Catullus’ most conspicuous engagement with the heritage of Callimachus is found in the closely linked pair of poems 65 and 66. The first poem takes the form of a dedicatory address to a friend identified as Q. Hortensius Hortalus, a famous orator and early rival of Cicero’s who was by the time of this poem’s writing largely retired from the public scene (W. J. Tatum 1997: 488-97), but was still recognized as a literary figure sympathetic to the poetics of the new generation (Courtney 1993: 230-2). The poem is Catullus’ response to Hortensius’ request (65.17-18), whether for the specific poem that follows or simply for a specimen of verse we cannot say. In reply, Catullus writes that even though he is overwhelmed by grief at his brother’s death, he is sending Hortensius ‘‘these translated verses of Battus’ son’’ (haec expressa tibi carmina Battiadae, 16). What follows in poem 66 was recognized as long ago as the fifteenth century by Angelo Poliziano as a Latin translation of a work by Callimachus; only in the twentieth century, however, did the recovery of substantial fragments of the original in papyri make possible some assessment of the relationship of Catullus’ version to the Greek original (Bing 1997). Callimachus’ poem, known familiarly as ‘‘The Lock of Berenice,’’ is the last narrative in the fourth book of the Aetia, although many scholars hold that it was originally produced as a separate poem and only later incorporated into the expanded Aetia (Pfeiffer 1953: xxxvii).
The subject of Callimachus’ poem makes for an unusual Latin work. The original was composed to celebrate Berenice, the young queen of Ptolemy III Euergetes, who succeeded to the throne of Egypt in 247 bc. Shortly after their marriage he departed for the wars in Syria and Berenice dedicated to the gods a lock of her hair for his safe return. When the lock disappeared the astronomer Conon identified it in a group of stars located between Leo, Virgo and the Bear. The catasterism (new constellation) thus forms the subject of an elegant piece of court poetry, which Catullus translates into correspondingly elegant Latin. The opening of the poem is devoted to the earthly events that form the background to the lock’s elevation; the second half provides a hair’s-eye view of its translation to the heavens, allowing the lock to express its own feelings about this state of affairs. It is in this part of Catullus’ poem that we are best able to compare his version with the Callimachean original, and critics differ on the effects Catullus has achieved.
A much discussed example occurs at a point where the lock laments that it will no longer be able to partake of Berenice’s exquisite hair ointments (Callim. fr. 110.75-6 Pf.):
‘‘I am not brought pleasure by my being a star so much as I am brought distress that I shall not any more touch Berenice’s head, from which I drank, when she was still a maiden, many ordinary oils and did not taste womanly perfumes.’’
In part because of the poor transmission of the text, Catullus’ rendition was scarcely interpretable before the discovery of the papyrus (66.75-8):
Non his tam laetor rebus quam me afore semper, afore me a dominae uertice discrucior, quicum ego, dum uirgo quondam fuit, omnibus expers unguentis, una uilia multa bibi.
‘‘I do not so much rejoice at these things as I grieve that I shall always be parted, always be parted from my mistress’ head, with which, while she was formerly a maiden, not enjoying perfumes, I drank many frugal scents.’’
In substituting dominae ‘‘mistress’’ for Callimachus’ neutral ‘‘that one’s’’ (ekeines), Catullus highlights the opposition between the experiences of the maiden and the adult woman. For some critics this is part of an overall strategy in this poem and the introductory epistle to Hortensius to inject more pathos into the experience of the lock, drawing on themes of separation and disillusionment found elsewhere in Catullus in depictions of his relationship with his brother (Clausen 1970). Others find in Catullus’ version a more faithful rendition of Callimachean burlesque in the disharmony between the lock’s passionate discourse and the humorous content (Hutchinson 1988: 322-4). The question assumes some importance because of two issues of direct relevance to Catullan intertextuality and its reception by later Roman poets.
The first arises with 10 lines in Catullus’ poem that were clearly not present in the papyrus fragment of Callimachus. In this passage Catullus instructs all wives to make an offering of ointments prior to marriage (79-88):
Nunc uos, optato quas iunxit lumine taeda, non prius unanimis corpora coniugibus tradite nudantes reiecta ueste papillas, quam iucunda mihi munera libet onyx, uester onyx, casto colitis quae iura cubili.
