Catullus 11 Translation

Introduction

In poem 11, Catullus references several allusions to places and people of the ancient world - contemporaries of the poet. As the poem begins, Catullus calls upon Furius and Aurelius. Furius could be a fellow poet, Marcus Furius Bibaculus, but Aurelius’s identity remains unknown. These men will accompany Catullus as he possibly travels to places like India, the Rhine, the Nile, or Arabia. 

Catullus and his friends do not go to any of these places. Instead, all he wants them to do is deliver a message to Lesbia, his mistress. This message is to let her live with her 300 paramours that “she holds at once in her embrace” while she is “rupturing every man’s thighs.” In other translations, thighs are replaced with groins. 

Catullus finishes the poem by comparing himself to a flower that has been dropped and killed by a plow. It seems as if his love has angered him by having sex with at least one other man. Catullus has filled his poem with hyperbole, as it is doubtful that Lesbia is with 300 men at one time. And, while he might feel like a flattened flower, he is far from being fragile, like a flower. In fact, through this poem, he strikes back at Lesbia with words that have lasted thousands of years. 

In other translations, the words used have more sexual connotations. In this translation and others, Catullus uses words like penetration, beaten, and tramp. These double entendres show Catullus’s rage. In typical Catullus stye, he writes with his dichotomous style by saying “And let her not look to find my love as before; my love which by her fault has dropped.” These lines seem practically gentle compared to the way he plans to penetrate the Indies or tramp across the Alps. 

If this poem is about the way that Lesbia cheats, Catullus could be creating a comparison of her conquests to those of the Roman army. As the Romans penetrated and beat hundreds of people from India to Britain, in a way, so did Lesbia. In Catullus’s eyes, hundreds of men have penetrated her. The Romans are a military machine and Lesbia is a sex machine. 

Catullus has been taken advantage of by Lesbia. Because of this, he can relate with the people who suffered defeat at the hands of the Romans. He might be a man who is a part of the monied class, but she treats him no better than a discarded flower that is broken by a plough. Catullus believes that Lesbia is no better than a whore in the poem, especially considering he thinks she has sex with 300 men at one time. 

While Catullus’s feelings about Lesbia are clear in this poem, his feelings about Furius and Aurelius are not. They may travel with him, but since Catullus uses his supposed travels as a metaphor for Lesbia’s sexual conquests, including Furius and Aurelius may not have positive connotations. If they are joining him, are they, too, being beaten and trampled upon? Friends are often asked to deliver messages, but these friends are not being asked to deliver a kind message. Catullus references these men in other poems and in all of them, they are ridiculed or sexually assaulted.

In the English translation, Catullus does refer to these men as friends, but the word friends does not appear in the Latin version. Instead, they are referred to as comites, which is different from the term sodales, which is what Catullus calls his actual friends. Catullus would not ask his actual friends to deliver the message to Lesbia; they wouldn’t deserve to hear her wrath. 

Carmen 11

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