad frenzy vanishes in the calm of gentle breath. But when the Sun from his golden face scanned the bright heavens with radiant eye, the harsh earth, and wild sea, and dispelled the shadows of night with his lively steeds, then the Grace, Pasithea, takes swift Sleep, flying from the waking Attis, to her beating heart. So, rapidly, from sweet dream and free of madness, Attis recollected his actions in his thoughts, and saw with a clear heart what and where he had been, turning again with passionate mind to the sea. There gazing at the wide waters with tearful eyes he raised his voice and sadly bemoaned his homeland: ‘Land that fathered me, land that mothered me, I, who left you so sadly, have reached the groves of Ida, like a slave fleeing his master, so am I among snows, and the frozen lairs of wild creatures, and should I in madness enter one of their dens where would I think to find you buried in those places? The keen eye itself desires to turn itself towards you, while my thought is free a while of the wild creatures. Have I been brought from my distant home for this grove? Shall I lose country, possessions, friends, kin? Shall I lose forum, wrestling ring, stadium and gymnasium? Sorrow on sorrow, again and again complaint in the heart. What form have I not been, what have I not performed? I a woman, I a young man, a youth, a boy, I the flower of the athletes, the glory of the wrestling ring: my doorway frequented, my threshold warm, my house was garlanded with wreaths of flowers, at the dawn separation from my bed. Now am I brought here priest and slave of divine Cybele? I, to be Maenad: a part of myself: a sterile man? I to worship on green Ida in a place cloaked in frozen snow? I to live my life beneath the high summits of Phrygia, where deer haunt the woods, where the wild boar roams? Now I grieve for what I did, now I repent.’ As the swift sounds leave his rosy lips the fresh words reach the twin ears of the goddess, as Cybele is loosing the lions from their yoke and goading the left-hand beast: she spoke to it, saying: ‘Go now, be fierce, so you make him mad, so he is forced to return to the grove by the pain of his madness, he who desires to escape my rule so freely. Let your tail wound your back, let the lashes show, make the whole place echo to your bellowing roar, shake your red mane fiercely over your taut neck.’ So Cybele spoke in threat and loosed the leash. The wild beast urging itself to speed, roused in spirit, tore away, roared, broke madly through the thickets. and when it reached the wet margin of the white sands, and saw delicate Attis near to the ocean waves, it charged. He fled demented to the wild wood: there to be ever enslaved, for the rest of his life. Goddess, Great Goddess, Cybele, Lady of Dindymus, Mistress, let all your anger be far from my house: make others aroused, make other men raving mad.

Gemälde mit mythologischen Figuren in einer Landschaft

Gedicht 64: Über die Argonauten und ein Epithalamium für Peleus und Thetis

Kommentar: Dies ist Catulls längstes und ehrgeizigstes Gedicht, ein Miniatur-Epos, das Mythologie und menschliche Emotionen verbindet. Es beschreibt die Reise der Argo, die Hochzeit des sterblichen Peleus und der Meeresgöttin Thetis und, am bemerkenswertesten, die tragische Geschichte von Ariadne, die von Theseus auf Naxos verlassen wurde (dargestellt auf dem Hochzeitsbett). Das Gedicht kontrastiert das heroische Zeitalter, in dem Götter mit Sterblichen verkehrten, mit der korrupten Gegenwart. Die lange Klage Ariadnes ist ein kraftvoller Ausdruck von Verrat und Trauer.

