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The Elegiac Metre of Catullus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2015

J. Duhigg
J. Duhigg*
Affiliation:
University of Sydney
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Extract

The metrical technique of Catullus in his elegiac verse has not yet received the detailed examination that has been given to the usage of Tibullus, Propertius and Ovid by Platnauer in his Latin Elegiac Verse (Cambridge, 1951). Robinson Ellis in the Prolegomena to his Commentary on Catullus (Oxford, 1876) introduced this part of his subject in these words: ‘If we examine the metrical peculiarities of these elegies, we shall find their defects to lie mainly in the too exclusive imitation of Greek models.’ He then goes on to speak of the Greek practice of allowing the thought to run on uninterruptedly without necessarily a pause at the end of the couplet, and of the Greek freedom in admitting words of any length in the last place in the pentameter: ‘in these respects the Catullian elegy is completely Greek.’ In the Introduction to the Select Elegies of Propertius (Macmillan, 1884) by J.P. Postgate there is a brief reference to what is described as the ‘carelessness’ of Catullus about the ending of the pentameter, and a further censure is implied in the mention of ‘his extraordinary number of elisions’; in short, Postgate describes the elegiac of Catullus as ‘still semi-barbarous’. Clearly, we have a problem here, since it is hard to reconcile the two descriptions of verse which in some respects is ‘completely Greek’ and in others ‘semi-barbarous’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 5 , 1971 , pp. 57 - 67
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 1971

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References

1 The theoretical number of elisions and aphaereses is given by I x F(N — V)/N2, where I = the number of initial vowels, F = elidable finals, N = the number of words, and V = the number of verses. Cf. Soubiran, pp. 562 ff. I have simplified his method of stating the formula.

2 Ross has drawn attention to the unequal distribution of elisions in the four elegies: Style and Tradition in Catullus, p. 121; the evidence of elision is used to support the assumption that originally at least Poem 68 represents two separate poems. The figures I give present the picture, I think, a little more exactly, and I find the use of percentages cLarer.

3 The full list is: 66.7, 71; 68.135; 69.1; 72.5; 74.3; 76.17; 77.4, 5; 83.3.; 85.1; 95.7; 97.6; 99.4. 8, 12; 102.4; I07.2, 5; 108.I.

4 The full list is: 66.51, 68; 67.35; 68.40, 50, 61, 119; 70.4; 73.4; 76.11, 25; 77.2, 4; 78.4; 81.1; 83.5; 84.7, 10; 85.2; 87.4; 90.2; 91.2 (three examples); 1O1.2; 102.1; 103.4; 107.5; 110.7; 116.1.

5 68.147; 69.9; 72.5; 85.1; 89.4; 107.3

6 666.32; 68.159.

7 Platnauer, Latin Elegiac Verse, p. 89.

8 68.85 tempore, 107 uertice; 76.13 deponere; 77.1 credite; 87.1 dicere; 99.11 tradere; 68.33 copia; 113.3 milia.

9 67.44; 68.10, 56, 82, 90.

10 71.6; 73.6; 75.4; 77.4; 88.6; 90.4; 91.10; 95.2; 97.2; 99.8, 12; 101.4; 104.4.

11 Ross, Style and Tradition in Catullus, p. 125.

12 Ross, p. 128: ‘Thus far the emphasis has been on the epigrams proper and on types of elision which can most easily be assumed to have been a part of the pre-neoteric tradition of epigram.’

13 Ross, p. 131, n.42, makes this observation, but does not include 87.4; he comments: ‘There is no clearer indication of the different stylistic natures of these two groups of poems.’

14 On puta as an iambus here, see Goold, G.P.Phoenix 23 (1969), 187,CrossRefGoogle Scholar n.3.