what too much coffee and staring at your laptop the whole day will do to your brain
enlitment reblogged
Look at his posture! His body rotated towards her, his knee and elbow facing in her direction? Brainwashing in action! 😤
Just had my diploma delivered today. Would normally resist posting it but since it's in Latin, I thought I had to share it!
yes, my old university has all the diplomas issued in Latin. Idk why, but I personally think it's kind of cool
(also gonna start telling people I'm from >>Res Publica Bohemica<< from now on. Sounds way cooler than plain old Czechia.)
What do you think is in catullus' bag
Thank you for the ask! ^^
- Tablet and Stylus, for impromptu poetry sessions with friends
- A Portrait of Sappho
- Never enough sesterces :(
- A lock of Lesbia's hair probably (sorry, but you know he would)
- Some really fancy napkins (also good for wiping off eyelids or to offer to Juventius to wipe down his mouth. That sounds... yeah, I'll just clarify it's about kisses, okay?)
enlitment reblogged
what the fuck
saxo cere comminuit brum
what the actual fuck
the word for brain here is cerebrum, and it's been literally split in two
I've seen wordplay like this before in Latin, but with compound words that are clearly made up of separate parts
but "cere" is not a word and neither is "brum"
you could translate it something like
"he split his br apart ain with a rock"
and it's only slightly less unreadable than that due to freer word order
needless to say something I'd expect more from a modern experimental poem than an ancient epic
Latin linguistic shitposting is amazing. Like, I can't recall exactly, but there's a line of poetry that says basically "Claudius lives in the mountains mountains".
Except because Latin is inflected and word order is less important, it's actually written like "in the (mountains) Claudius (mountains) lived"
And it still means the same thing. Except why the duplicate of mountains? Because it turns out, Claudius didn't live in the mountains. He lived in a valley between two mountains.
They changed the word order of the sentence and duplicate a word, to do a word-order pun about where some random guy lived! It's great, and exactly the kind of thing you can't do in English, because we depend so much more on word order.
official linguistics post
@enlitment this may interest you ^ ^
Anxiously yet excitedly entering otium era!
(To be clear I do have side-jobs lined up. That should hopefully keep me away from the ruin Catullus warns about)
Narrator: You're probably wondering how on earth we got into this mess
*record scratch*
*rewind*
I swear that if I had to take a shot every time someone quotes Cicero in any given 18th century text I'd probably be dead at this point
Or at least drunk to the point of not being able to read any more quotes
All in all, a win-win!
Today on discovering how all my obsessions collide in increasingly fascinating ways: Angelica Kauffman, the female painter Jean-Paul Marat may or may not have had an affair with painted this picture of Catullus and Lesbia (and her dead sparrow!)
Kauffman was a Catullus fan confirmed -> I therefore conclude Marat would have read Catullus as well
follow for more extremely detailed and definitely not speculative historical facts!
asking you your top-5 anything: ok this might not come in list form, but what 5 things do you like the most about Catullus?
Hi, first of all thanks so much for the interesting ask and so sorry for taking forever to answer it!
(obligatory am not a classicist, just an enthusiast. I also sadly can't really speak Latin, so take anything I say here with a grain of salt)
1. The sheer variety of his poems
Are you looking for a poem describing a fun playful banter between friends? A tender love poem? A poem about stolen napkins? An epic poem inspired by Greek mythology that is so beautiful and haunting that it shakes you to your core?
Or perhaps a poem so obscene that it wasn't allowed to be published in most of the English anthologies until relatively recently?
No matter your taste or mood, Catullus has got you covered!
2. There's a feminine aspect to his poetry
The understanding of gender and sexuality in Ancient Rome is hands down one of my favourite subjects, and Catullus' poems give you a great insight into them if you read between the lines.
You could for instance read C 16 as an inherent testimony to the fragility of Roman masculinity (seeing it as an attempt to re-establish his masculinity after he's been criticised for writing 'unmanly' love poems).
But what I especially appreciate is his ability to take on the female perspective. There's the fact that he was a big fan of Sappho's poetry (as evidenced by him calling his partner 'Lesbia' and by his (beautiful!) reimagination of one of her most famous poems) or the fact that he was able to draw parallels between his and Ariadne's pain stemming from feeling betrayed by a former lover.
(I'm also kind of here for the interpretation of Lesbia's sparrow poem as an example of some kind of Pseudo-Freudian clit-neid...)
3. His brutal honesty/ him just wearing his heart on his sleeve in his writing
It just seems he had no filter whatsoever, so reading his poems is this incredibly raw, often times bizarre experience.