Once they say pine-trees born on the heights of Pelion floated through Neptune’s clear waves, to the River Phasis and Aeetes’s borders, with chosen men, oaks of the Argive people, hoping to steal the Golden Fleece of Colchis daring to course the salt deeps in their swift ship, sweeping the blue waters with fir-wood oars. The goddess herself who guards the heights of the city, who joined the curving fabric to pinewood keel, made their ship speed onwards with light winds. That vessel was first to explore the unknown sea: so, as she ploughed the windblown waters with her prow, and whitened the churning waves with foam from the oars, the Nereids lifted themselves from the dazzling white depths of the sea, amazed at this wonder of ocean. In those, and other days, mortal eyes saw the sea-nymphs raise themselves, bodies all naked, as far as their nipples, from the white depths. Then Peleus, they say, was inflamed with love of Thetis, then Thetis did not despise marriage with a mortal, then Jupiter himself agreed to Thetis’s marriage. O heroes, born in a chosen age, hail, godlike race! O offspring of a blessed mother, hail once more. Often I’ll address you, in my song. And I address you, so blessed in your fortunate marriage, chief of Pelian Thessaly, to whom Jupiter himself creator of gods, yielded his beloved: did not Thetis possess you, loveliest of Nereids? Did not Tethys allow you to lead off her grand-daughter, and Oceanus, who embraces the whole world with sea? When at the time appointed the longed-for flames arise, all of Thessaly crowds together to the palace, the halls are filled with a joyful assembly: they bring gifts with them, declaring their joy in their looks. Cieros is deserted: they leave Pthiotic Tempe, Crannon’s houses, and Larissa’s walls, they gather in Pharsalia, crowd under Pharsalia’s roofs. No one farms the fields, the necks of bullocks soften, nor does the curved hoe clear beneath the vines, nor does the ox drag earth outward with the blade, nor does the sickle thin the shade of leafy trees, coarse rust attacks the neglected plough. But the palace gleams bright with gold and silver through all the rich receding halls. The ivory chairs shine, cups glisten on tables, the whole palace gladdened with splendour of royal wealth. In the midst of the palace a sacred couch, truly joyful for the marriage of the goddess, gleaming with Indian ivory, stained with the red dyes won from purple murex. The cloth depicts in ancient forms, with marvellous art, in all their variety, the excellence of gods and men. Here are seen the wave-echoing shores of Naxos, Theseus, aboard his ship, vanishing swiftly, watched by Ariadne, ungovernable passion in her heart, not yet believing that she sees what she does see, still only just awoken from deceptive sleep, finding herself abandoned wretchedly to empty sands. But uncaring the hero fleeing strikes the deep with his oars, casting his vain promises to the stormy winds. The Minoan girl goes on gazing at the distance, with mournful eyes, like the statue of a Bacchante, gazes, alas, and swells with great waves of sorrow, no longer does the fine turban remain on her golden hair, no longer is she hidden by her lightly-concealing dress, no longer does the shapely band hold her milk-white breasts all of it scattered, slipping entirely from her body, plays about her feet in the salt flood. But, not caring now for turban or flowing dress, the lost girl gazed towards you, Theseus, with all her heart, spirit, mind. Wretched thing, for whom bright Venus reserved the thorny cares of constant mourning in your heart, from that time when it suited warlike Theseus, leaving the curving shores of Piraeus, to reach the Cretan regions of the unbending king. For then forced by cruel plague, they say, as punishment, to absolve the murder of Androgeos ten chosen young men of Athens and ten unmarried girls used to be given together as sacrifice to the Minotaur. With which evil the narrow walls were troubled until Theseus chose to offer himself for his dear Athens rather than such Athenian dead be carried un-dead to Crete. And so in a swift ship and with gentle breezes he came to great Minos and his proud halls. As soon as the royal girl cast her eye on him with desire, she whom the chaste bed nourished, breathing sweet perfumes in her mother’s gentle embrace, even as Eurotas’s streams surround a myrtle that sheds its varied colours on the spring breeze, she did not turn her blazing eyes away from him, till she conceived a flame through her whole body that burned utterly to the depths of her bones. Ah sadly the Boy incites inexorable passion in chaste hearts, he who mixes joy and pains for mortals, and she who rules Golgos and leafy Idalia, even she, who shakes the mind of a smitten girl, often sighing for a blonde-haired stranger! How many fears the girl suffers in her weak heart! How often she grows pallid: more so than pale gold. As Theseus went off eager to fight the savage monster either death approached or fame’s reward! Promising small gifts, not unwelcome or in vain, she made her prayers to the gods with closed lips. Now as a storm uproots a quivering branch of oak, or a cone-bearing pine with resinous bark, on the heights of Mount Taurus, twisting its unconquered strength in the wind (it falls headlong, far off, plucked out by the roots, shattering anything and everything in its way) so Theseus upended the conquered body of the beast its useless horns overthrown, emptied of breath. Then he turned back, unharmed, to great glory, guided by the wandering track of fine thread, so that his exit from the fickle labyrinth of the palace would not be prevented by some unnoticed error. But what should I relate, digressing further from my poem’s theme: the girl, abandoning her father’s sight, her sisters’ embraces, and lastly her mother’s, she wretched at her lost daughter’s joy in preferring the sweet love of Theseus to all this: or her being carried by ship to Naxos’s foaming shore, or her consort with uncaring heart vanishing, she conquered, her eyes softening in sleep? Often loud shrieks cried the frenzy in her ardent heart poured out from the depths of her breast, and then she would climb the steep cliffs in her grief, where the vast sea-surge stretches out to the view, then run against the waves into the salt tremor holding her soft clothes above her naked calves, and call out mournfully this last complaint, a frozen sob issuing from her wet face: ‘False Theseus, is this why you take me from my father’s land, faithless man, to abandon me on a desert shore? Is this how you vanish, heedless of the god’s power, ah, uncaring, bearing home your accursed perjuries? Nothing could alter the measure of your cruel mind? No mercy was near to you, inexorable man, that you might take pity on my heart? Yet once you made promises to me in that flattering voice, you told me to hope, not for this misery but for joyful marriage, the longed-for wedding songs, all in vain, dispersed on the airy breezes. Now, no woman should believe a man’s pledges, or believe there’s any truth in a man’s words: when their minds are intent on their desire, they have no fear of oaths, don’t spare their promises: but as soon as the lust of their eager mind is slaked they fear no words, they care nothing for perjury. Surely I rescued you from the midst of the tempest of fate, and more, I gave up my half-brother, whom I abandoned to you with treachery at the end. For that I’m left to be torn apart by beasts, and a prey to sea-birds, unburied, when dead, in the scattered earth. What lioness whelped you under a desert rock, what sea conceived and spat you from foaming waves, what Syrtis, what fierce Scylla, what vast Charybdis, you who return me this, for the gift of your sweet life? If marriage with me was not in your heart, because you feared your old father’s cruel precepts, you could still have led me back to your house, where I would have served you, a slave happy in her task, washing your beautiful feet in clear water, covering your bed with the purple fabric. But why complain to the uncaring wind in vain? It is beyond evil, and without senses, unable to hear what is said, without voice to reply. It is already turning now towards mid-ocean, and nothing human appears in this waste of weed. So cruel chance taunts me in my last moments, even depriving my ears of my own lament. All-powerful Jupiter, if only the Athenian ships had not touched the shores of Cnossos, from the start, carrying their fatal cargo for the ungovernable bull, a faithless captain mooring his ropes to Crete, an evil guest, hiding a cruel purpose under a handsome appearance, finding rest in our halls! Now where can I return? What desperate hope depend on? Shall I seek out the slopes of Ida? But the cruel sea with its divisive depths of water separates me from them. Or shall I hope for my father’s help? Did I not leave him, to follow a man stained with my brother’s blood? Or should I trust in a husband’s love to console me? Who hardly bends slow oars in running from me? More, I’m alive on a lonely island without shelter, and no escape seen from the encircling ocean waves. No way to fly, no hope: all is mute, all is deserted, all speaks of ruin. Yet still my eyes do not droop in death, not till my senses have left my weary body, till true justice is handed down by the gods, and the divine help I pray for in my last hour. So you Eumenides who punish by avenging the crimes of men, your foreheads crowned with snaky hair, bearing anger in your breath, here, here, come to me, listen to my complaints, that I, wretched alas, force, weakened, burning, out of the marrow of my bones, blind with mad rage. Since these truths are born in the depths of my breast, you won’t allow my lament to pass you by, but as Theseus left me alone, through his intent, goddesses, by that will, pursue him and his with murder.’ When these words had poured from her sad breast, the troubled girl praying for cruel actions, the chief of the gods nodded with unconquerable will: at which the earth and the cruel sea trembled and the glittering stars shook in the heavens. Now Theseus’s mind was filled with a dark mist and all the instructions he had held fixed in memory before this, were erased from his thoughts, failing to raise the sweet signal to his mourning father, when the harbour of Athens safely came in sight. For they say that when Aegeus parted from his son, as the goddess’s ship left the city, he yielded him to the wind’s embrace with these words: ‘Son, more dear to me than my long life, son, whom I abandoned through chance uncertainty, lately returned to me in the last days of my old age, since my fate and your fierce virtue tear you away from me, against my will, whose failing eyes are not yet sated with my dear son’s face, I don’t send you off happily with joyful heart, or allow you to carry flags of good fortune, but start with the many sorrows in my mind, marring my white hairs with earth and sprinkled ashes, then hang unfinished canvas from the wandering mast, so the darkened sail of gloomy Spanish flax might speak the grief and passion in my mind. But if the one who dwells in sacred Iton, who promised to defend the people and city of Erectheus, allows you to wet your hand with the blood of the bull, then make sure this command is done, buried in your remembering heart, not to be erased by time: that as soon as you set eyes on our hills, strip the dark fabric fully from the yards, and hoist white sails with your twisted ropes, so that seeing them from the first, I’ll know joy in my glad heart, when a happy time reveals your return.’ These words to Theseus, once held constantly in mind, vanished like clouds of snow struck by a blast of wind on the summits of high mountains. But when his father, searching the view from the citadel’s height, endless tears flooding his anxious eyes, first saw the sails of dark fabric, he threw himself head first from the height of the cliff, believing Theseus lost to inexorable fate. So fierce Theseus entered the palace in mourning for his father’s death, and knew the same grief of mind that he had caused neglected Ariadne, she who was gazing then where his ship had vanished pondering the many cares in her wounded heart. But bright Bacchus hurries from elsewhere with his chorus of Satyrs and Silenes from Nysa, seeking you, Ariadne, burning with love for you. ……………………………………………..**……………………………………………..*In rapture his Bacchantes raved madly, crazed in mind, with cries of ‘euhoe*’ and tossing heads, some brandished the thyrsus with hidden tip, some flourished the torn limbs of bullocks, some wreathed themselves with twining snakes, some celebrated the secret rites of the hollow box, rights they wished the profane to hear in vain: others beat the drums with the flat of their hands, or raised a clear ringing from rounded cymbals: they blew endless strident calls on the horns and the barbarous flute shrilled with fearful tunes. Such the splendid workings of figured tapestry covering the sacred couch its cloth embraced. The people of Thessaly after gazing eagerly were satisfied, they began to leave the goddess’s sanctuary. As Zephyr stirs the willing waves, ruffling the placid sea with morning breeze, while Aurora rises to the wandering Sun’s threshold, so that at first they move slowly struck by a gentle blast, and their splashing resounds with slight lamentation, while afterwards they increase, swelling more and more, and reflect the red of the sunrise far-off as they rise: so, here and there, with wandering feet the crowd disperse to their homes, leaving the courtyard of the royal palace. After their departure Chiron, the Centaur’s leader, arrived from steep Pelion carrying woodland gifts: since what the fields bear, whatever the country of Thessaly yields on high peaks, whatever the flowers by the river’s waves the fecund breath of the warm west wind produces, he brought woven together in confused garlands, so that the palace smiled, charmed by happy fragrances. At once Peneus came to green Tempe, Tempe, whose hanging woods encircle it above, leaving Pasiphae to be honoured by the sea’s dance: not empty-handed, since he carried a tall beech by the roots, and long-leafed laurel from a straight trunk, and was not without nodding plane, and pliant poplar, scorched Phaethon’s sister, and airy cypress. He placed them woven, here and there, round the house till the courtyard was green, veiled with fresh foliage. Prometheus followed after him, skilled in mind, showing faint traces of his ancient punishment, when once he suffered, hung in tight chains from the high ledge of rock. Then the father of the gods with his sacred consort, and his sons, came down from the heavens, leaving behind only you, Phoebus, and the one born together with you, she who lives on the slopes of Ida: Peleus is still disdained by both you and your sister, and you will not celebrate Thetis’s wedding torches. Then the gods seated their limbs at the white benches, at tables richly heaped with various foods, while, moving their bodies in trembling dance, the Fates began to utter their prophetic song. Quivering seized their bodies, their white ankles wholly covered by the red hem of their dresses, and a red headband circling their white hair, and their hands were busy, as ever, at their eternal work. The left hand held the distaff, wound with soft wool, then the right, drawing out the thread lightly, shaped it with upturned fingers, then, twisting it under the thumb, turned the level spindle in smooth rotation, and often a plucking tooth made the strands equal, and fragments of wool, that once projected from the light threads, clung to their dry lips: and, before their feet, bright wool from a soft fleece was guarded by a basket woven of willow. Then in a clear voice, pushing away the fleece, they poured out these prophecies in divine song, song not to be proven wrong, by any amount of years. ‘Defence of Thessaly, dearest of Jupiter’s scions, adding marvellous glory to your great powers, accept what the glad sisters bring to the light, true oracles: but you who accompany fate, fly, guiding threads: fly, spindle. Now Hesperus comes to you bearing the longed-for bride, the wife approaches beneath a fortunate star, who pours out her heart to you with tender love, and prepares to lie with you in languid sleep, spreading her delicate arms beneath your strong neck. Fly, guiding threads: fly, spindle. No house has ever sheltered such love, no love has ever joined lovers in such a union, even as harmony comes to Thetis, and Peleus. Fly, guiding threads: fly, spindle. A child Achilles is born to you, free of fear, noted for never turning his back on an enemy, strong of heart, who, often the victor in the fickle foot-race, outstrips the swift deer with fiery hooves. Fly, guiding threads: fly, spindle. No hero dare confront him in battle, when the Phrygian rivers flow with the blood of Teucer’s people, and the third heir of deceitful Pelops lays waste the walls of Troy, besieged in the weary war. Fly, guiding threads: fly, spindle. Often women at the funerals of their sons lament his illustrious powers and bright deeds, as neglected hair streams down from their white heads, and weak hands mark their withered breasts. Fly, guiding threads: fly, spindle. Now, as a reaper prematurely mowing the dense stalks, scythes the golden fields under his eager feet, he destroys the Trojan bodies with his fierce blade. Fly, guiding threads: fly, spindle. Scamander’s waves that pour down in cascade to the swift Hellespont will bear witness to his great courage, its passage narrowed by the heaped bodies of the dead, the deep waters mixed with warm blood. Fly, guiding threads: fly, spindle. At last it will be witness also to a death-prize paid, when a heaped tomb by the high rampart receives the smooth white body of a sacrificed virgin girl. Fly, guiding threads: fly, spindle. Then as luck grants the riches of the Trojan city to the weary Greeks, loosening Neptune’s bond, the high mound will be soaked with Polyxena’s blood: who bowing like a sacrifice to the two-edged blade will fall to her knees, a maimed corpse. Fly, guiding threads: fly, spindle. So perform the wishes of your hearts, join in love. Let the husband accept his goddess in joyful contract, now the bride be given to her loving partner. Fly, guiding threads: fly, spindle. The nurse returning at daybreak will not encircle her neck with yesterday’s ribbon, nor the anxious mother by the sad bed of a troubled daughter, forgo the hope of dear grandchildren. Fly, guiding threads: fly, spindle.’ Such the song once sung of happy prophecy to Peleus, from the Parcae’s divine hearts. Once the gods in person visited the pure houses of heroes, and showed themselves to the mortal crowd, the gods were not yet used to men’s scorn for piety. Often the father of the gods revisiting his bright temple, when the annual rites came round on the holy days, saw a hundred bulls lying on the ground. Wandering Bacchus often led the shouting Bacchantes, with their flowing hair, on the high peak of Parnassus, when all rushing in emulation from the happy town of Delphos received the god with smoking altars. Often in the fatal struggles of war, Mars, or swift Minerva the lady of Lake Tritonis, or virgin Artemis appeared to exhort the crowds of armed men. But afterwards earth was tainted by impious wickedness and all fled from justice with eager minds, the brother’s hand was stained with a brother’s blood, the child ceased to mourn for its dead parents, the father chose the younger son’s death to acquire a single woman in her prime, the impious mother spread herself beneath the unknowing son, not afraid of desecrating the household shrine. All piety was confused with impiety in evil frenzy turning the righteous will of the gods from us. So such as they do not visit our marriages, nor allow themselves to approach us, in the light of day.