Sed quae se impuro dedit adulterio, illius a mala dona leuis bibat irrita puluis: namque ego ab indignis praemia nulla peto. sed magis, o nuptae, semper concordia uestras, semper amor sedes incolat assiduus.
Now you, whom with its longed-for light the marriage torch has joined, do not first hand over your bodies to your harmonious spouses, baring your breasts with opened robe, before the perfume jar offers me pleasant gifts, the jar that belongs to you who observe the laws in a chaste bed. But she who has given herself to impure adultery, ah, let the light dust drink up her wicked gifts and nullify them: for I seek no rewards from the unworthy. But rather, o brides, always may harmony, always may love dwell continually in your homes.
No trace of these lines is to be found in the papyrus that preserves this part of Callimachus’ Coma, and for a long time most scholars subscribed to the hypothesis that Catullus is following a different version of the Coma, which Callimachus integrated into the Aetia (Pfeiffer 1949: ad fr. 110.79-88). In recent years, however, most critics, but by no means all (e. g., Hollis 1992; Marinone 1997:41-9), have pursued a different explanation of these lines as an addition to the original by Catullus (Putnam 1960; Hutchinson 1988: 322-4). Some critics have interpreted this insertion as one way in which Catullus introduces his personal signature on this translation, by infusing the poem with images of separation and the intense feelings that accompany it (Clausen 1970: 90-4). Others make more restrained claims for this innovation, with the solemn language addressed to the brides marking a contrast with the fanciful situation that ‘‘makes the interplaywith the fantasy the more preposterous’’ (Hutchinson 1988: 323).
Our reading of this insertion has some bearing on the interpretation of another couplet, which presents a celebrated crux in Vergil’s reception of Catullus (and Callimachus). Earlier in the poem the lock proclaimed its reluctance to be separated from Berenice (39-40):
Inuita, o regina, tuo de uertice cessi, inuita: adiuro teque tuumque caput.
‘‘Unwillingly, O queen, I left your crown, unwillingly, I swear by you and by your head.’’
Only a part of the pentameter survives from Callimachus’ poem: ‘‘I swear by your head and by your life’’ (fr. 110.40 Pf.). We cannot tell whether the pathetic repetition of inuita represents something of the Callimachean original, although it is been persuasively argued that this kind of rhetorical intensification is more likely to be a Catullan innovation (Clausen 1970: 91-2). It may then follow that here Catullus may be read as interpreting his model by injecting a stronger emotional element that evokes the images of youthful separation, drawing on such familiar themes in, for example, the poetry of Sappho (Vox 2000). Some critics would counter that Catullus has simply reproduced and at best exaggerated the element of playfulness in the original Coma. The question then arises: how did Vergil read this passage? For in a context of presumed seriousness, Aeneas’ encounter with Dido in the Underworld, his hero quotes from Catullus, inuitus, regina, tuo de litore cessi (‘‘unwillingly, queen, I left your shore,’’ Aen. 6.460), substituting ‘‘shore’’ for ‘‘head’’ with only a slight further change to accommodate Aeneas’ masculine gender. Commentators on the two passages take a variety of positions on the significance of this obvious imitation. Some (e. g., Norden 1957: 254) merely note the echo without comment on its possible interpretative consequences; others (e. g., Fordyce 1961: 334) insist that Vergil’s attribution to Aeneas of a near-quotation of a talking lock of hair can only be unconscious; while others (e. g., Austin 1977: 164) recognize that the allusion is deliberate and see it as part of Vergil’s ability to elevate even the trivial to his grander purposes. More recently, some critics (e. g., Clausen 1970) have interpreted Catullus’ Coma on a higher plane, not inconsistent with the serious theme of Aeneas’ separation from Dido. It may just be possible that all of this is beside the point, and that in alluding to Catullus’ adaptation of Callimachus, Vergil refers to both the proximate (Catullus) and more remote (Callimachus) models. It may then be the case that Vergil’s reader, like Dido, may respond to Aeneas’ rhetorical strategy of quoting from Callimachus’ court poem by wondering if this is the best he can do.
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