Catullus - The Poems

Translated with an Introduction by PENGUIN BOOKS PENGUIN BOOKS Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL , England
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Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL , England www.penguin.com First published 1966
Published in Penguin Books 1966
Reissued under the present title 2004
1 This translation and introduction copyright Peter Whigham, 1966
All rights reserved Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser 978-0-14-193749-6 TO THE MEMORY OF

S OME of the poems originally appeared in Artisan, The National Review, Agenda and Arion , to whose editors I am indebted for permission to reprint them. 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 110017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL , England www.penguin.com First published 1966
Published in Penguin Books 1966
Reissued under the present title 2004
1 This translation and introduction copyright Peter Whigham, 1966
All rights reserved Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser 978-0-14-193749-6 TO THE MEMORY OF

S OME of the poems originally appeared in Artisan, The National Review, Agenda and Arion , to whose editors I am indebted for permission to reprint them.

Some also appeared in Clear Lake Comes from Enjoyment , Neville Spearman, 1959. Poem 61 was first printed in The Marriage Rite , The Ditchling Press, 1960. Both these books were written in collaboration with Denis Goacher. In the specialised field of Catullan studies my debts are too widespread and diverse to be easily enumerated here. I can only hope that the book itself may in some sort prove a recompense for what I have pillaged from those more learned than myself. Unfortunately, C.J.

Fordyces Catullus (1961) did not appear until my work was more than half completed, but I have made what use of it I could. Burton and Smithers curious but stimulating volume has been with me from the time when I began to make my first versions. Munros Criticisms and Elucidations of Catullus (1878) and Robinson Elliss Oxford Text, together with his Commentary on Catullus (2nd edn., 1889), have been my principal guides textually and exegetically. I have also used the texts of S. G. P. P.

Postgate (1889). Muellers text (1885) is of course incorporated in the Burton and Smithers volume. Salvatore Quasimodos selected translation and Carlo Saggios complete one have been an invaluable stimulus. I have also been helped by Ferreros two studies (both Turin, 1955) and, perhaps most of all, by Noels two-volume work: Catulle (An. XI 1803), a fund of Renaissance and post-Renaissance lore on the subject of Catullus. 1893) in particular, I have derived valuable, if somewhat idiosyncratic, insights. 1893) in particular, I have derived valuable, if somewhat idiosyncratic, insights.

Finally, there has been my old edition (1797) of Lemprire, and Carnevales Roma Nel III Secolo (1896). A year or so before his death, William Carlos Williams had some of these poems read to him. He handed them around among his friends. Not only his example as a poet but this practical encouragement of his as a master was a great help to me at a time when the book might well have been left in an incomplete state: hoc tibi, quod potui, confectum carmine munus/ pro multis, Alli, redditur officiis . Wine stains the verse;
the curse of time obliterates the arrogant line. Then, in Verona, Campesani knows
the Roman hand:
One woman could command
this song.

He sang
and fourteen hundred years
later, it reappears
in the barrels bung
(the hand that Campesani knows)
codex from wine-bung springing,
as from the dung
the rose.