Gemälde mit mythologischen Figuren bei einem Tanz

Gedicht 65: Das Versprechen: an Hortalus

Kommentar: Catullus entschuldigt sich bei seinem Freund Hortalus (vielleicht Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, ein Redner) dafür, dass er ihm keine Gedichte schicken konnte, da er überwältigende Trauer über den Tod seines Bruders empfand. Er vergleicht seine Unfähigkeit zu komponieren mit einem Mädchen, das einen versteckten Apfel verliert, ein Geschenk von ihrem Geliebten. Er verspricht, trotz seiner Trauer Verse in Nachahmung von Kallimachos zu schicken.

Though I’m continually worn out by grief’s pain, removed, Hortalus, from the learned girls, unable to bear the sweet fruit of the Muses, the mind troubled by so many dark feelings (for lately the flowing water in Lethe’s depths washes at my brother’s pallid feet, whom, torn from my eyes, the earth crushes beneath the shore of Trojan Rhoeteum. Am I never to see you hereafter, brother more lovely than life? But I will always love you, it’s true, always sing your death in mournful song, as Daulian Procne sings in the dense shadow of branches, lamenting dead Itylus’s fate) even in such great sadness, Hortalus, I still send you these verses in imitation of Callimachus, lest you might think your words for no good reason had been lost from my mind on the passing wind, as the apple sent as a secret gift from a lover rolls from the chaste girl’s breast, placed under the soft clothing, sadly forgotten, until, as she springs up at her mother’s approach, it’s shaken out, and rolls down in headlong descent, leaving a knowing blush on her sad face.

Gedicht 66: Die Haarsträhne: Berenike

Kommentar: Eine Übersetzung von Kallimachos‘ „Locke der Berenike“. Das Gedicht wird von einer Haarsträhne der Königin Berenike gesprochen, die sie als Gelübde für die sichere Rückkehr ihres Mannes widmete und die anschließend in ein Sternbild verwandelt wurde. Die Locke erzählt von ihrer Reise zum Himmel und drückt ihre Sehnsucht nach ihrer Herrin aus. Catulls Übersetzung von Kallimachos zeigt seine Auseinandersetzung mit hellenistischer Poesie und sein Können im Umgang mit gelehrten, mythologischen Themen.

He who gazed at all the lights in the vast heavens, who learnt the rise and setting of the stars, how the fiery beauty of the swift sun’s darkened, how constellations vanish at fixed times, how sweet love entices Diana, secretly passing near the Latmian cliffs, in her airy course: that same Conon, the astronomer, saw me shining brightly at heaven’s threshold, a lock of hair from Berenice’s head, she who stretching out her delicate arms made promises to a multitude of gods, at that time when the great king newly married was gone to lay waste the borders of Assyria, bearing sweet traces of nocturnal strife, those that are brought about by virgin spoils. Is Venus really hated by new brides? Is parents’ joy deceived by their false tears, shed copiously within the threshold of the bed? If it were truth they sighed they’d not have supported my divinity so. My queen taught me that, with her many woeful cries, when her new husband went off to grim battle. And is it not the bereavement of an empty bed you mourn, but the tearful separation from a dear brother? How sad cares eat at the heart’s core from within! As though, troubled, your mind is wholly lost, robbed of all feeling in your breast! But I recognise true greatness in a girl. Surely that brave act is not forgotten by which a husband’s kingdom was gained, that no one stronger dared? But what sad words were said in sending off this husband! Jupiter, how often your eyes were brushed by your hand! What god has changed you so? Or is it a lovers wish not to be absent from the beloved body for long?’ And, there too, you promised me, to all the gods, not without blood of bulls, for your dear husband, if it brought his return. It did not take him long to add captive Asia to the bounds of Egypt. I discharge former promises, for those deeds, by this new tribute that joins me to the heavens. Unwillingly, O Queen, I was parted from your hair, unwillingly: I swear it by you and that head of yours, that is worthy, even though one were to swear in vain: but who could claim to be equal to steel itself? Even the mountain’s overthrown by it, the greatest bright child of Macedonia’s shores, over-passed when the Persians created a new sea, when barbarians drove their fleet through the midst of Athos. What can hair do when such things fall to the blade? By Jupiter, that the tribe of Chalybes might all perish, and those who first pursued the search for veins of metal below the earth, and how to cut tough things with iron! A little while ago the sisters were mourning my fate as a shorn lock, when, out of Locri, Arsínoe sent the winged horses of Ethiopian Memnon himself, beating, with quivering wings, Zephyrus’s, the West Wind’s, air, the brother born with him, and carrying me through the shadowed sky, he flew, and placed me in chaste Venus’s lap. Arsínoe herself sent her servant there, Greek inhabitant of the Canoptic shore. My arrival changed the heavens, so the golden crown from Ariadne’s brow might not be fixed alone in the bright sky: but, so that I too might shine, a faithful spoil of that golden hair, the goddess passing, wet from the flood, to the gods’ temple, placed me as a new constellation among the old. For, touching the Virgin’s stars and the savage Lion, joined to Callisto daughter of Lycaon, I fall towards the west, leading slow Bootës, who merges tardily with the deep Ocean. But though the footsteps of the gods touch me by night, light still returns me to the ancient sea. (Let this be known, by your leave, Fate, Virgin Ramnusia, since I hide nothing of the truth through fear, nor though the stars disperse me with angry words, do I choose to hide the buried truth of the heart.) I don’t delight in these things, as much as I suffer from being parted, parted from my lady’s hair, with which, when the girl used to try out all perfumes, I myself absorbed many thousands. Now you, whom the longed-for marriage torches join, don’t surrender your bodies to mutual embrace, baring your breasts with clothes removed, before the onyx delights me with its pleasing gift, your onyx, you who by right adorn the chaste bed. But she who gives herself to impure adulteries, let her absorb from sin the vain gift of light dust: since I seek no prize from the undeserving. But let great harmony, O brides, always inhabit your house, continual love always. You, my Queen, when you see your divine constellation, as you placate Venus with festive lights, don’t leave me free of your perfumes, but endow me with more great gifts. I wish that the stars would fall! I’d become royal hair, and then let Orion shine next to Aquarius!

