Though critics were slow to appreciate their beauty and poetic power, poems 61 and 62 always held a special place in the Catullan corpus. They are the first in a group of longer poems that occupy the central place in the collection as we have it, and both are customarily referred to as wedding hymns, although neither is a hymn in the technical sense of the term. Both poems celebrate marriage and its blessings for the couple, their families, and society in general. They also provide important information on aspects of Roman wedding ritual and illuminate the way gender roles were defined and understood within the framework of marriage, what part male and female sexuality played in the marital relationship, and the value placed on marriage from a personal, familial, social, and even political viewpoint. Lastly, these poems constitute a counterpoint to the disillusioned image of love expressed in the remainder of the corpus, the result of the poet’s failed relationship with Lesbia. The wedding poems, concentrating on the festive, positive aspects of marriage, offer renewed faith in the institution and its ability to provide personal fulfillment and promote social stability.
Scholars have long debated the Greek or Roman pedigree of these poems, whether they were composed for an actual occasion, and how closely they represent Roman wedding ceremonies. Poem 61 in particular purports to commemorate the wedding of a member of the Torquati, a prominent family in Republican Rome, to an otherwise unknown lunia (or Vinia).1 For that reason primarily, the poem is thought to reflect Roman customs and beliefs. Poem 62 is a singing contest between choruses of maidens and youths. The antiphonal character of the poem led many to argue that it was performed after the nuptial dinner, and that it replicates Greek rather than Roman customs. Today scholarly consensus accepts that the poems were not performed at any particular wedding: even if we posit that 61 commemorates a real event and a real couple, the occasion rather serves as an opportunity for a more general celebration of marital love. Both poems omit important parts of the wedding
Ceremony, and the ritual acts that they represent do not fall within any distinct phase of Roman (or Greek) wedding ritual.
Yet the ritual context and content of the poems constitute an important lens through which we can gain a better understanding of their structure, themes, and problems. Ritual descriptions involve practices and customs recognized by all Romans, and thus furnish the poet with a shared ‘‘vocabulary’’ which is available for further manipulation and interpretation. Both poems are structured around specific moments of Roman wedding ritual: 61 begins as a hymn to Hymenaeus, the god of marriage; it continues as part of the deductio procession comprising the fescennina iocatio, and ends as an epithalamium, the song sung before the marital chamber. Although the specific ritual context of 62 is still the object of debate among scholars,2 its format as a singing contest of choruses of young girls and boys, a custom consistent with (some) Greek weddings (Thomsen 1992: 166, 174), and allusions to the Roman archaic ritual practice of raptio provide a firm link with the wedding ceremony.
Before I go on to discuss how the ritual context of the poems informs their content, a few words on the ritual wedding practices they represent are in order. The deductio procession was one of the most prominent features of the ceremony, so that the term uxorem ducere came to mean ‘‘to marry.’’ In the deductio, the couple’s relatives and wedding guests take the bride to her new home, which is usually the husband’s house. The procession was conducted by torchlight, and these torches ( taedae) stand as a symbol for the wedding as a whole (Treggiari 1991: 166). There was musical accompaniment and the guests cried hymen hymenaee. The bridegroom does not take part in this event, as he has already gone to his house to welcome the bride. During the deductio, the fescennina iocatio took place. Although the precise origin of the name and the practice remain obscure (Fedeli 1983a: 86), it is certain that a group of young men sang obscene jokes at the expense of the groom. It seems that the groom himself was involved in the singing of the fescennine verses and that he threw nuts to the crowd (Treggiari 1991: 166). The ritual custom of raptio, no longer practiced at the time of Catullus, occurred at the beginning of the deductio. According to our sources (Fest. 364 Lindsay DVS; Macrob. Sat. 1.15.21), the members of the deductio pretend that they snatch the girl from her mother’s arms. The rite is also thought to commemorate the first Roman marriage, the rape of the Sabine women (Fedeli 1983a: 53).
Close attention to the ritual context surrounding both poems, and of the raptio in particular, can shed light on the most troubling features of each: in the case of 61, the great emphasis placed on the violence of the sexual act; in that of 62, the maidens’ negation of marriage. In the opening lines of 61 the marriage god Hymenaeus is said to promote the violent separation of mother and daughter (qui rapis teneram ad uirum/uirginem, ‘‘you who carry off the tender virgin to her husband,’’ 3-4). Similarly, in 62, Hesperus, a figure equivalent to Hymenaeus (Thomsen 1992: 178-86), is described as having carried off the bride (Hesperus e nobis, aequales, abstulit unam, ‘‘Hesperus, friends, has taken one of us,’’ 32). The fact that these themes would figure so prominently in poems celebrating marriage has caused great debate among scholars. If we look at the problem from an anthropological perspective, however, we can arrive at an explanation. The act of marriage entails a great change in the life of a Roman woman, who, at a very young age (Treggiari 1991: 400), is about to leave her natal family in order to live with her husband in her new, marital household. The prospect of permanent separation from the natal family is bound to generate feelings of great anxiety on the part of the bride. This anxiety is further compounded by concern over the sexual act and the act of defloration in particular. The bride’s family, in turn, also experiences a loss, both emotional and physical, as one of their members is about to be permanently separated from the group. In ritual, these anxieties are often expressed with rites of capture or rape, as the Roman practice of raptio attests. Eventually, these feelings of anxiety will give way to joy over the positive aspects of the new life awaiting the bride and groom.
Ritual thus both celebrates social institutions and the roles that the individual is called to play therein and gives voice to anxieties surrounding these very institutions and roles. As a result, Catullus, by making ritual such an integral part of his poems, incorporates the doubts and anxieties at work during this important phase of transition in a young person’s life. At the same time, however, ritual also helps assuage anxieties and celebrates the benefits of marriage for the individual and society at large, and therefore constitutes an excellent background against which the poet may explore the contours of these themes. Viewed in this light, the poems’ inherent problems and contradictions can be readily related to the greater Catullan poetic corpus, where love’s many forms and shapes are treated in as many different and often conflicting ways.
Although the poems overlap greatly in content and context, the following analysis will deal with them separately, focusing on what I believe are each poem’s most prominent themes. Poem 61 centers on the theme of appropriate sexual activity within the framework of marriage and defines the roles of husband and wife accordingly. Poem 62, on the other hand, by dramatizing the bride’s resistance to marriage, places emphasis on the competing nature of gender roles and the need for the individual to comply with society’s demands. The chapter concludes with an examination of the ways in which both poems eventually assert the positive and beneficial aspects of marriage for the Roman family, society, and state.
World History