But to me, it demonstrates that even though our society has obviously changed quite a lot over the 2000 years that separate us from him, a lot of things that remained the same - the petty jealousies, ambivalent feelings after a breakup, but also the pure joy one feels after spending time with their friends and loved ones
4. His use of language and imagery
More evidence in my previous post. It just sounds so beautiful at times? Plus it often alludes to Greek/Roman mythology in really interesting ways. I'm sure reading the original would make it sound even better, but I'm personally a sucker for the Czech translation as well.
5. He was ahead of his time! (You could say he was a romantic poet almost 2000 years before it was cool...)
Again, by no means an expert of this, but I think you could definitely say he paved the way for some of the latter great Latin poets, like Ovid,
Some aspects of his poems to Lesbia also remind me of the courtly love poetry from the middle ages: the poet's desperate pining after a lady of a higher class - which Clodia, as a patrician woman married to a consul, undoubtedly was. There's of course the important difference that she has been... previously attained, to speak in the annoyingly gendered language of medieval poetry - but alas, no more Catullus!
But to me, he was most of all a forerunner to the romantic poets like Byron or Shelley! The talent, the scandals, the rejection of societal norms (like the fact that he didn't really seem to be too interested in a career in politics or the military which were essentially the two things a respectable Roman man was supposed to take interest in), as well as the homoeroticism of it all (in his case indisputable, re: his poems to Iuventius)...
Hope that covers it! Thanks again for the ask and giving me a chance to rant!
A medieval manuscript of Plutarch's Parallel Lives from Biblioteca Capitolare, Verona
Thought some of my mutuals would appreciate it as much as I did. Look at the flowers aaa (worth the 7 € entrance fee just for that, honestly)
In honour of the start of The Aeneid subscription – here's a painting of Aeneas and Dido from Louvre!
Notice the slay fit with the ultra short toga
Top 5 lines written by Catullus!
Thank you for the ask (and for indulging me!). I may stretch the definition of what can realistically be considered 'a line' a bit, but it's for the sake of context, I promise!
- C 31: Sirmio
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 is just incredibly relatable for anyone coming back home from any long trip! It is just as true now as it was more than 2000 years ago.
2: C 99: Stolen Kisses: to Iuventius
you have handed wretched me over to spiteful Love/nor have you ceased to torture me in every way/so that for me that kiss is now changed from ambrosia/to be harsher than harsh hellebore
I've included this line mostly because I love the contrast between ambrosia and hellebore. I also think that there is something powerful and effective about taste metaphors, yet I don't see them used very often. Here, it manages to beautifully illustrate poor Catullus' feelings in this particular situation! (Though obviously, you shouldn't go on kissing people out of the blue. That's kind of on him.)
Poor Catullus, getting rejected by both women and men, left and right
3. Attis
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.
Nothing like the pain of the morning after, am I right?
In all seriousness, all of Attis is amazing. The language (even the translations, I sadly cannot appreciate the original), the imagery, the links to mythology, it's all so beautiful. It's also such a rich area for analysis - I've thought about it a lot, but I'm sure if barely scracthed the surface at this point.
I personally see it as an expression of the fear of emasculation that comes with being deeply obsessed with a female lover (as he was with Lesbia)? I cannot claim any expertise beside having read all of his work and knowing some of the context of his life + the Roman views on masculinity. I've also read a few opinions of people arguing for a possible trans reading, which is incredibly interesting as well.
4. C 9: Back from Spain: To Veranius
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
I don't know, just something about him expressing such genuine joy about being reunited with his friend seems incredibly sweet. (Also introduces the idea of kissing someone on the eyes which. Um. Seems to be an ongoing thing for Catullus. Sure, you do you.)
5. C 64: Epithalamium for Peleus and Thetis
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
Again, I just love the whole poem. It is probably my favourite Catullus poem (along with C 50, but they have very different vibes). I find it fascinating that a male poet can empathise so much with the female perspective (which is a bit of an ongoing theme in his poetry). I cannot help but think that he must have personally related to Ariadne's pain, being rejected by his former lover - Lesbia - like she was by Theseus. It would certainly help to explain how he was able to portray her state of mind with such incredible depth and complexity.
I also adore the beauty of the language and the many references to Greek mythology of course.
Got a rare Catullus statue for my collection from Verona's municipal library! 🤩
(with laurel wreath!!)
Big shout-out to the nice librarian lady who let me take a picture even though the exhibition wasn't technically open. I must have looked really pathetic/heartbroken. But I've got it!!
+ extra proof that it's him (couldn't take a picture of both the statue and the plaque because there was a table in front of him 😔)
Wild Catullus' Carmina 31 spotted in Sirmione ❤️
Lesbia, presumably?
Statue of Gaius Valerius Catullus, Sirmione, Italy
aka I may or may not have just spent a night on a flixbus to see my favourite genius endearing only slightly pathetic Sappho-stanning late Roman Republic poet