Gemälde mit mythologischen Figuren

Gedicht 67: Über die ehebrecherische Tür eines Mannes

Kommentar: Ein einzigartiges Gedicht, in dem Catullus eine Haustür nach den sexuellen Skandalen befragt, die sich darin ereignet haben. Die Tür erzählt Geschichten von Ehebruch und Inzest, an denen die Familie des neuen Besitzers beteiligt ist. Diese ungewöhnliche Perspektive ermöglicht es Catullus, Klatsch und Satire aus der Sicht eines unbelebten Objekts zu übermitteln.

O hail, sweet door, pleasing to a husband, pleasing to a father, and may Jupiter add his virtuous power to you, who served Balbus faithfully, they say, for a good while, when the old man owned the house himself, and served the son, on the contrary, quite badly, it’s said, when you became a wedding gift with the old man dead. Come on, tell us, why exhibit this change deserting old loyalties of ownership? ‘It’s not my fault (I please this Caecilius, I’m handed over to now), though it’s said to be mine, it’s no sin of mine that anyone can say anything: truly a door of your people answers you, me, to whom whenever some ill deed’s discovered all cry out: “It’s your fault, door.”’ It’s not enough to say that, with a word, but you must do what anyone might see and know. ‘How can I? No one asks or takes the trouble to know?’ I will, tell me, don’t hesitate. ‘Well first, the virgin, they say, who was handed over to us, was false. The husband wasn’t the first to touch her, he whose sword hangs limper than a tender beet, never lifting the middle of his tunic: but they say the father violated his son’s bed, and disgraced the unfortunate house, either because his impious mind burned with blind lust, or because the son was useless, with barren seed, so it was necessary to search for one more vigorous, who could undo her virgin tie.’ You tell of an illustrious father with amazing piety. who comes in his own son’s lap. ‘And Brescia under the cliffs of Cycnea, that golden Mella with sweet water runs by, Brescia dear mother of my Verona, says he isn’t the only one known to have had her, but speaks of Postumius and Cornelius with passion, with whom she commited wicked adultery. Here someone will have said? “How do you know, door, never allowed to leave your master’s threshold, or overhear people, but fixed to this post, so accustomed to opening and closing the house?” I’ve often heard her alone in a furtive voice speak to her maids about her sins, the names I’ve said being spoken, she expecting that I’d have neither speech nor hearing. Besides, she added, someone else, whose name I don’t want to say, lest he raise his red eyebrow. He’s a tall man, who fought a great lawsuit once, about a false pregnancy in a lying womb.’

Gedicht 68: Freundschaft: an Manlius

Kommentar: Ein komplexes und emotionales Gedicht, das sich an seinen Freund Manlius richtet, der Catullus um Trost oder Poesie gebeten hat. Catullus erklärt seine Unfähigkeit, Trost zu spenden oder fröhliche Verse zu komponieren, aufgrund seiner tiefen Trauer über den Tod seines Bruders und seines anhaltenden Leidens in der Liebe. Er berührt Themen wie Freundschaft, Verlust, Liebe und den Zweck der Poesie. Dies dient auch als allgemeiner Hinweis darauf, wie Dichter verschiedene menschliche Beziehungen einfangen, obwohl spezifische Gedichte für Neffen von Tanten eine eigene thematische Nische darstellen.

That you send this letter to me, written with tears, to me, crushed by fate and bitter ill-fortune, that I might raise up, and return from the threshold of death one shipwrecked, cast from the foaming waves of the sea, one whom sacred Venus deprives of gentle sleep, forsaken, enduring an empty bed, not delighting in the sweet songs of the Muse of the ancient poets, lying awake all night with an anxious mind: that’s pleasing to me, since you call me your friend, and search here for the gifts of the Muses and Venus. But in case my troubles aren’t known to you, Manlius, or you think I dislike the duties of a friend, let me tell of waves of misfortune that I myself plunge in, lest you seek rich gifts any more from a wretched man. At that time when the first white toga was handed me, when my youth passed in flower through happy spring, I played more than enough: the goddess was not unknown to me, the work that mixed bitter with sweet. But all my studies were lost in the grief at my brother’s death. O wretched, to take my brother from me: you brother, you, in dying, wrecked my good fortune, with you our whole house is buried together, with you all our joys perish in one, that your love nourished in sweet life. So that ruined in thought I forsake those studies and all the delights of the mind. Therefore, when you say that it’s shameful for Catullus to be in Verona, that here someone well-known only warms cold limbs in an empty bed, it’s not shameful, Manlius, my sadness is great. So pardon me if I don’t bestow those gifts on you that grief takes from me, while I cannot. Since there’s no great store of books here with me, it needs me to be living in Rome: there’s my house, there’s my place, there my time is spent: only one of my many book-boxes follows me here. since it’s so, don’t think I do anything with ill intent, or that I’m lacking at all in noble feeling: it’s on you and no other I seek to lavish riches: besides I’d offer whatever riches I had.

Gedicht 68b: Gedenken: an Allius

Kommentar: Von einigen als Fortsetzung von Gedicht 68 betrachtet, gedenkt dieses Gedicht der Freundlichkeit von Allius (oder Mallius/Manlius), der Catullus und seiner Geliebten (wahrscheinlich Lesbia) ein Haus für ihre Affäre zur Verfügung stellte. Catullus drückt tiefe Dankbarkeit aus und kontrastiert Allius‘ Treue mit der Untreue anderer. Es enthält die ergreifende Klage um seinen toten Bruder und eine mythologische Abschweifung über Laodamia und Protesilaus.

I can’t conceal, goddesses, the things of mine Allius helped with, or how many services he’s performed, lest fleeting time in forgetful ages hides this kindness of his in blind night: but I tell it to you: speak to many future thousands and let this paper speak in its old age, ……………………………………………..**……………………………………………..and let the dead become more and more famous, don’t let the spider spinning its fine web on high perform its task on Allius’s neglected name. For you know how fickle Venus would have troubled me, and in what way she might have scorched me, when I might have burned like the Sicilian rocks, or the waters of Malis at Oetaean Thermopylae, my grieving eyes not have ceased to melt with endless tears, my cheeks to have been drenched with a saddened rain. Then like a mountain stream shining on airy heights, springing from mossy rock, that, having fallen headlong from sloping valleys, passes through the midst of densely populated regions, sweet comfort to travellers’ weary labour, when fierce heat splits the dried-up fields: like to a favourable wind that comes breathing lightly to the sailor tossed in the black tempest, now praying to Pollux, now imploring Castor, such was Allius’s help to me. He opened the closed field with a wide path, and granted my self and my girl a house, where we carried on our mutual affair, to which my bright goddess repaired with gentle steps, set her graceful sandals on the worn threshold, rested her shining feet, as once with blazing passion Laodamia came to the house, begun in vain, of Protesilaus her husband, the sacrifice not yet appeasing the gods’ love of sacred blood. Let nothing please me much, Fate, Ramnusian Virgin, that you by chance may receive unwillingly. Laodamia learnt from the loss of her husband how the hungry altar desires holy blood: she was forced to loose her new spouse’s neck, before one winter, and another returning, had sated eager love with their long nights, so she might learn to live without a lost husband, whom the Fates knew would not live long if he went as a soldier to the walls of Troy. For now Helen’s abduction had forced the Greek nobles to rouse their men for Troy, Troy (the evil!) a common grave for Asia and Europe, Troy the bitter ruin of men and of all virtue, have you not even brought my brother’s death. Oh alas for the brother taken from me, oh alas the shining light of a brother lost, with you our whole house is buried together, with you all our joys perish in one, that your love nourished in sweet life. You who, far away, are not interred among famous tombs, nor near the ashes of the known, but vile Troy, unhappy Troy, holds your grave, in the furthest soil of an alien land. To which they say the men of Greece hurried from every side, deserting their household shrines, lest Paris, delighted, carried off at leisure, to a peaceful bed, the adulteress he’d abducted. Through your misfortune, then, loveliest Laodamia your husband was taken from you, dearer to you than life and spirit: love’s passion, swallowing you in a whirlpool, carried you into the steep abyss, as they say the soil of Greek Pheneus near Cyllene dried up, when the thick swamp was drained, that Hercules, the divinely-fathered, once dared to lance, in the hacked out marrow of the mountains, when his sure arrows struck the Stymphalian birds, at a worse master’s command, so that the threshold of the heavens might be frequented by more gods, and Hebe might not long remain a virgin. But your deep love, that taught an untamed girl to bear the yoke, was deeper still than that abyss. Since the grandchild nursed by an only daughter, is not as dear to her father, child of his old age, that, when the child’s name is barely entered in the grandfather’s will, disposing of his riches, removing the scornful family’s impious joy, scatters the vultures from his white head: no spouse was ever as pleasing to a white dove, that they say often sinfully gives far more kisses nipping with its beak, than any woman who beyond measure longs for as much. But you alone outdo their great passion, you who are won for ever by a golden-haired man. You to whom the light of my life conceded little or nothing in worth, when she gave herself into my lap, who often shone, with Cupid running about her, bright in his saffron tunic. Even if she’s still not content with Catullus alone, I’ll suffer the infrequent affairs of a shy mistress, lest I’m too annoying in the manner of fools. Often even Juno, greatest of goddesses, swallows her burning anger with her spouse’s sins, knowing the many affairs of all-willing Jupiter. And men are not to be compared with the gods, ……………………………………………..**……………………………………………..bear the thankless burden of a worried father. Yet, led by no father’s hand, she comes to me, to the house, fragrant with Assyrian perfumes, brings me the marvellous gift in the secret night, she herself, stolen away from her husband’s breast. And that is enough, if that alone’s granted to me, that she marks out that day with a brighter light. This then Allius, for you, what I can, a gift made of song, in return for your friendship, lest this day and that, and others on others touch your name with corrosions of rust. And let the gods add more to this, those gifts Themis once used to bring to the pious of old. May you be happy, both you and your life, both your house in which we joyed, and the lady, and he who first gave you to me, from which source all our good was born, and she, before everything, dearer to me than him, light of my life, through whose being alive, living is sweet to me.

Gemälde mit mythologischen Figuren betreten einen Raum

Gedicht 69: Riechend: an Rufus

Kommentar: Catullus wendet sich an Rufus und erklärt, warum keine Frau ihn begehrt: Er hat einen schrecklichen Geruch („eine wilde Ziege unter den Achseln“). Er rät Rufus unverblümt, den Geruch loszuwerden, wenn er Frauen anziehen will.

I’m not surprised as to why no girl desires to place her gentle thighs beneath you, Rufus, not if you were to weaken her with gifts of rarest dresses, the delights of clearest gems. A certain evil story wounds you: that they tell about you: that you’ve a wild goat under the armpits. Everyone hates that, no wonder: since it’s a truly evil-smelling beast, not one that girls bed with. So either kill the cruel plague to their noses, or cease to wonder why they run away.

Gedicht 70: Frauentreue

Kommentar: Ein kurzes, zynisches Epigramm, das die Flüchtigkeit der Versprechen einer Frau in der Liebe reflektiert. Catullus sagt, dass sein Mädchen sagt, sie würde nur ihn heiraten, aber solche Worte sollten so flüchtig wie Wind oder fließendes Wasser abgetan werden.

My girl says she’d rather marry no one but me, not if Jupiter himself were to ask her. She says: but what a girl says to her eager lover, should be written on the wind and in running water.

Gedicht 71: Rache

Kommentar: Ein kurzes, grobes Gedicht, das düstere Genugtuung über die körperlichen Beschwerden (Körpergeruch und Gicht) eines Rivalen ausdrückt, der mit seiner Geliebten zusammen ist. Catullus betrachtet ihr Leiden beim Sex als eine Form der Rache.

If a goat’s smell under the arms rightly prevents anyone, or if a slow gout deservedly cripples them, your rival, who keeps your lover busy, is discovered by you to be wonderfully sick with both. Now whenever he fucks her, you’re revenged on the pair: she’s troubled by the smell, he’s ruined by the gout.

Gedicht 72: Vertrautheit: an Lesbia

Kommentar: Ein zentrales Gedicht im Lesbia-Zyklus, das das schmerzhafte Paradoxon von Liebe und Wertschätzung ausdrückt. Catullus sagt Lesbia, dass sie durch das bessere Kennenlernen ihn paradoxerweise heftiger brennen ließ, aber sie ihm weniger wert sei. Die Vertrautheit hat den Respekt, den er einst wie ein Vater für seine Kinder empfand, untergraben und nur gequälte Leidenschaft hinterlassen.

Once you said you preferred Catullus alone, Lesbia: would not have Jupiter before me. I prized you then not like an ordinary lover, but as a father prizes his children, his family. Now I know you: so, though I burn more fiercely, yet you’re worth much less to me, and slighter. How is that, you ask? The pain of such love makes a lover love more, but like less.

Gemälde mit mythologischen Figuren

Gedicht 73: Gescheiterter Freund

Kommentar: Eine bittere Reflexion über menschliche Undankbarkeit. Catullus rät davon ab, zu jedem freundlich zu sein, da dies oft auf Danklosigkeit stößt. Er fühlt sich am meisten von jemandem verletzt, den er für seinen engsten Freund hielt, was seine Enttäuschung über Loyalität veranschaulicht.

Stop wanting to be kind to all and sundry, or believing someone can become good. All are ungrateful: being generous achieves nothing, rather it wearies even, and greatly harms: so with me, whom no one oppresses as heavily, bitterly, as he who once held me to be his one and only friend.

Gedicht 74: Sicherheit: an Gellius

Kommentar: Ein skandalöses Epigramm über Gellius, der die potenzielle Kritik seines Onkels bezüglich sexueller Angelegenheiten umgeht, indem er die Frau des Onkels verführt. Durch inzestuösen Ehebruch stellt Gellius sicher, dass sein Onkel schweigt und ihn so effektiv in einen „stummen Harpocrates“ verwandelt.

Gellius had heard his uncle used to rebuke, anyone who performed or spoke about love’s delights. To avoid this misfortune himself, he seduced his uncle’s wife, and made his uncle a silent Harpocrates. What he wanted, he did: for, now though he buggered his uncle himself, his uncle would not say a word.

Bild einer Statue

Gedicht 75: Gekettet: an Lesbia

Kommentar: Ein kurzer, kraftvoller Ausdruck der Tiefe von Catulls emotionaler Verstrickung mit Lesbia. Sein Geist ist durch ihre Fehler und seinen Dienst an ihr so verdorben und ruiniert, dass er ihr paradoxerweise nicht einmal wünschen kann, dass es ihr gut geht, wenn sie tugendhaft wäre, noch aufhören kann, sie zu lieben, selbst wenn sie auf ihrem schlimmsten Punkt wäre. Er ist emotional gefangen.

My mind’s reduced to this, by your faults, Lesbia, and has ruined itself so in your service, that now it couldn’t wish you well, were you to become what’s best, or stop loving you if you do what’s worst.

Gedicht 76: Vergangene Freundlichkeit: an die Götter

Kommentar: Ein herzliches Gebet an die Götter, in dem Catullus über seine frühere Tugend und Treue (im Gegensatz zu Lesbias Verhalten) nachdenkt und um Erlösung von der Qual seiner Liebe zu ihr bittet. Er erkennt die Schwierigkeit des Loslassens an, präsentiert es aber als seine einzige Rettung. Er bittet nicht mehr um ihre Liebe oder Keuschheit, sondern nur um Freiheit von seinem Leiden.

If recalling past good deeds is pleasant to a man, when he thinks himself to have been virtuous, not violating sacred ties, nor using the names of gods in any contract in order to deceive men, then there are many pleasures left to you, Catullus, in the rest of life, due to this thankless passion. Since whatever good a man can do or say to anyone, has been said and done by you. All, that entrusted to a thankless heart is lost. Why torment yourself then any longer? Why not harden your mind, and shrink from it, and cease to be unhappy, since the gods are hostile? It’s difficult to suddenly let go of a former love, it’s difficult, but it would gratify you to do it: That’s your one salvation. That’s for you to prove, for you to try, whether you can or not. O gods, if mercy is yours, or if you ever brought help to a man at the very moment of his death, gaze at my pain and, if I’ve lived purely, lift this plague, this destruction from me, so that the torpor that creeps into my body’s depths drives out every joy from my heart. I no longer ask that she loves me to my face, or, the impossible, that she be chaste: I choose health, and to rid myself of this foul illness. O gods, grant me this for all my kindness.

Gedicht 77: Verräter: an Rufus

Kommentar: Ein kurzes, intensives Gedicht, das Rufus, einen früheren Freund, des Verrats beschuldigt. Catullus empfindet, dass Rufus ihn heimtückisch verletzt und sein Glück zerstört hat, und bezeichnet ihn als „grausames Gift“ und „Verderben meiner Freundschaft“.

Rufus, trusted by me as a friend, uselessly and pointlessly, (Uselessly? Rather, at a great and evil price), have you crept into my life like this, and ruptured my entrails, ah alas, have you robbed me of all my good? You’ve robbed me, oh cruel poison of my life, oh ruin of my friendship.

Gedicht 78: Der Zuhälter: an Gallus

Kommentar: Ein kurzes, sarkastisches Epigramm über Gallus, der eine Beziehung zwischen der Frau seines Bruders und seinem Sohn ermöglicht. Catullus nennt Gallus „niedlich“ dafür, dass er diese skandalöse Affäre arrangiert, aber auch „dumm“, weil er im Grunde Ehebruch innerhalb seiner eigenen Familie ermöglicht.

Gallus has brothers, of whom one has the loveliest wife the other the loveliest son. Gallus is a cute man: since he joins them as lovers, so that beautiful boy beds with beautiful girl. Gallus is a stupid man, not seeing himself as a husband, who instructs a nephew in an uncle’s wife’s adultery.

Gedicht 78b: Unsterblichkeit

Kommentar: Ein kurzes, möglicherweise verwandtes Fragment, das die Verunreinigung der reinen Lippen eines Mädchens durch den „faulen Speichel“ eines Mannes beklagt. Es enthält eine Drohung, dass die Taten des Täters durch die Überlieferung für immer in Erinnerung bleiben und bloßgestellt werden.

But now I grieve that your foul saliva has polluted the pure lips of a pure girl. Still you’ll not do it with impunity: now all the years will know you, and ancient tradition tell what you are.

Gedicht 79: Nicht so schön: an Lesbius

Kommentar: Catullus kommentiert sarkastisch „Lesbius“ (Lesbias Bruder, wahrscheinlich Clodius Pulcher), den Lesbia sogar Catullus vorzieht. Er bemerkt, dass Lesbius vielleicht gutaussehend ist, aber sein wahres Wesen oder seine Herkunft fragwürdig sei, was darauf hindeutet, dass er von vielen nicht als solcher anerkannt würde.

Lesbius is pretty. Why not? Since Lesbia likes him more than you and all your people, Catullus. But still let this pretty boy sell Catullus and all his people if he should find three to acknowledge his birth.

Gedicht 80: Zugabe: an Gellius

Kommentar: Ein derbes und explizites Gedicht, gerichtet an Gellius, in dem gefragt wird, warum seine Lippen morgens oder spät am Tag blass werden. Catullus deutet an, dass die Blässe auf oralen sexuellen Handlungen beruht, wobei er Victors angespannt Oberschenkel und Gellius‘ Samen-markierte Lippen als Beweis anführt.

What can I say, Gellius, as to why those red lips become whiter than winter snow, when you leave your house in the morning or when the eighth hour wakes you placid and weak in the long day? It’s something, for sure: perhaps rumour’s whisper is true that you swallow the tall jet from a man’s groin? this is for sure: Victor’s strained thighs proclaim it, and your lips marked with dried semen.

Gedicht 81: Seltsamer Geschmack: an Iuventius

Kommentar: Erneut an Iuventius gerichtet, drückt Catullus Unglauben darüber aus, dass dieser einen bestimmten „gelblichen“ Gast aus Pesaro ihm selbst vorziehen würde. Er stellt Iuventius‘ Geschmack und Urteilsvermögen bei der Wahl dieses Mannes in Frage.

Can there be no one in all these people, Iuventius, no nice man you might begin to like, besides that guest of yours, yellower than a gilded statue, from the environs of deadly Pesaro, who pleases you now, whom you dare to prefer to me, and do who knows what with?

Gedicht 82: Augenschuld: an Quintius

Kommentar: Ein kurzes, intensives Gedicht, das sich an Quintius richtet und ihn warnt, etwas „Teureres als Augen“ (vermutlich Lesbia) nicht zu stehlen, wenn er möchte, dass Catullus ihn hoch schätzt oder ihm sogar seine eigenen Augen schuldet. Es hebt die extreme Bedeutung hervor, die Catullus seiner Liebe beimisst.

Quintius, if you want Catullus to owe you his eyes or something that might be more dear than his eyes, don’t steal from him what’s much dearer to him than his eyes, or something dearer than eyes.

Gedicht 83: Der Ehemann: an Lesbia

Kommentar: Catullus beobachtet, wie Lesbia ihn vor ihrem Ehemann beleidigt, der sich töricht darüber freut. Catullus interpretiert ihr Verhalten als Zeichen anhaltend starker Gefühle und deutet an, dass sie schweigen würde, wenn sie ihn wirklich überwunden hätte. Ihre Wut zeigt, dass sie immer noch „entflammt“ ist.

Lesbia says bad things about me to her husband’s face: it’s the greatest delight to that fool. Mule, don’t you see? If she forgot and was silent about me, that would be right: now since she moans and abuses, she not only remembers, but something more serious, she’s angry. That is, she’s inflamed, so she speaks.

Gedicht 84: Natürlich: an Mentula

Kommentar: Ein sehr kurzes, derbes Epigramm, das „Mentula“ (Mamurra) mit sexueller Promiskuität in Verbindung bringt und besagt, dass dies einfach seine Natur sei. Das Sprichwort „der Topf sucht seine eigenen Kräuter“ impliziert, dass er sich natürlich zu Lastern hingezogen fühlt.

Mentula the Cock fornicates. Does a Cock fuck? For sure. That’s what they say: the pot picks its own herbs.

Gedicht 95: Smyrna: an Gaius Helvius Cinna

Kommentar: Catullus lobt das lange, gelehrte Gedicht „Smyrna“ seines Freundes Cinna und weist auf die große Anstrengung (neun Jahre) hin, die dafür aufgewendet wurde. Er kontrastiert es mit der produktiven, aber schrecklichen Poesie von Volusius, dessen Werk nur zum Einpacken von Fisch taugt. Es bekräftigt den Wert der „neuen Dichter“ von Qualität und Schliff gegenüber Quantität.

My Cinna’s Smyrna is published at last, nine summers and winters after it was begun, while from Hatria there’s half a million verses a year ……………………………………………..**……………………………………………..**Smyrna, reaching the deep streams of Cyprian Satrachus, white-haired centuries will long read Smyrna. But Volusian annals will be stillborn in Padua, and often provide a limp wrapper for mackerel. Let my friend’s little monument be dear to me, and the masses delight in swollen Antimachus.

Gedicht 96: Jenseits des Grabes: an Gaius Licinius Calvus

Kommentar: Gerichtet an seinen Freund Calvus anlässlich des Todes von Calvus‘ Frau Quintilia. Catullus deutet an, dass, wenn Kummer die Toten erreichen kann, Quintilias Trauer über ihren frühen Tod durch das Wissen um Calvus‘ Liebe und Trauer um sie gemildert werden könnte. Es ist ein zartes Trostgedicht.

If anything from our grief, can reach beyond the mute grave, Calvus, and be pleasing and welcome, grief with which, in longing, we revive our lost loves, and weep for vanished friendships once known, surely Quintilia’s not so much sad for her early death, as joyful for your love.

Gedicht 97: Ekelhaft: an Aemilius

Kommentar: Ein höchst beleidigender und drastischer Angriff auf Aemilius, der seinen üblen Mund beschreibt und andeutet, dass sein Anus sauberer sei. Catullus verwendet abstoßende Bilder (lange Zähne, kranke Zahnfleisch, klaffende Kiefer), um seinen Ekel zu vermitteln und zu fragen, wie irgendeine Frau mit ihm zu tun haben könnte.

I did not (may the gods love me) think it mattered, whether I might be smelling Aemilius’s mouth or arse. The one’s no cleaner, the other’s no dirtier, in fact his arse is both cleaner and nicer: since it’s no teeth. Indeed, the other has foot long teeth, gums like an old box-cart, and jaws that usually gape like the open cunt of a pissing mule on heat. He fucks lots of women, and makes himself out to be charming, and isn’t set to the mill with the ass? Shouldn’t we think, of any girl touching him, she’s capable of licking a foul hangman’s arse?

Gedicht 98: Gut bewaffnet: an Victius

Kommentar: Eine weitere derbe Schmährede, diesmal gerichtet an Victius, den Catullus „Stinkend“ nennt. Er deutet an, dass Victius‘ Zunge so faul sei, dass sie zum Lecken schmutziger Dinge verwendet werden könnte, und dass allein das Öffnen seines Mundes ausreicht, um jeden zu zerstören.

About you, if anyone, Stinking Victius, can be said what they say of the verbose and fatuous. With that tongue, if the need arose, you could lick arses, and leather-soled sandals. If you want to destroy us completely, Victius, gape at us: what you desire you’ll wholly achieve.

Gedicht 99: Gestohlene Küsse: an Iuventius

Kommentar: Catullus erzählt von einem gestohlenen Kuss von Iuventius, den er als zunächst süß beschreibt, der ihm aber aufgrund von Iuventius‘ wütender Reaktion Schmerz und Bestrafung bringt. Iuventius‘ angewiderte Reaktion (Spülen seiner Lippen) lässt die Süße bitter werden und lehrt Catullus eine Lektion über unerwünschte Zuneigung.

I stole a sweet kiss while you played, sweet Iuventius, one sweeter than sweetest ambrosia. Not taken indeed with impunity: for more than an hour I remember, I hung at the top of the gallows, while I was justifying myself to you, yet with my tears I couldn’t lessen your anger a tiny morsel. No sooner was it done, than, your lips rinsed with plenty of water, you banished it with your fingers, so nothing contracted from my lips might remain, as though it were the foul spit of a tainted whore. More, you handed me unhappily to vicious love who’s not failed to torment me in every way, so that sweet kiss, altered for me from ambrosia, was more bitter than bitter hellebore then. Since you lay down such punishments for unhappy love, now, after this, I’ll never steal kisses again.

Gedicht 100: Eine Wahl: an Marcus Caelius

Kommentar: Catullus wendet sich an Caelius (vermutlich denselben Freund aus Gedicht 58) und diskutiert zwei Paare in Verona: Caelius mit Aufilenus und Quintius mit Aufilena (Aufilenus‘ Schwester). Beide Brüder sind mit der jeweils anderen Geschwisterhälfte des anderen Paares liiert. Catullus bevorzugt Caelius, weil er ihm während seiner leidenschaftlichen Kämpfe ein Freund war, und wünscht ihm Erfolg in der Liebe mit Aufilenus.

Caelius with Aufilenus, and Quintius with Aufilena, both madly in love with the brother, the sister, the flower of Veronese youth. That as they say’s truly sweet, that fellowship of brothers. Who shall I favour more? You, Caelius, since your friendship, alone, saw me through my passion, when the furious flames scorched me to the core. Be happy, Caelius, be successful in love.

Gedicht 101: Ave Atque Vale: Eine Opfergabe für die Toten

Kommentar: Eine zutiefst bewegende und berühmte Elegie für seinen verstorbenen Bruder. Catullus beschreibt, wie er eine weite Reise unternimmt, um an den Trauerfeiern teilzunehmen und traditionelle Opfergaben für die stumme Asche darzubringen. Er drückt seine anhaltende Liebe und Trauer aus und schließt mit dem ergreifenden Abschiedswort „Ave atque vale“ (Sei gegrüßt und lebe wohl).

Carried over many seas, and through many nations, brother, I come to these sad funeral rites, to grant you the last gifts to the dead, and speak in vain to your mute ashes. Seeing that fate has stolen from me your very self. Ah alas, my brother, taken shamefully from me, yet, by the ancient custom of our parents, receive these sad gifts, offerings to the dead, soaked deeply with a brother’s tears, and for eternity, brother: ‘Hail and Farewell!’

Gedicht 102: Geheimhaltung: an Cornelius

Kommentar: Ein kurzes Gedicht, das seinem Freund Cornelius absolute Diskretion und Vertrauenswürdigkeit versichert. Catullus vergleicht sich mit Harpocrates, dem Gott der Stille, und betont, dass alle ihm anvertrauten Geheimnisse völlig sicher sind.

If anything was ever entrusted by a friend to a silent sure one, whose loyalty of spirit is deeply known, you’ll find I’m equally bound by that sacred rite, Cornelius, and turned into a pure Harpocrates.

Gedicht 103: Wahl: an Silo

Kommentar: Catullus wendet sich an Silo und fordert die Rückgabe von zehn Sesterzen. Er gibt Silo die Wahl: entweder das Geld zurückzugeben und so wild zu sein, wie er möchte, oder das Geld zu behalten, aber aufzuhören, ein Zuhälter zu sein und sein ungebührliches Verhalten einzustellen.

Silo, please return the ten sestertii, and then be as wild and unruly as you like: or, if you like the money, please leave off being a pander, and wild and unruly too.

Gedicht 104: Monströs

Kommentar: Ein kurzes Gedicht, das die Idee widerlegt, dass er schlecht über Lesbia („mein eigenes Leben“), die er intensiv liebt, sprechen könnte. Dann wendet er sich an jemand anderen („du, mit Tappo“), von dem er sagt, dass er „alles Monströse“ tut, und stellt damit implizit dessen Verhalten seinem eigenen unerschütterlichen (wenn auch schmerzhaften) Hingabe gegenüber.

Do you think I could speak ill of my own life, she who’s dearer to me than my two eyes? I couldn’t, nor, if I could, would I love so desperately: but you, with Tappo, you do everything monstrous.

Gedicht 105: Kein Dichter: an Mentula

Kommentar: Ein kurzes, abfälliges Epigramm, das Mamurra („Mentula“ oder „Schwanz“) darstellt, wie er versucht, den Gipfel des Parnass (den Berg der Musen, symbolisch für poetisches Streben) zu erreichen, nur um von den Musen selbst gewaltsam heruntergeworfen zu werden. Es ist eine metaphorische Aussage, dass Mamurra in der wahren Poesie keinen Platz hat.

Mentula the Cock tries to climb the Parnassian Mount: the Muses with pitchforks toss him out, head first.

Gedicht 106: Es ist offensichtlich

Kommentar: Eine kurze, zynische Beobachtung über einen Auktionator, der mit einem gutaussehenden Jungen gesehen wird. Catullus deutet an, dass der Auktionator sich oder seine Dienste (als Zuhälter) durch die Verbindung mit dem Jungen einfach bewirbt.

When you see one who’s an auctioneer with a pretty boy, what to think, but that he wants to advertise himself?

Gedicht 107: Wieder da: an Lesbia

Kommentar: Ein Gedicht, das immense Freude und Erleichterung über Lesbias Rückkehr oder mögliche Rückkehr zu ihm ausdrückt. Catullus beschreibt unerwartetes Glück als die größte Freude und feiert den Tag ihrer Rückkehr als den hellsten aller Tage. Es zeigt einen Moment erneuter Hoffnung in ihrer schwierigen Beziehung.

If anything happens to one who desires it, and wishes and never expects it, it’s a special delight to the mind. Likewise, this is delight, dearer than gold, to me, that you come back to me, Lesbia, in my longing. come back, desired and un-hoped for, give yourself back to me. O day marked out with greater brightness! Who exists more happily than me, or can say that he wishes for any life greater than this?

Gedicht 108: Lieber Cominius

Kommentar: Ein brutaler Wunsch nach dem Tod und der Zerstückelung von Cominius, einer politischen Figur, die Catullus offensichtlich verachtet. Er stellt sich Geier, Raben, Hunde und Wölfe vor, die Cominius‘ Körperteile, insbesondere seine Zunge (als Instrument des Schadens betrachtet), verschlingen.

If your white-haired old age, soiled by your impure ways, is ended by will of the people, Cominius, I’ve no doubt, for my part, your tongue, first, the enemy of good, will be cut out, and given to eager vultures, your eyes gouged out, swallowed by black-throated ravens, your intestines by dogs, the rest of your body by wolves.

Gedicht 109: Ein Gebet: an Lesbia

Kommentar: Ein hoffnungsvolles Gedicht, das Lesbias Erklärung aufzeichnet, dass ihre Liebe ewig sein wird. Catullus betet zu den Göttern, dass sie aufrichtig und wahrheitsgemäß ist und wünscht sich, dass ihre Freundschaft und Liebe ihr ganzes Leben lang Bestand haben. Es ist ein berührender Moment des Glaubens inmitten des oft turbulenten Zyklus.

You declare that this love of ours will be happy, mea vita, and eternal between us. Great gods, let it be that she promises truthfully, and says it sincerely, and from her heart, so we may extend, through the whole of our life, this endless bond of sacred friendship.

Gedicht 110: Kein Betrug: an Aufilena

Kommentar: Catullus wendet sich an Aufilena und diskutiert das erwartete Verhalten einer Geliebten oder Prostituierten. Er kontrastiert eine „gerechte“ Geliebte, die ihre Bezahlung annimmt, mit Aufilena, die offenbar Versprechen gebrochen hat und nur nimmt, was er für schlimmer als eine gewöhnliche Prostituierte hält.

Aufilena, just mistresses are always praised: they accept their reward, for what they agree to. You, who promised, dishonestly hostile, to me, who don’t give but just take, you do wrong. To carry it through would be fine, Aufilena, not to promise is chaste: but to snatch at what’s given in fraudulent service, is worse than the greediest whore who offers herself with her whole body.

Gedicht 111: Vorzuziehen: an Aufilena

Kommentar: Ein weiteres Gedicht, das sich an Aufilena richtet und ihr Verhalten mit dem einer Braut vergleicht. Er erklärt, dass der Ruhm einer Braut in der Treue zu einem Mann liegt, es aber für Aufilena vorzuziehen sei, mit vielen Männern zu schlafen, als Kinder mit ihrem Onkel zu haben („Mutter ihrer Cousins von ihrem Onkel“), was auf möglichen Inzest in ihrer Familie hindeutet.

To live content with one man, Aufilena, is the glory of highest glories for a bride: but its better to sleep with whoever she likes, than be mother of her cousins by her uncle.

Gedicht 112: An Naso

Kommentar: Ein sehr kurzes, prägnantes Epigramm, das Naso als „viel Mann“ in Bezug auf seine Größe bezeichnet, aber auch als „Pathiker“ (der männliche sexuelle Aufmerksamkeit erhält), was einen Kontrast oder vielleicht ein Wortspiel in Bezug auf seine Größe und sexuelle Rolle andeutet.

You’re a lot of man, Naso, but lots of men wouldn’t stoop to you: Naso, a lot of man and a pathic.

Gedicht 113: Fruchtbar: an Gaius Helvius Cinna

Kommentar: An Cinna gerichtet, beobachtet Catullus den grassierenden Ehebruch, an dem eine Frau namens Maecilia beteiligt ist. Er stellt fest, dass im ersten Konsulat des Pompeius nur zwei Männer mit ihr liiert waren, aber im zweiten Konsulat hat sich diese Zahl um tausend vervielfacht, was er sarkastisch als „den fruchtbaren Samen des Ehebruchs“ bezeichnet.

In Pompey’s first Consulate two men frequented Maecilia, Cinna: now he is Consul again those two remain, but each one’s increased by a thousand. The fruitful seed of adultery.

Gedicht 114: Fata Morgana: an Mentula

Kommentar: Catullus verspottet Mamurra („Mentula“) für seine riesigen Ländereien bei Firmum, die angeblich reich an Ressourcen sind. Catullus behauptet jedoch, dass Mamurras Ausgaben seine Einnahmen übersteigen, was seinen Reichtum zu einer Illusion macht. Er ist reich an Besitztümern, aber arm an Realität.

They say, no lie, that Mentula the Cock is rich with the pastures of Firmum, full of good things, fowling of every kind, fish, meadows, fields and game. In vain: his income’s surpassed by his costs. So, I concede he’s rich, while everything’s lacking. lets praise the pastures, so long as he’s in want.

Gedicht 115: Bedrohung: an Mentula

Kommentar: Ein weiterer Angriff auf Mamurras übertriebenen Reichtum und Ländereien. Catullus listet die verschiedenen Teile seines Anwesens auf, kommt aber zu dem Schluss, dass Mamurra selbst der „Größte von allen“ ist, nicht als Mann, sondern als „großer vorstehender Schwanz“, wobei er seinen Spitznamen für eine letzte derbe Beleidigung im Zusammenhang mit seiner angeblichen sexuellen Potenz oder seinem körperlichen Erscheinungsbild verwendet.

Mentula’s good for thirty acres of meadows, forty of fields: the rest of it’s marsh. Why shouldn’t he exceed Croesus in riches, one who possesses so many assets, in land, meadows, fields, vast woods and pastures and pools as far as the Hyperboreans, and Ocean’s seas? All this is great, but he’s the greatest of all, not a man, but, in truth, a great projecting Cock.

Gedicht 116: Das letzte Wort: an Gellius

Kommentar: Catullus wendet sich zum letzten Mal in der Sammlung an Gellius. Er erklärt, dass er in Erwägung gezogen hat, ihm Kallimachos‘ Gedichte zu schicken, in der Hoffnung, ihn zu besänftigen, aber nun erkennt, dass dies angesichts von Gellius‘ feindseliger Natur sinnlos war. Catullus schließt damit, dass er Gellius‘ Angriffen ausweichen wird, verspricht aber, dass Gellius in seinen eigenen Versen bestraft und negativ verewigt wird.

I’ve often been searching around, my busy mind hunting, as to how I could send you Callimachus’s poems, so they’d soften you towards me, so you’d not try to land your hostile shafts on my head, now I see I’ve troubled myself in vain, Gellius, my good intentions were worthless. I’ll evade the shafts of yours you fire at me, but you’ll be punished, fixed for ever by mine. Note: Fragments I-III are not translated and regarded as spurious.

Die bleibende Stimme des Catullus

Die Erkundung des Catullus durch Catulls Gedichte in Übersetzung ermöglicht es uns, eine Stimme aus der Antike zu verbinden, die überraschend modern wirkt. Seine Bereitschaft, sich mit der Komplexität menschlicher Beziehungen auseinanderzusetzen, von leidenschaftlicher Liebe und tiefer Trauer bis hin zu kleinlichen Rivalitäten und vernichtender Sozialkritik, unterscheidet ihn von vielen seiner Zeitgenossen.

Sein Einfluss auf spätere Dichter, sowohl römische als auch andere, ist unbestreitbar. Von den Elegikern wie Properz und Tibull bis zu Renaissance-Schriftstellern und modernen Lyrikern hat Catulls persönlicher, intensiver und oft transgressiver Stil unzählige Künstler inspiriert. Übersetzungen wie die hier vorgestellte sind unerlässlich, um diese kraftvolle Stimme am Leben und zugänglich zu halten und zu zeigen, dass sich Sprachen zwar ändern mögen, der Kern menschlicher Emotionen und Erfahrungen, so lebhaft von Catullus eingefangen, jedoch ewig bleibt.

Referenzen

Translations by A. S. Kline © Copyright 2001 All Rights Reserved, from Poetry in Translation (www.poetryintranslation.com).